If progress in Tai Chi is measured by softening then how does one work on softness?
The obvious answer is relax. The postures of Tai Chi, and the associated preliminary exercises you learn in class, are all designed to facilitate the process of relaxation. With practice tensions slip away – the student wakes up to the fact that they are not necessary and indeed impede natural functioning. However, certain tensions never seem to diminish or recede. In fact the more superficial tension is eradicated the more the deep-rooted tensions foreground and start to dominate your existence. This can give the feeling and appearance that you are going backwards – getting more tense rather than less. This is not the case. What distinguishes a good student is their refusal to baulk or flinch at the truth. Part of this involves not having it in you to brush what makes you uncomfortable under the carpet, but instead face it constantly until resolution, even if that means becoming so consumed by your battle that you almost cease to function as a normal social being. My teacher has said that the student's job is to clarify the voice of their discomfort. They must grind on with the work in the belief and hope that eventually the air will clear. And it will, but only if you make deep changes to both the way you view the world and the way you live your life.
These deep-rooted tensions are really just the indications of an incorrect foundation. To dismantle an edifice and reconstruct the foundations is clearly an enormous undertaking. And the chances are that these new foundations will in the future need to be rebuilt again anyway. The story of Milrepa whose teacher Marpa, to help him atone for past sins, instructs him to build a temple from rock with his bare hands. On viewing the completed temple, which has taken years to construct, Marpa decides he would like it over there instead of where he originally specified, so Milarepa has to dismantle stone by stone and build again. This happens a few times before Milarepa has finally, in the process, rebuilt himself, or rather undone himself sufficiently to be ready to receive real instruction. Those deep-rooted tensions are the foundations of your ego. Beliefs, opinions, feelings, convictions, cherishments (or tensions, anxieties, insecurities and inadequacies, depending upon how you look at it) all designed to help you stand up and be counted – effectively to be part of the race of man. But our job is to go deeper than that, deeper into our humanity to touch and tap our divinity. This requires a foundation that thrusts us into the world of energy and heart rather than bolstering self. It is this that your teacher hopes to provide for you: a foundation for connexion. This involves replacing those tensions with something slightly less uncomfortable but far more poignant: a yearning. Your teacher gives you a taste of and for real softness and relaxation. The softness that comes from being truly able, and constantly willing, to place the other foremost, even if they are ego-ridden, riven, and driven. The teacher's presence is the ultimate gift because their ability to feel your divinity helps you feel it too. The rest of your life is then spent struggling to realise it.
When you're in the presence of someone who really puts you first in the right way, that is, because they have enough inner peace and quiet to put anything and everything first rather than because they love you or like you or are related to you (because your presence bolsters their ego), then you begin to feel the inadequacy of your own view of reality. You feel deep-down that they are living a better life than you. What's important is to let this be an inspiration – to let it change your life.
It should be clear now why the partner work in Tai Chi is paramount. We are trying our utmost to reprogramme ourselves to put the other first so the more time we can spend with the other in front of us, trying their best to unsettle us with the intensity of their presence and reality, the better for us. It shouldn't matter how good the other person is – if you have the heart you'll make them as good as they need to be.
The obvious answer is relax. The postures of Tai Chi, and the associated preliminary exercises you learn in class, are all designed to facilitate the process of relaxation. With practice tensions slip away – the student wakes up to the fact that they are not necessary and indeed impede natural functioning. However, certain tensions never seem to diminish or recede. In fact the more superficial tension is eradicated the more the deep-rooted tensions foreground and start to dominate your existence. This can give the feeling and appearance that you are going backwards – getting more tense rather than less. This is not the case. What distinguishes a good student is their refusal to baulk or flinch at the truth. Part of this involves not having it in you to brush what makes you uncomfortable under the carpet, but instead face it constantly until resolution, even if that means becoming so consumed by your battle that you almost cease to function as a normal social being. My teacher has said that the student's job is to clarify the voice of their discomfort. They must grind on with the work in the belief and hope that eventually the air will clear. And it will, but only if you make deep changes to both the way you view the world and the way you live your life.
These deep-rooted tensions are really just the indications of an incorrect foundation. To dismantle an edifice and reconstruct the foundations is clearly an enormous undertaking. And the chances are that these new foundations will in the future need to be rebuilt again anyway. The story of Milrepa whose teacher Marpa, to help him atone for past sins, instructs him to build a temple from rock with his bare hands. On viewing the completed temple, which has taken years to construct, Marpa decides he would like it over there instead of where he originally specified, so Milarepa has to dismantle stone by stone and build again. This happens a few times before Milarepa has finally, in the process, rebuilt himself, or rather undone himself sufficiently to be ready to receive real instruction. Those deep-rooted tensions are the foundations of your ego. Beliefs, opinions, feelings, convictions, cherishments (or tensions, anxieties, insecurities and inadequacies, depending upon how you look at it) all designed to help you stand up and be counted – effectively to be part of the race of man. But our job is to go deeper than that, deeper into our humanity to touch and tap our divinity. This requires a foundation that thrusts us into the world of energy and heart rather than bolstering self. It is this that your teacher hopes to provide for you: a foundation for connexion. This involves replacing those tensions with something slightly less uncomfortable but far more poignant: a yearning. Your teacher gives you a taste of and for real softness and relaxation. The softness that comes from being truly able, and constantly willing, to place the other foremost, even if they are ego-ridden, riven, and driven. The teacher's presence is the ultimate gift because their ability to feel your divinity helps you feel it too. The rest of your life is then spent struggling to realise it.
When you're in the presence of someone who really puts you first in the right way, that is, because they have enough inner peace and quiet to put anything and everything first rather than because they love you or like you or are related to you (because your presence bolsters their ego), then you begin to feel the inadequacy of your own view of reality. You feel deep-down that they are living a better life than you. What's important is to let this be an inspiration – to let it change your life.
It should be clear now why the partner work in Tai Chi is paramount. We are trying our utmost to reprogramme ourselves to put the other first so the more time we can spend with the other in front of us, trying their best to unsettle us with the intensity of their presence and reality, the better for us. It shouldn't matter how good the other person is – if you have the heart you'll make them as good as they need to be.
1 comment
I have only come across your blog today and have consequently only read snippets, however, it has already touched me.
I am a student of Richard Farmer (once a senior pupil of John Kells) .. I was very moved to read your words here about what distiguishes a good student, as since I began to ask (with the aid of Tai Chi) who am I 'truly' and is my life 'truly' happy and fulfilled, I have felt exactly as you describe that 'I have become so consumed in my battle that I ceased to function as a normal social being' how liberating to read it in someone elses words .. I have always beaten myself for this way of thinking .. considering myself a drama queen .. today when I came across your blog, I was able for the first time to hold those feelings with 'heart' and go on with my day .. thankyou
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