The Ever-Present Moment

HYPERLINK “https://taichichih.org/teacher/daniel-pienciak” taichichih.org/teacher/daniel-pienciak

We’re probably all familiar with the adage, “It is not the destination, but the journey.” I remember the question, “Daddy, are we there yet?” on summertime Sunday car rides as a small kid headed to the New Jersey shore boardwalk.

While I can cite a few T’ai Chi Chih movements as my personal favorites, I’ve not recently focused on movements that way, but rather on the experience of being in the process of shifting the weight (or that of experiencing the transitions) that I most appreciate and enjoy. This ever-increasing awareness has become my favorite part of TCC and Seijaku.

The mind tends to focus on beginnings and endings (of weight shifts for instance, when the weight has fully arrived on the right or left leg). But what happens in between? Do we feel the weight travel through the soles of the feet during the middle of the weight shift?

We do well to turn our attention to the moments while one leg is bending and the other is straightening, or the time when one shift has completed but before the next one begins.

Even in grounding (stillness) after each set of movement completes, it’s good to empty the mind of what has come before and not anticipate what it is to come. This awareness invites us into the now.

The now is all that there ever is. Perhaps that is why it has been called “the precious present.” Such a gift. TCC is this gift.

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