I have nothing to attain.

John Kells

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

Mother Teresa

Heartwork

If the first stage of Tai Chi is personal relaxation then the second stage has to be coming to grips with the art as interaction and communication. Generally this involves learning the martial applications of the postures so that an imaginary opponent can be visualized as one performs the solo Forms of Tai Chi. There are different ways in which this can be practised: you can imagine the opponent as a physical or energetic or spirited entity. With each you effectively yield to that aspect of the opponent with the same aspect in yourself: if you “see” the opponent as a physical being then you yield to that physicality with your physicality (arms and legs and waist turns). If you “feel” them as energy then you yield with your energy – throw it towards or around them, meld and draw them into your spirals. If you regard them as a spirited entity then you must rouse your spirit to bite into them – piercing to their core and revealing yours in the process. Each approach is important and the Chinese recommend a graduated path, i.e. start to work physically then progress to energy and finally reach the realm of spirit, and they claim that working in this way the next stage naturally develops from the preceding one: so working physically correctly (relaxed, body as one unit, etc.) will develop ch’i which in turn, over time, will accumulate in the body and gradually transform into spirit. This may be the case but it’s a very external approach to spirit. By external we mean acquisitive: it is all to do with self – personal gain – and at no point really puts the other first. An internal approach is all to do with purity of intention – just how pure – how selfless – can you make each act. And if each act, each breath and each moment stops being burdened with the cloying self then is life not one long thread of vibrating connexion? This is the realm of “empty spirit” or what Dr Chi called “nothing.” My teacher calls it the perfection of Tai Chi. It is attainable by all of us at any time – it doesn’t require decades of practice, it just requires us to lose ourselves in the breathtaking magnificence of the moment. This is a far more useful skill than regarding each entity as a threat and having the ability to counter that threat if required. It is the compassionate edge.

Lose yourself - your past history - in the process.

John Kells

When the electron vibrates, the universe shakes.

Sir Arthur Eddington

Thanks to Brad Fuller for this quote.

The leaves embrace
in the trees

it is a wordless
world

William Carlos Williams

Pushing Hands

Compassion is not pity. It is simply the creation of a benign and beneficient energetic space into which both your energy and the energy of the other are drawn. Compassion is the prerequisite of togetherness, communication and understanding. It allows, encourages and in some instances actually creates the Third Heart. Compassion is the bedrock of my teacher's teaching. Without compassion at its core a martial art is just the practice of overcoming others. With compassion a martial art has the opportunity to become the practice of creating connexion – creating life. Gentle, non-competitive Pushing Hands is surely the best way to practice and develop compassion – close enough to smell their breath and feel their heartbeat. The practice of being with another – spending tender time together with a gentle passage of energy and feeling – back and forth. Opening up in Pushing Hands is the key to making the solo Forms of Tai Chi meaningful – taking them beyond simple personal relaxation and development and into the realm of energy and communication. With enough sincere practice of Pushing Hands your energy starts to behave naturally – do its own thing despite the thinking mind – and the natural functioning of your energy is always to communicate – to seep and swirl with other energies.

The learning is in the process and not in the result.

John Kells

Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.

Dalai Lama

Happiness is peace of mind.

Tibetan saying

to catch the somehow meaning of the splintered whole

John Kells

Mastery

A Master of Tai Chi is basically a student with over 10 years experience whose teacher has given them their blessing to teach. The teacher confers Mastery. A Grand Master is the head of a lineage (his teachers have passed on) who has produced Masters. A Grand Master therefore has at least 20 years experience (and generally has much more). In the same way that students can be classified as good, mediocre or poor, so can Masters. A mediocre student becomes a mediocre Master, etc.

My own feeling is that a Tai Chi Master must also have received a transmission of energy from their teacher. These are energetic teachings that, once imparted, reside in the energy of the student awaiting the right time and conditions (developed through persistent practice) to fully flower, generally in the teaching of their own students. Mastery implies that the master will continue to develop and improve even in their own teacher's physical absence. You are only a master when your teacher can confidently allow you to go forth and multiply, not just externally (by teaching others) but also internally in your own energetic and spiritual development. This requires the student to have captured the correct way of working from their teacher.

Technique & Energy

This from Christian Birch's Re-vitalise website.

There are two approaches to T'ai Chi Ch'uan. Technique and Energy. The first approach is to work on technique and the mechanics until they are mastered. Nothing more, nothing less. What this approach lacks is understanding energy. It is cold and sterile.

Energy permeates everything, seeps into every fibre of our being and existence. It is all inclusive. It is not about ch'i. There is no place for intellectual understanding. It is about a deeper connection. My teacher, John Kells, calls this Heartwork. This is what the Tai Chi I share with you is about. Technique then becomes an expression of this approach. It is alive, a creation of the moment. The Sufis say that we should feel that God is breathing through us, not the self. Drop the baggage of the self.

Davina Gray in Aberdeenshire sent me this photo she'd taken of a chanterelle mushroom she'd picked in the woods.

Through dint of hard work all is revealed
When all is revealed then all is concealed
When all is concealed then principle is revealed
When principle is revealed then inclusion is revealed
When inclusion is revealed then nothing is revealed

John Kells, 18iii01

Fire of Myself

What I miss most is
        that live
that subtle transformation
   from inert to
trans-atomic structures
that leaves my welded
and supple body
that carries the imprint
        of that body
into the land
     of pure migration

Joseph Ceravolo

Chi Chiang-tao

Photo: Barbara Richter, 1976

Heartwork Weekend at BTCCA London 4-5 Nov

Email me for details.

Ancestry

Tim Walker sent me this article which many should find interesting. Scientists are pretty fickle though so don't put too much store by it. (Complete article available in Comments.)

Habit

My teacher always used to say that learning Tai Chi is a process of replacing bad habits with good ones. Some bad habits are relatively easy to eradicate – smoking, eating meat, etc. – because it's obvious when we're indulging. But habits of posture, character and attitude are much more difficult to get a handle on. In these cases a positive model of how we should be is vital – far better for your energy to focus on the positive than the negative anyway. The teacher is this model. There should be aspects of your teacher – the energetic aspects – above all his connexion to the living truth, rather than personality or power, that you totally admire, and feel – have always felt – your life drifting, and now driving, towards. Each time your teacher is with you is all he is saying is stop being afraid, start believing, and join me. This is the most positive message and invitation you will ever receive. Reasons to say no – excuses – abound, they are too numerous to even contemplate. It is the surest indication that the thinking mind is ally to the ego that these reasons abound as they do – they are expressions of our fear. It is the heart that takes those leaps of faith. The work at hand is to open the heart, put it out there, thrust it, trust it, and get the body and spirit in good shape so that when the heart leaps the rest of us follows very shortly after it. The great teacher – the great human being – lives each and every moment with such an unfolding heart, letting it spill into the world as reality opens up before them. That is their greatness.