Tai Chi Chuan - Mind IN the Body

Tai Chi Chuan – Mind IN the Body

I have this familiar feeling.  I am in a rush and I want my body to be where it needs to go.  Not where it is.  Another time, it is as if I can’t get my body to move forward because it doesn’t want to go where it needs to go. 

In tai chi, I have a feeling of being right where I am.

So when I’m in rush, the desire of wanting to be somewhere else has me chasing after myself.  It’s as if my mind is in front of me and I’m trying to catch up.  Lately this has been more pronounced waiting for a subway, wishing the ride was already over.

When wanting to avoid some interaction or task, it’s as if my mind is pulling me back in time so that my body can’t move forward and complete the task. If I can stop time from going forward, then I can avoid the task altogether.

Both feelings are uncomfortable.  I feel separated from myself.  Neither helps the situation. If you rush, you miss cues, trip, ignore that car coming down the road. 

If you lag, you feel lethargic and stuck and your mind processes dread.

For many years, being in a hurry, I used to want to be done with the morning tai chi practice session, to get it done, so that I could mark it off my morning to-do list and get on with real life.  And the funny thing is that it seemed to take forever to get through the form.  It was in my way.  At the first third mark, I would think, “That’s all I’ve done so far?”

Then something changed.  I didn’t try to make it change because rushing through the form was logical to me. The thought of change was never a goal. I had to do this exercise because that’s what you do, but I also needed to quickly get to the office (for example).  Logical.

Then, instead of seeming to take a long time, it suddenly zoomed by.  I wasn’t going any faster, but my desire to rush through practice left and feeling each moment, trying to get it right, savoring a sensation, looking closely for a way to help it improve; this replaced trying to get it done.  And practice ended much more quickly, or so it seemed.

My guess is that when we are in a rush, or we avoid some task or interaction, we are not in our bodies.  We are also preoccupied with time. (How late am I?  How can I kill some time before I get to this annoying task?  I am wasting my time right now!)

Now when I rush home, I notice my hurry, and make a conscious effort to not be ahead of my body (nor behind it).  The act of walking home feels better and I don’t particularly take too much longer to do it. (So I’m NOT suggesting the solution here is to force yourself to meander, either.)

For me, this feeling comes directly out of tai chi.  That body/mind thing we all talk about cannot be planned, forced, and manufactured.  How often does that “aha!” moment come when you aren’t looking for it?  I certainly wasn’t looking for it. You can only take your time getting there.  It will come of its own accord out of the practice itself.  Some like to talk about this as if there is some mental switch that you can intellectually insert and bypass the experience of discovery.  You can even trick yourself into feeling it a bit here and there.  But ultimately, self manipulation doesn’t work.

I often hear someone say, “I’m now living more in the moment.” They have read something somewhere and it sounds logical so they put on a “this moment” scarf to wrap around some sort of imagined shiny new world of NOW. It’s sort of naïve.

But the real thing comes in its own time. You relax into it. Allow it to arise. All you can do is till the soil, water it, let the sun shine, plant some seeds and at some point it will grow.

I’m not trying to be sweet or sentimental here. It’s just the way it is. Some get it quickly; others take a long time. This does not matter because this is not a horserace and there is no prize.

I wouldn’t even suggest that what I’m saying is to be patient.  Sometimes that’s just another form of self manipulation, a half hearted resignation that you can’t get what you want when you want it so you force yourself to let go of the desire to get it.  A knot within a knot.

What I’m talking about doesn’t take patience.  It takes practice.  It takes persistence.  It takes attention.

Be attentive to how you feel exactly where you are. And don’t try too hard. Because, as the wise women tell us, you are already there!  You just haven’t found a way to inhabit it.

You don’t walk through a door to get there. You give yourself a task that requires all of your attention, and then you attend to it. Over and over and over.  Just for the challenge of it.  Because it’s there!

Sorta like listening to music you love, right?  No effort, no force, no running from or pushing away.  You are just in it as it is.  You give yourself into time and space.  Time and space inhabit you.  Like music. Like tai chi…