Ignorance

Ron Silliman, on his blog today, deplores ignorance in his students. Ignorance is never an excuse. It can just mean naivety or innocence but often it implies a lack of interest in much beyond oneself. The trouble with the Tai Chi world is that the teachers are generally as ignorant as the students – there is a culture of ignorance. By ignorance I don't really mean a lack of knowledge as such but the lack of valid and living energetic transmissions. If a student has received an energy transmission from a qualified master then to realise that transmission and be in some sort of fit state to pass it on would require that person to get really serious about their art – to the extent that they pretty much give up everything else to devote the rest of their life to it. Only by doing so will they develop it into more than what it is – it is the only way to truly contribute to the art and the living teaching. To tell the truth though, the only way a student would be in a fit state to receive such transmissions is if they have already plunged full time into the art. Thinking of myself (does one ever do anything else) it is really only since last September that I have received something really alive and essential from my teacher – the previous 21 years of Tai Chi and 46 years in total were what was required to gradually get myself into a fertile and stable state whereby my life is no longer really my own – it belongs to the teaching and the teacher. Not very fashionable I know but it is interesting.