Spiritual Odyssey: A Book Review

Kathy Grassel, Albuquerque, NM

Like iron filings to a magnet, it is no surprise that Justin Stone’s essays should come together in a book. This collection is called Spiritual Odyssey and comprises Justin’s writings from 1985 to 1997, the settled years in New Mexico after a lifetime of work and travel, artistic and spiritual pursuit.

These are works previously published in The Vital Force and the New Mexico T’ai Chi Chih News, taken from among Justin’s many talks, or even retrieved as snippets from the backs of envelopes or paper napkins. The writings are not in chronological order for those who might be tempted to look for any kind of traceable linear spiritual evolution in the author. That you might know Justin as a band leader, artist, Wall Street trader, jazz pianist, tennis player, author will not help you here. This compilation transcends all of these labels and tells us ultimately that it is the realm of the spiritual that is Justin’s legacy, that the purpose of life is spiritual development and that its unfolding will not be linear, logical or orderly.

For those who know Justin as the originator of T’ai Chi Chih, the book contains many essays about its practice and purity. These are 19 movements and a pose that Justin conceived and perfected, that people since 1974 have been practicing with results ranging from relief of migraine headaches to overall greater clarity and peace, to better performance in sports and music, to better balance and stronger bones to remission of tumors. Still, we know from Justin and from our practice that T’ai Chi Chih is above all a spiritual discipline, circulating and balancing the chi within us, connecting us with cosmic rhythm. “Like Zen, T’ai Chi Chih points out the way to serenity and fulfillment while living in the midst of busy worldly conditions.”

Justin’s writings contain no trace of the trendiness now so prevalent in this New Age of the pseudo-spiritual in which seekers pick and choose–as from the shelves of supermarkets—channelers, crystal healers, faux-shamans and razzle-dazzle blissful riders of the Cosmic Wave, all promising enlightenment in a weekend workshop. Readers will be keenly aware, whether they devour the book whole or savor it in morsels, that the items in this compendium are as solid as they are inspired, quiet, almost austere in their simplicity and clarity. While never repetitious, certain themes run through the essays: the importance of practice over theory, the necessity of practice to achieve results, the triumvirate of greed, anger and delusion as the obstacles to spiritual progress, the sincere heart as tantamount to technical or intellectual prowess; acceptance of impermanence, the growth of certainty that comes with spiritual practice, and what has been most enlightening and meaningful for me, Vairagya, or non-attachment. “The Chinese say, ‘Make peace with heaven and not with men,'” Justin writes. “This requires an understanding that there is more than what we see, and that all things and beings are interrelated…. Most people are really interested only in the welfare of themselves and their families, the opposite of compassion — not realizing that the welfare of all others is closely integrated with your own welfare. To realize this is the beginning of spirituality. Until all have some idea of this interrelatedness, there will be wars, suffering, and injustice.”

Each essay, poem, and snippet is soft-spoken, spare and consummate, born of the truth of experience and a lifetime of testing, study, observation; a lifetime of being the student absorbing the greater knowledge and experience of his teachers until he himself is the teacher.

It’s so simple–performing 19 movements and a pose, attention in the soles of the feet; meditation watching the breath, catching the space between thoughts. One might think it’s too simple, that there must be more to it than that. Well, yes, there is, but as the great Heart Sutra condenses into 264 words the immense Great Prajna Paramita Sutra with its 600 sections, Justin distills the pantheon of spiritual possibilities into these two disciplines. Justin’s essays supply the underpinning to these two seemingly simple practices.

So then, ultimately, how should we act? “To live in a straightforward manner, to speak in a truthful manner (not as easy as it sounds), is enough,” Justin writes. “The Prajna, the inherent wisdom that is in all of us, will take care of the rest.”