TCC & The New Year

The passing of holidays and coming of a new year evoke varying reactions and moods. We can be excited about a fresh new year or fearful of the future. We can feel relief that “I made it through another holiday.” Or we might feel a lowness of mood, as if special joy has come and gone, leaving a kind of emptiness.

The title of one of Justin Stone’s books puzzled me for several years. Why (so I asked myself) would anyone want to read a book called, Abandon Hope? Indeed, Justin often orally quoted from Lewis Carroll: “Always jam tomorrow, never jam today.”

There are no doubt many worthy resolutions one can make for a New Year. Practicing T’ai Chi Chih or Seijaku more regularly, or planning to attend an Intensive or teacher conference or TCC retreat surely would be good resolutions.

One of the most helpful teachings that I have absorbed through TCC practice is the profoundness of the ever-present now moment. We can spend years wanting to do something better, improving our lives in some way and so on. But what about today?

The coming of the New Year can inspire us to be or do something better, and that’s a great goal. But the “hope” of the coming of that day can distract us from the state of be-ing and instead keep us immersed in do-ing. The mind and energy can always be focused on something yet-to-be or yet-to-do.

I am still discovering the value, when in the stillness between sets of TCC movements, of no thought of the movement that just was, or of the movement coming next. I invite myself and my students to just breathe and be in the soles of the feet now.

The letdown feeling of a past holiday or of an exciting event that is now over invites us into the state of emptiness. For in nothingness there is all that is. This is where beauty and inspiration and truth lie, often seemingly dormant because we are all filled up with looking to the future.

The invitation into emptiness in our practice invites us to let go of ego (i.e. my way is the right way to do this movement), while the void leaves space for learning something new, or for feeling an increased softness or even stronger circulation of Chi. Emptiness is a worthy goal for sure.