In these currents
only the still
can see the river.

It is well known that all pity starts in self-pity. The same could be said for taking life too seriously – that it starts in taking oneself too seriously. The difficult lesson to learn is that we are at our best when we join in and forget ourselves; when we stop being a self and become a process, of and for change. Gregory Bateson famously said: There are no objects, only relationships. What matters, what's real, is not life but how I relate to life, not self but how I relate to self, not the Other but how I relate to Otherness. I am real, of consequence, only in my relations.

Whatever we do in taiji we do with an eye to equilibrium. So when we sink our energy we do so not to collapse or become depressed, but to force rising energy to manifest and balance that sinking.

The Otherness of the Other is another name for the Internal which is another name for the Energetic which we also call Spirit or the Real or the Deep. These are all names for different ways of approaching the beautiful but terrifying reality of connectedness. Terrifying because I can only connect to connectedness once I've jettisoned my baggage, my self, and all notions of self-defence. In the realm of connectedness we are all naked and all equal – all differences dwindle in the face of such awe-inspiring and humbling beauty.

A martial art becomes spiritual as soon as I realise that the real enemy is not the Other but my own stubborn inertia.  The Other is in fact my salvation but only once I've understood yielding as the art of allowing their Otherness to break open the box confining and defining me.

Unless the heart allows itself to be pulled down by the Earth, it will never become soft and humble enough to properly open up to the Other. And only if I encourage the belly to be pulled towards the heart of the Other will I lose myself sufficient to win the fight.

The mystery and beauty of life lies not in the rules and principles that govern it, but in the shimmering detail and infinite texture that refuses analysis. The fact that as soon as a principle is discovered and understood, natural energies come into play to disturb and unsettle the surety of that understanding. These are the energies that ancient wisdoms strove to encourage and connect to, and that modern rational thought has tried its very best to throttle and deny. In taiji the yielding mind is one constantly searching for the unaccountable. It knows well that rules and principles are just devices – tricks – to get us going, and that as soon as spirit manifests they largely go out of the window, or at least become elastic, and retreat into the background. The secret to all this is lightness and humour. The perfect antidote to rational understanding is uncontrollable laughter.

The strings of the heart, connecting me to all other hearts, are elastic, and in constant tension. In this sense the belly is also a heart, connecting with the Earth; and the crown of the head, connecting to the Heavens. Everything connects through gravity – pulling-energy. We are all in the same boat, of the same creator. Our differences stem from the differentiating mind and the stubborn ego, which naturally, though fearfully, strive for advantage, and in the process leave the world of energy and make everything a thing, an object, a commodity, a possession. It will often take death and loss to wake us to what is really important in life.

The shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain.

apposite & opposite; and thereby composite

Fundamental progress has to do with the reinterpretation of basic ideas.

Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.

Miracles must not be multiplied beyond necessity.

captivating & marvellous

Arms become legs, legs become arms. Similarly hands and feet.

The two sides of taichi: 

Earthwork: connecting to, and exchanging energy with, the Earth beneath your feet in order to develop a stable but fluid foundation. 

Heartwork: connecting to, and communicating with, other human beings, especially ones who threaten to upset your balance.

Both connexions are physical and energetic, and involve the same principles of equilibrium, relaxation, softness, yielding, elasticity, spirit, etc.

governed by a weird kind of vitalist calculus, in which the petrification of knowledge can be countered by generating creative possibilities through algorithmic thought