Resting and Clearning

"Who can make muddy water clear? Let it be still, and it will gradually become clear.  Who can secure the condition of rest? Let movement go on, and the condition of rest will gradually arise."  (Tao Te Ching)

One of my goals for 2010 is to deepen my understanding of the philosophy behind Tai Chi.  This is to help me become a better teacher of Tai Chi Chuan, of course, but it is also to help with my own personal development.  This morning, my wife and I threw the oracle coins to do an I Ching reading.  For more on what the I Ching is, click here to read the Wikipedia entry.  Basically, it is one of the oldest texts that forms the basis of Taoist philosophy, in which Tai Chi Chuan has its roots.  My coins resulted in the hexagram 29, "mastering pitfalls," with a moving line in the second position that results in an 8, "accord."  I was surprised because their meanings seemed to mesh with my goal of personal development.

For many years, I have struggled with managing anger effectively.  You name it, I've tried it: meditation, medication, yoga, swimming, deep breathing, and a host of other activities to try to reduce stress and make me a nicer person.  I can, but won't, recount how I learned to express anger unhealthily.  Suffice it to say that knowing the root cause didn't solve the problem, it only exacerbated it.  Feeling victimized, powerless and resentful gave me the legitimacy to "dump" my anger on other people.

When writing down my goals for 2010, however, I saw how my anger was poisoning my relationships.  And for the first time in my life, I had clarity around my anger.  Perhaps it came from a line in one of the goal setting books I was reading.  It basically said, "you are living the life that you have created or imagined.  If you change how you think about your life, it will actually change what things will happen in your life."  This is not so much different from what cognitive behavioral psychology or the new positive psychology movement tells us.

However, for some reason today it clicked.  I realized that when I felt angry or put upon by someone, it was not because of what they were "doing to me," it was because I was projecting my unhappiness onto them.  Moreover, I was seeing myself as an unhappy person.  Believing my thoughts--that I was an unhappy person--would make me angry, and that would lead me to react in a negative way in my relationships.  My personal development goals for 2010, especially around relationships, is to develop the talents and skills that I have (and do more of them) so I feel less angry and then stop blaming people around me for my unhappiness.  It is about taking responsibility and being accountable for my own feelings and actions.

In this morning's I Ching reading, Hexagram 28, "mastering pitfalls," seems especially apt.  Now that I know what my pitfalls are around anger, I can go about overcoming them.  Doing that internal work will allow me to improve my relationship with others.  I can't be an effective Tai Chi Chuan teacher if I haven't mastered the form and understood the philosophy behind it.  As I improve myself, it will improve my relationships with others and result in the "accord" of Hexagram 8.

I like the quotes at the beginning from the Tao Te Ching.  You can't force clarity.  You have to be still and meditate and practice improving yourself.  Only then will the natural forces be allowed to operate and we will understand.

How many people have written about having revelations, finding the answer to a problem, or coming up with a great idea only after they stopped thinking about it and let their mind work it out on its own?  These people have done the ground work and been self-disciplined enough to study the problem, but the "aha" moment comes when they got out of the way.  We need to balance the inward with the outward.  We need to live in harmony with nature.  When we impose our wills too much or make others the excuse for justifying our own behavior, well, we end up with a world like we're living in right now: terrorism, global warming, pollution, poverty, ignorance and needless suffering.

Tai Chi Chuan is an inward, soft martial art with a strong meditative component.  It is all about bettering oneself and beginning a dialogue with one's body.  It will lead us to find peace within ourselves, which is the only way we will ever find peace with those around us.

Tai Chi: The Great Ultimate

As I stepped into the shower on this first morning after my marriage, the concept of Taiji, or Tai Chi, became clearer to me. The word, Tai Chi, consists of two linked Chinese characters. The first, means "great," and the second, means "ridge pole." In a tent, a ridegepole is the highest point and that which encompasses everything. According to scholars, this concept was created in Chinese philosophy to reconcile the central belief in Yin Yang, or the theory of opposites.

Yin Yang holds that opposites forces--such as hot/cold, male/female, up/down, light/dark, etc.--are interdependent, the one giving rise to, or contained in, each other. For example, a tiny grain of wheat, when sown, will grow into a tall shaft of when. Then it dies, releasing its seeds, which begin the cycle of life again. The seed holds both increase and decrease within.

When we practice Tai Chi Chuan, we try to incorporate concepts like heavy/light and up/down in our movements. While we are breathing in, our hands are light and floating upward, while the knees are lowering and feeling heavy. With our bodies, we are trying to be the ridgepole that serves as a bridge between the energy coming up from the earth and the that coming down from the universe and the sky.

This energy is also called "chi" or "qi," but it is not the same as "ji" which is found to "taiji" or "tai chi." Chi or qi is vital life force, which is analagous to prana in the yoga tradition or "elan vital," in French.

When we are in harmony, we have a balance between the yin yang and the qi is flowing between the opposites.

At the end of our civil marriage ceremony yesterday, the judge recited the following Apache blessing:

Apache Wedding Prayer

Now you will feel no rain-for each of you will be shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold-for each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there will be no loneliness for you.

Now you are two persons-there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may your days be good and long together.

The latest addition to the pairs of yin yang opposites of Hot/Cold, Up/Down, Light/Dark, Sweet/Sour is the pair Laura/Kurt.