Spirit is the name of the game.
When John Kells asked Dr Chi what he should practice when he return to London, Dr Chi said: I suggest you practice spirit.
We use it all the time – we cannot do anything without it – but it tends to become obscured and smothered by the doing – the coarse energies hide the subtle.
Spirit is the very first energy: that which initiates.
However, our egos enslave spirit in order to get things done – in order to build an empire.
The first fact of ego is disconnexion, it has no intelligence beyond itself – it builds the world from scratch – borrowing from other experience if it lacks its own (education).
The first fact of spirit is connexion, it has infinite intelligence because it is totally connected, but only when it is free.
This is why the newborn babe is so powerful – it is pure spirit – unsullied by ego and experience – and it draws you helpless into that world of spirit too – if you have the heart not to resist.
So our prime aim in taiji is to free the spirit – to disconnect it from the act it initiates so that it can perpetually hover – never to be brought down to earth. (Spirit levitates.)
We do this by investigating relaxed movement with a microscope – looking intently at each particle of an operation, and finding the spirit that drives it.
Spirit always lifts – a spark of optimism or potential.
When I live with and by spirit then I carry with me many possibilities – there is a palpable sense that anything could happen – a deeply nourishing but also dangerous excitement.
If you were here with me now then I could help you feel spirit in two minutes, it's that simple and that easy – much easier than chi.
It's the energy that opens things, in particular the doors to the heart.
Spirit is not personal – that which resides in me is not mine – it simply manifests when I create the right environment for it.
Spirit is the opposite of rooting energy. This is why, if I have Central Equilibrium, they belong together.
If you love poetry then you know spirit.
It brings life, and it generously gives life – my spirit can invest even inanimate objects with a lively spirit – a shimmer of being and the promise of becoming.
I think of it, sometimes, as the fascia of the universe.
Because it is ultimately connected and knows no ownership, spirit can only be free if all spirit is free, hence the bodishattva vow, and hence the tendency for free spirits to support the oppressed.
When your practice suddenly opens up and becomes exciting – that is spirit.
When a beloved friend phones you out of the blue and your heart soars – that is spirit.
When you walk down a dark alley and danger in the shadows makes your hackles rise – that is spirit.

For Lee