Yielding

Most of what passes for yielding is not yielding at all but avoidance. Yielding means not resisting. Yielding and resisting are antonyms. Resistance is simply the effort to keep something out or away, so not resisting – yielding – means to allow that something in or close. Avoidance (the other alternative to resisting) is withdrawing from the thing – taking yourself away from it – replacing real life with a comfortable one. Now the one thing we all want to avoid at all costs, as human beings and probably as living creatures, is pain: we don't want to suffer, even though we know deep down that pain and suffering are not only unavoidable but necessary indicators of spiritual growth. To advance we must learn to yield to pain: learn to stop resisting it – allow it – relax into it – accept it as the positive indicator it is. When something becomes painful then it becomes testing: it starts to test our commitment to relaxation and openness. As taichi practitioners the one pain we must not only endure but daily search for is pain in the legs – to keep the legs relaxing into and through the pain and let that pain flood the whole body. When we yield pain cleanses the body and fires the spirit as nothing else can.