When I arrive at an understanding it illuminates a state of affairs. But it also affects that state – an understanding mind inevitably fixes that which it understands. So, as soon as I understand I should immediately reject that understanding by moving on, out of the light and into darkness. This is what Keats called negative capability. In taiji we work to understand and then we work through that understanding until it is seen for what it is: what my teacher called "yesterday's cold potatoes."