Tai Chi Chuan and the Political

Tai Chi Chuan and Political

This political season has brought out an interesting tendency, noted in the New York Times in the past year.  I have a good friend who always always always relates to political topics from the emotional point of view.  That is, if it feels right, it must be so.  But of course, we are all like that.  What happens next is that we select facts that support our feeling.  So we self validate and feel right.  Then we pick our sides, look at commentary that agrees with our feeling, news shows that agree with our feelings, people who agree with our feelings.  It gets deeper and deeper until any opposing argument is handily ignored.  We can no longer hear anything but our own feeling data base of facts.  She will bounce off any and all suggestions to the contrary, sometimes even calling them lies because they don’t agree with her feeling data base.

I myself try to listen to other ideas and facts, but I am still going to relate to my own feeling database.  She really doesn’t seek out facts.  I do.  But even facts can be fishy or incomplete.  Today it is hard to find the facts.

So what does this have to do with tai chi?  In tai chi, we give up ourselves and follow the other. We play THEIR tune, not ours.  That is why it is a constant challenge.  I would say furthermore that the context of the whole is very much a part of the tai chi experience.  You involve you, them, ground, air.   It is a big picture, not the small picture.  In this regard, it may help move us past our own feeling database and check into what is real, or missing, or whole.  Often the isolated fact may lead you to the wrong conclusions.  You need more than that.

This is abundantly clear in push-hands where the two of you have to read a situation that is neither me, nor you, but both.  Reality is two sided.

In the recent Presidential debate, October 10, Romney was declared the winner.  One reason is that Obama did not stick and follow.   Romney made a few moves, and Obama silently listened, but did not respond.  It was perplexing.  Romney was on the attack and that is also a dangerous path.  It showed up in the second debate where his accusation was simply false.  The media was on his case immediately but a large portion of the population didn’t care. 

If you say to my friend, “Free enterprise”, the world goes blank and that is all there.  Or all that matters.  But life is not like that. Try that in push hands and you are in for a big surprise. This is not a big point, but it is an important point.  One that truly changes how you might operate as you navigate the koan of life.

I hope your tai chi practice creates more questions than answers, more curiosity than certainty.