Wu Chi - The Beginning and The End
The Wu Chi position, a quintessence of nature,
is the beginsning and the end of everything.
It is a quiet which is born and which dies.
Emptiness where a movement and Tai Chi is being created.
Tai Chi is the first motion in the war of the light against the shadow, yang and yin.
A movement is everything that happens.
That is not only shifting in space, but also changes of every emotion, thought, and move of energy.
Looking for a state of Wu Chi helps us to get a power of quiet which Wu Chi is full of, to acquire the ability of being there. The quiet makes us free from a fear, which is blocking our actions.
Every step of looking for Wu Chi has a deep sense. Even then when we think it is impossible to reach it, that the chaos, we carry in ourselves does not let us approach this state.
This is the first step on the way to control the fear and chaos.
Without undertaking this task, without constantly repeated effort of returns to regular practice, it is impossible to achieve much.
All complete arts like Zen, Yoga or Tai Chi are not only the doors we can open to look what is behind them. In order to achieve something more for ourselves, it is necessary to enter the space behind the door and go the way of regular practice. A practice understood in every sense of the word. Not only like a daily training, but first of all like a never stopped effort of realization the principles of internal work.
Tai Chi helps to step onto this way. Tai Chi lends us a helpful hand in the shape of a form.
Our chaotic thoughts are concentrated on a learning process, repeating the movement after our teacher. We are concentrated which hand, leg, what direction, which order, we should move at which moment. Later, when we master the form from the technical point of view, we get an opportunity to get further. We can go on to the meditation level of movement.
It is a challenge not to escape from this kind of practice in favor of collecting new forms and novelties.
And it is possible to look deeply into ourselves.
To immerse in what we carry on inside of us. How much, except the light we carry on, of rubbish, blockades and negative habits have we been collecting for years. Exploding with anger in stressful situations, overeating or starving in suspense of uncertainty or punishing ourselves or our relatives with the attacks of a rage or a silence.
Meditation in Movement is the most important aspect of Tai Chi. That is the source of another – health aspect and the knowledge of self-defence (reached after many years of practice).
When we focus our concentration on a particular exercise of our practice, for example, we are observing our breath; we can see ourselves in a new light.
If we are able to be patient enough in this process, after some time we get a chance to work on our collected blockades and ill habits. The chance to return to the balance, the emptiness of Tai Chi.
Arriving at Wu Chi state comes and disappears. We are not allowed to count, that when we reach it once, we have gained it for ever. We can trust that with a regular practice we will be able to come back to it and that will change us and give us the power to go on working, allow us to see ourselves and the world clearly.
It isn’t an easy way. But it’s one of a few possibilities offering us a complete system which has been being worked out for hundreds of years and which has been leading us through a process of internal changes.
That’s not an offer of “weekend enlightenment”, but when it appears, Tai Chi doesn’t leave us alone with the consequences of this process.
A help of an experienced teacher and practice are invaluable points of a support in the moments when the difficulties seem so hard to us. Even though we can’t believe it, we can get through.
If you do want to clean your daily life up out of bad habits and fears, Tai Chi is a good choice.
Complete, proved, human return to nature.
Fragments of a lecture by Tomasz Nowakowski
Edited by Zofia Polak, January 2007 Prague
*Shapes of Balance (English Blog)*........*Refleksje o Taichi (Polski Blog)*
