Random Acts of Tai Chi
Master Cui Zhongsan tells us that trough tai chi chuan (taijiquan) we make the world a better place. The true spirit of tai chi is to protect and take care of yourself and the world around you. It’s not to fight or constantly look for ways you “think” you’ve been slighted and to strike back.
When tai chi is practiced in its truest form, an attacker is deflected with as little damage to them as possible. This doesn’t mean to allow someone to hurt you or those you care about, but it also doesn’t mean to attack someone with a vengeance just because they were hurting, lost control, and lashed out at you.
One of the best ways to take care of the world around you, and therefore yourself, is to help make the world a better place to live. Become truly selfish and help those around you whenever you get the chance, it will make your private world a better place as you look for reasons and ways to help others. Your world will take on a different color.
Don’t stick around long enough for people ask why you’ve helped them, just quietly leave them wondering. It will leave many of them feeling indebted to someone they don’t even know, with no way of returning the favor. We all feel the need to reciprocate, so what better way to leave someone than to leave them looking for a way to payback the kindness. The only avenue they’ll have is to help someone else.
Walk away from conflict whenever you can. Perform random acts of tai chi (kindness) and watch your world change for the better.
Your thoughts?
John
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Feb 12, 2010 - 12:02:11Doesn’t the Master imply that harmony will out? That is, harmony balancing the things we externalize with those things we internalize prompts our tai chi response-abilty? Harmonizing is more than reconciling differences between others and ourselves. To take this all too personally, a certain letting go is necessary for my tai chi creativity to flower. That is, the wu chi that proceeds tai chi’s balancing of yin and yang influences in all aspects of my life; the emptiness from which springs my judgement calls around proscribed and described realities allows harmony to manifest if I only hold my tai chi attitude and don’t force any issues.
Thank you for the encourgement. I have recently had some conflicts and this helps me to get centered again. This has some what been my philosophy all my life, but sometimes we need to be reminded of our center.
Sifu Mark,
I’m not sure what you said, but I think I like it.
John
Art,
Yes I think we all need to be reminded from time to time. It’s almost always easier to help someone else center than to center ourselves when we get out of balance. I’m always looking for things to help me stay centered too.
John