Picture of Japanese "Kaiseki Ryori" by friend Sanae Murayama
These days we have an overload of information about Taiji at the click of a mouse or tap of our fingers, we can spend a few minutes (or seconds) of our lives checking out this or that "Master" revealing some Taiji secrets. Sometimes we can find good, quality stuff but generally much of what we can readily find for free is debatable (just like free advice). So we buy books and other products or subscribe to practitioners/teachers whom we trust but carried away with our enthusiasm for deeper Taiji knowledge, we search insatiably and often the novelty of a new insight becomes the goal and reward. That is, until that shiny trinket of treasure becomes jaded and we get distracted, then it's off again searching for another golden nugget of novelty and insight without abandoning the last trinket of wisdom. Maybe we integrate it into our practice enough times to be actually get anything from it, maybe we don't. We've all been guilty of this many, many times. I say this because it usually doesn't happen when we've made the effort to attend a teacher's class in person and regularly. In this situation usually we've sought out the teacher and have made some commitment to hand over a little bit of money, and we respect the teacher enough to value what they're teaching - and hopefully - to regularly practice what they're teaching. Other than that it's more likely to be the aforementioned situation. It's as if the last thing we really want to do is to "take the pain" or "empty our cup" and integrate that piece of tried and tested wisdom into our practice and Taiji lexicon. We are all looking for "relief" or "to feel or be better" without the effort, diligence, or pain, and if our object of attention doesn't give it to us within our short attention span then we discard and move on.
If you really want to practice Taiji properly and improve in a meaningful way then give up this kind of attitude, focus on a few core principles (or maybe only one?) and work on that for awhile. This discipline really clashes with the contemporary mindset of Innovation, more of everything is better, faster is better -"traditional" or "discipline" or "persistence" doesn't sound sexy and clashes with our distracted need for novelty, but...."less is more". And besides, once you become familiar with the movements so that it is second nature, it's fun and this is where all the Taiji "goodies" are at. You enjoy the movements, real relaxation comes and the "magic" happens.
Authour - Lee Chang Tye
www.relaxedmindtaichi.com
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