TAO IN FORM

Tao in Form

“The universe isn't just stranger than we imagine,

It's stranger than we can imagine.”

Albert Einstein

Tai Chi is an art of balance, physical, mental and emotional balance. True mastery of any martial system can only result after years of uncompromising training. Such austere conditioning however must be evenly balanced with physical assimilation and protracted introspection, this will allow you to understand the universe and your place within it (after all wisdom is simply putting knowledge into action).

Tai Chi Chuan is the art of softness containing hardness, of a needle contained in cotton – a natural fusion of yin and yang. Its technique physiology and mechanics are imbued with considerable philosophical principles.

The ancients saw that the continuous movement of the Tao follows certain principles, through close observation of the world around them they discerned these principles and incorporated them into Tai Chi form. The movements of Tai Chi are an imitation of the movement of the Tao. By imitating the Tao the Tai Chi practitioner becomes one with it and harmonizes themselves with all things.

The Tao it is said is ‘the ancestor of all doctrines, the mystery beyond mysteries’. There are things we cannot know, the rational mind is limited and cannot grasp the infinite. Such things cannot be put into words only understood on an instinctive level. You can only experience the oneness of it, as they say ‘to speak of the Tao is not to speak of the true Tao’.

Tai Chi is animation of the Tao. It too is something that cannot be grasped by the mind. Tai Chi has to be experienced, you have to understand the Tao and Tai Chi with your total being, you have to grasp them with all your sense, your intuition, your inner awareness.

We don't know what the universe is, we only know how it works. The universe is an infinitely complex totality, a vast oneness, a great unity where everything is part of everything else (‘All things are one, and one is all things'). Reality is not hard and fixed, it is ceaseless change – the cosmos is a moving pattern, nothing is permanent, all are aspects of the constant flux of existence. What we perceive as solid matter is actually energy in constant motion, all things in the universe are just different expressions of energy.

To become absorbed into the great unending rhythm of the cosmos you must be without attachment and stop seeing separate objects, a oneness flows through all things. Tai Chi form must be done totally with all of ones being in a process where the distinction between mind, soul, breath, balance, coordination and the various parts of the body are lost as they blend into each other simultaneously, merging in harmony. If you attain this you may feel merged with the cosmos and its ever changing web of reality.

Form must be a process where consciousness is dispersed from the mind throughout every cell in the body so that the entire being becomes pure awareness and the individual disappears into the void that is the Tao...in the void the ego is no more, there is only spontaneous unceasing harmonious movement.

Tai Chi thinking does not claim to have any ultimate answers to the mysteries of life, all that Tai Chi is concerned with is this moment here and now. This is the only moment in which you exist, a second ago is no more and the second from now is not yet here. When you practice your form your total person is acting totally in the here and now, and even when the form is over the Tai Chi doesn't stop, you carry this potential for oneness with you every second.

If you can gain this ability, this awareness, if you can move with the principles of the universe – which is the object of Tai Chi – you will become one with it and will have peace, tranquillity and a harmonious life. So it's well worth trying to bring a sense of spirit and connectedness into your practice.

Tai Chi is an unending journey towards oneself and towards a oneness with all things.

Cosmic Blessings

Mathew