TCC as a Conduit for Doing Good to Self & Others

I have been incredibly blessed by the spiritual practices that have come into my life, especially T’ai Chi Chih and Seijaku nearly 40 years ago. I was particularly attracted by the idea of TCC as a service to mankind, and I practice and teach it with this intention.

But my professional and personal lives have included encounters with people who perceive that my intentions and actions are not beneficial to them. As a result, they can actually intend to do me harm!

For more than two decades, I have cleared the boundaries on both sides of my property of invasive species. When a new couple moved in and objected, I let the boundary run wild until Himalayan raspberries and other destructive invasives had encroached far onto my property.

I finally spent many hours removing the raspberries, only to be taken to court twice. The judge found in my favor both times, but during the process, they came onto my property several times, shouted at the woman and child who lived upstairs, interrupted my TCC class, posted accusatory signs throughout the neighborhood, and got our neighbor arrested.

When the woman came onto my property and interrupted our TCC class, we continued our practice and she eventually stopped shouting and left. But the awareness of the intention to do harm to me lingered, in spite of efforts to manifest compassion and loving kindness specifically directed toward my neighbor.

In September 2021, I got a strong “action” feeling in my TCC practice. I felt that I was receiving and manifesting beneficence, that is, actually doing good for others by receiving only good for myself.

Some of my students who have been dealing with self-sabotage or self-destructive impulses have really resonated to the reality that they have the wisdom, clarity, and strength to manifest beneficence in their practice and hence in their everyday life.

I now try to hold that intention in all that I do. When I become even slightly aware of negative intentions, I immediately focus on receiving and manifesting only beneficence.

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