It is true that in meditation and in T’ai Chi practice we are building habits, and they are constructive ones. The Vasanas, the habit energies, contribute to our lives. When these habit energies, may they be constructive or destructive become overly strong they develop into lasting tendencies that may endure through many lifetimes.
These tendencies are called Samskaras. It is the reason why many of us do things we really don’t want to do. Actions we don’t understand, such as the habitual drinking of the drunkard, which he seems powerless to oppose.
Only by ‘burning the seeds of Karma’ that is erasing the beginnings of these Vasanas, the habit energies, can we change, and that is truly Yoga. Without going back and erasing the causes we are powerless.
Now, when we do deep meditation, these grooves are smoothed out and the strength of the Vasanas is clinging, gradually lessening. To do this erasure through deep meditation is difficult.
To do it through T’ai Chi practice is easy. As the Chi, the vital force, begins to flow more freely and the blockage disappears, our whole make-up changes. We are not thinking as we practice just keeping our concentration in the soles of the feet. So, we have all the advantages of meditation plus those of exercise and spiritual cultivation.
Just as the flow of the Chi can help us lose unwanted pounds, so can this flow erase unwanted habits. Many smokers seem to give up cigarettes naturally without effort once the Chi begins flowing. Others find their characteristic moves become more joyous. Remember what we think and feel influences the Chi, but the Chi also influences what we think and feel. We are no longer solely creatures of habit as the free-flowing Chi seems to break our bounds. T’ai Chi Chih appears to be the easiest and perhaps the best way to erase the seeds of Karma. Isn’t this the direction in which freedom lies?
This young lady over here wants to know what we mean when we say, “The emotions condition the Chi”? “Aren’t they the normal motions?” she asks.
The great Chinese Zen Master Yuan Man answers this question for us. He says, “The universe is so expansive, why does the sound of a bell range over only seven notes?” He was saying that basically there are only seven emotions by which we are swayed; pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy, love, hate, and desire. We might want to add hope, which can sometimes be very devastating when it keeps us from living in the present.
As Alice in Wonderland remarked, “Always jam tomorrow, never jam today.” Doesn’t this sound familiar? Hope is close to desire of course, and this is a desire world. That most important characteristic greed, the maker of war and tyranny is also closely aligned to desire.
If I can add one personal observation, it is not the emotions that make us unhappy but the resentment and clinging that they tend to breed.
Here’s a comment by this lady. She says,” You never mention good or bad in your talks but usually refer to positive and negative. Why?”
Well, good and bad are moral judgments, and what is good in one culture may be bad in another. When I am staying in India or a Chinese city I have to be like the bamboo and flow with ideas that seem basically wrong to me. Living with an Indian family in India I was dismayed to find that my kind hostess, the mother of my young friend Kashek and his brothers lived in a room behind the kitchen in the servant’s quarters. Child labor at a Chinese YMCA caused me to grit my teeth. Watching a camel driver at a camel auction in East Africa beating a poor hobbled camel because he could not get to his feet, left me frustrated and unhappy.
And let me relate an amusing incident that took place in Kyoto, Japan. I was seated in a streetcar that became very crowded. A bent old lady accompanied by a man about thirty years her junior boarded the streetcar. Seeing her stooped and frail I got up from my seat, bowed, and pointed to it so she could sit down. She then bowed to the young man, whom I guessed to be her son-in-law, and he promptly sat down, while she remained standing. I felt like throwing him off the streetcar. Good and bad are abstract concepts and can have entirely different meanings in different cultures and places.
This young man wants to know if I still teach T’ai Chi Ch’uan.
The answer is I still do it and esteem it very much. But I do not teach it anymore, T’ai Chi Chih has taken its place. It is not easy to teach T’ai Chi Ch’uan, nor for that matter any worthwhile discipline, T’ai Chi Chih is a welcome exception. People do not really want to go through the learning process. And they don’t want to do the practice that is necessary to accomplish almost anything worthwhile.
We know the Sufis are wise people. And one Sufi Master pointed out that you have to learn how to teach for man does not want to be taught. And before that, you have to teach the man that there is something to be learned. At first, people want to learn only what they imagine is to be learned, a pre-concept. And usually, they want a carrot held in front of their noses. That is a picture of the rewards they will receive if they do study.
One time an aspiring student came to a Sufi Master and implored, “Teach me.” The Master answered, “You do not know how to learn.” To that the student replied, “Teach me how to learn.” The Master then asked, “Are you ready to let me teach you how to learn?”
The beauty of T’ai Chi Chih is that the practice itself does the teaching. T’ai Chi Chih teaches you T’ai Chi Chih.
This gentleman wonders if there is more to the science of the Chi than I have revealed.
The truth is this is an infinite science, having to do with creation and destruction, and everything in between. How can it all be revealed in words? But if you practice you will come to know it’s all within you.
It is true that there are esoteric practices I can speak about, but I am not here to give you a biographical travelogue. One time in Taipei I met a very old man who was reputed to be the last expert in the little-known T’ai Chi Gik. He was 89 years old and his skin was that of a baby. I was told that T’ai Chi Gik had once been outlawed in China because too many had been injured by it or died from it. I don’t know if this is true because this is all secondhand.
A Master of Chi knows where the Chi is flowing most actively, relative to the time of the day and the season of the year. And he can easily affect that part of the body. It is said that with a touch a Master can stop the flow of Chi and the victim is then helpless to do much of anything. If he struggles too hard, he can injure himself and might even die.
Only the one who has inflicted the damage can clear it away and heal the victim. And that is also an axiom in the martial arts.
Going back to the time of day, season of the year, et cetera, it seems a shame that Western doctors pay no attention to these pertinent matters. Though your wise old Grandmother certainly did, when she gave you a Spring tonic and other helpful and timely aids.
My friend over here wants to know if T’ai Chi Chih is a martial art.
The answer is emphatically no! In the sense that we do not use it for self-defense or any violent activity.
In a deeper sense, however, the aura of Chi you build around you is the greatest self-defense, a psychic self-defense that can become apparent in your life once the Chi is flowing smoothly.
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