Talking about breakthroughs the other day, it occured to me that almost all the hardworking students I have known who have given up Tai Chi have done so just at the point they were about to make a major breakthrough. The dam was about to burst and the pressure was too much for them. Once you've gone through the process of banging your head against a seeming brickwall for months and then suddenly broken through to wonder what all the fuss was about, you have experience of the process of progress. The brick wall is just the resistance you are putting up to change. Some people don't resist: they progress gradually and evenly; they're blessed. Stubbornness is what makes you resist. The task at hand is to change the stubbornness to a resoluteness by removing the obstinacy through yielding. An obstinate student allows his ego to stand in the way of the teaching - he is convinced his way is better than the teacher's. He may pick on flaws in the teacher's character or cling to other extraneous teachings from foreign sources (books - heaven forbid!) in a desperate attempt to protect some petty aspect of his ego he'd be better rid of. Understanding that this is what is going on is a great help as it allows you to see things in perspective, and override your natural inclination to resist. After all, what do you have to loose? Stubbornness is just a manifestation of the fear of change. We all have this fear in one way or another. Abandonment is the quality that allows you to throw off this fear and leap into the unknown. To be truly abandoned you must have faith that your own natural energy and connectedness will magnificently and admirably manage the situation. Abandonment allows you to change to meet any situation the Tao throws at you, but only if you are not clinging to the safety of self. This is what John means by "Beyond the imagination". With humour you make light of things.
3 comments
The picture is called Leap into the Void (1960) by Yves Klein (1928-62). That really is Klein leaping from the wall. He was nearly killed by the subsequent impact with the ground. He was a really great artist with a lovely light humour and a total mad passion. Very handsome & very French. He was one of the greatest non-Japanese judo exponents of his time. He died of a heart-attack, I think.
i know this pictures well, but one of my friend while seeing it cut in the middle thought that the gyu was jumping into water. What a suprise ;)
www.ubu.com uses a truncated version of this image. It's a great site, by the way, though closed for the summer, I think.
Post a Comment