Heart

True communication is a matter of heart. It transforms; and it requires connexion. The heart is in the connexion – in the ability to connect, which enables the communication. Practising heart is a matter of making connexions and nurturing them. In Tai Chi we call this yielding. Buddhists call it compassion. It is a matter of drawing an aspect of essential nature into the heart, healing it (making it clear and whole) through an action of the heart, and then returning it. This is a process that happens continuously and constantly with those you love. The aim of the work is to make this process enter everything I do. For this to happen I must internalize basic principles, which involves working with them and developing them (letting them breathe and live) under pure and controlled conditions for extended periods each day. The most important function of this work is not that it makes me strong or balanced but the opposite – it rips me open revealing a world more alive, more intense and more raw (more immediate) than the one I know. To feel this bleeding edge, and to live on it and by it, is the meaning of the work. It is a painful edge but supremely nourishing, and once you reach a certain level in Tai Chi it is the only place where you are not bored rigid. It is not a place you need to travel to. It is always there waiting for whoever is ready.