Christmas, 2010
Awareness Not
Softness Creates Taijiquan
Softness, unlike we have been told, need not concern us when
we do our forms. Instead, awareness
brings us in harmony with heaven and earth and the ultimate. We must not try to perceive hardness and
softness but rather substantial and insubstantial.
If most of what you can perceive in your postures is
substantial, then you are too hard. If
most of what you can perceive in your postures is insubstantial, then you are
too soft.
Although the Chinese term song is often translated as relax
and equated with softness, this understanding is liable to lead many Western
practitioners astray.
Song should by no
means be equated with total softness or complete relaxation. It is a mysterious quality that demands
support by our fascia, tendons and cartilages without the interference of force
or tension from our muscles and bones.
In other words, our soft tissues must be substantial while
our muscles and bones are insubstantial.
Our practice is to train to be intensely aware of this substantial
and insubstantial quality throughout the body – and eventually the Mind. One leads to the other.
But what is awareness and how do we acquire and maintain it?
Some equate awareness with consciousness. While they are certainly related, awareness
is but an aspect of consciousness yet so is non-awareness. All of us are conscious throughout our daily lives,
but so few are truly aware.
Awareness is clarity – the clarity of still water in a bowl
or a placid lake. It is the ability to
sense or feel non-being within being, stillness within movement, the formless
within the form.
It is the skill of perceiving the benefit of forms and at
the same time the usefulness of the formless, the empty, the void. Only the latter can give rise to the former.
From the Further
Teachings of Lao-tzu translated by Thomas Cleary:
Lao Tzu said:
In the general course of human
life, attention should be minute, while aspiration should be great, knowledge
should be round, while action should be straight, abilities should be many,
while concerns should be few.
Minuteness of attention means
considering problems before they arise, guarding against calamity by being
careful about small and subtle things, not daring to indulge in your desires.
By following Lao-tzu’s guide, we need to make our awareness
minute like looking through a microscope. It is the skill of focusing on the small and subtle aspects of our
taijijuan, both in our form and our push hands. Guarding against calamity so you are not put in a vulnerable position by
your opponent.
How then does one attain this minute awareness?
We are not unlike that bowl of water or that placid lake
which obtained their clarity though quiet stillness, empty calm.
This is the ultimate goal of both meditation and
taijiquan. Meditation, as most of us
know it, is arriving at empty calm through stillness. Taijiquan, on the other hand, is arriving at
empty calm through movement. But not
just any movement – the movement of substantial and insubstantial, yin and yang.
Although external changes of action and non-action occur,
internally we remain ever aware, empty and calm without our emotions, fears or
concerns being aroused by those changes lest we lose track of the small and
subtle which will lead to calamity.
But is it possible to be so empty and calm?
Yes, Lao-Tzu tells us if our aspirations are great enough.
So, that leaves us only one question. Is our aspiration to perform taijiquan so
great that we wish to advance to the highest level possible? Is our aspiration great enough to observe all
the myriad parts of our physical structure and to unite them into one whole
unit?
Does our roundness of knowledge through awareness of minute
detail have no beginning or end? Does it
flow in all directions throughout our being, springing inexhaustibly from the
source of our emptiness and calmness.
Eventually our lives will become a reflection of our
taijiquan. No matter what changes occur
on the outside, we will remain calm and empty on the inside.
Only then can we acquire that straightness of action to
stand unshakably in control of our structure in the face of a relentless
opponent and not indulge our desire to win which may lead us to commit an
incorrect action.
This then is our practice, not softness, not song but awareness. However, like that bowl of still clear water,
one shake will instantly muddle it. The
vital spirit is indeed difficult to clarify but so easy to obscure.
