The Non-Dual Practice of TCC

Our T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) teacher, Justin Stone, was a practitioner of non-duality, which was represented by the 2024 TCC Teachers’ Conference theme, “There’s Only One Thing Going On.” But what does that mean? At the end of meditation practice with Justin, we always chanted the Heart Sutra, the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. One of the stanzas, translated, says:

All things are by nature void

They are not born or destroyed

Nor are they stained or pure

Nor do they wax or wane.

The Heart Sutra is a description of Reality, what Justin often called the Absolute, which means Reality Consciousness contains no separatist consciousness, no ego. Truly, There Is Only One Thing Going On. This profound non-dual Consciousness is reflected in the circles found within each TCC movement, including Push Pull. We teach the Push Pull hand movements as an elliptical circle; there is no “I” in Push Pull; there is no “push out what I don’t want, and pull-in what I want”. We don’t teach any of the other movements in TCC with this ego-centric focus. Why would we teach Push Pull that way?