My teacher has always said that when you find yourself in a difficult situation the most important thing is to stay open. He always sees things in terms of a fight - a struggle not only for survival but for victory - a difficult situation being one in which you are in some way under attack (he relishes such occasions as he knows it's an opportunity to practice some yielding). A victory would be an outcome that is beneficial to you. If you remain open throughout the battle then such an outcome will ultimately benefit all involved especially when viewed from a heartworld perspective. To achieve a victory you must at all points be prepared to attack and must be well practised in attack: you must be well able to let your energy out effectively and strongly. It is this willingness to attack (my teacher has likened it to being on the verge of losing your temper) that gives your presence and involvement tone, vibrancy, resilience and danger, engaging (others) with vitality and bite. Just being soft and yielding will not get the job done effectively - it will probably be as useless as bullying your way through life. You must always be prepared to stand up and fight and this requires you to be strong enough to give and take good blows. The vibrancy and intensity of your presence comes from you containing the two extremes of softness and hardness. And again, thinking in terms of yin and yang - one balancing the other or one transforming into the other - is neither helpful nor accurate. It is much more a vibration between the two extremes. They say that when you put your hand on a great Tai Chi master he should be so soft as to not be there but should have the hardness of steel at his core. When I put my hand on my teacher I feel both at the same time: he is so soft that he offers no resistance to my touch yet that contact has all the qualities of steel (hard, cold, shiny, springy, etc.) without the physical mass and inertia. If there is any energy in my hand then I'm thrown immediately, but never back - his energy doesn't repel - if anything it draws me forwards and I become more deeply entangled in his vibrancy.
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There's also the thing of knowing when there's no point in fighting (emotionally, intellectually)and in your terms just yielding. That I find a difficult one because the tendency (particularly if you're a bloke) is to respond with an attack and people waste so much time with this. You're probably talking about something different though which I don't quite understand - because this isn't about engaging with the emotions.
"To achieve a victory you must at all points be prepared to attack and must be well practised in attack: you must be well able to let your energy out effectively and strongly."
You develop a willingness to let your energy out fully and wholeheartedly by practising the heartwork interactions we engage in. Your success in this regard is measured by the intensity of your response to the other person's yield/attack. Gradually you become more and more convinced that TOTAL involvement and commitment is the only way forward. This is the meaning of "You are truly blest to know you have no choice". Unfortunately this approach is not common and is generally frowned on by society which encourages a life of compromise. As Charles Olson said "Avert, avert, avoid pollution, to be clean in a dirty time". This is the struggle for all of us. Always be suspicious of anything from any source other than your teacher. There is very little wisdom in the modern world, which in a way is a good thing because it means there is little real distraction, despite the seeming richness of modern culture. Culture is what is done to you, whether it be art, music, sport, TV, fashion, education. It's time you started to strike back and stopped being a victim. To do this you need to live the life of a warrior. Pare back everything to its essentials and keep on the pulse of the teaching.
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