Puget Sound Meditation/The Journey – 1/10/22

I recently was practicing in the park, and where we practice, we overlook the Admiralty Inlet to the Puget Sound. This Sound goes all the way past Seattle and ends near Olympia. This is a big body of water. Near the bottom of this Sound, the cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia are located. There is a lot of population and industry in this area. All this congestion makes waste, much of which ends up in the Puget Sound.

This pollution would kill all the marine life if it weren’t for the tides. The tides flush the Sound out into the ocean twice a day, and bring in fresh water. When practicing on Saturday, I noticed that there were quite a few logs floating on the surface of the water and they were moving from left to right, which meant the tide was coming in. Interesting, but so what, you ask.

Because of this place and time, I had a wonderful standing meditation. I decided to let this tidal thought clean and renew my body. As I stood there, facing the water, I breathed in the water through the bottoms of my feet, and felt it wash upward to my head, and then as I exhaled, I felt it wash back down through the body and out my feet. My image was “in with the new, out with the old”. Just like the Sound. Incoming tide brought fresh energy up through all my cells, and then after reaching the bottom of the Sound (my head), it turned and headed back to the ocean, taking the waste with it.

After a fairly short time with this standing meditation, I felt renewed, as well as in complete harmony with my environment. How perfect.

I love hearing from my fellow Tai Chi players. Many write to ask me how long will it take to learn the forms – short , long, partner, etc. Here is my answer.

It all depends. One can never guess, nor should they wonder how long. Tai Chi is a process, a journey to one’s true self. The Tai Chi learning process doesn’t have a destination, an end. Each and every practice session is Tai Chi. There is never a time when you can say – “now I know Tai Chi. I’m done with my study”. Stay open to each and every moment, feel what is going on inside, applying principles as you learn them. Realize that you are doing Tai Chi perfectly for where you are right now. If you have your mind on a destination, you’ll surely miss the mystery and magic of the journey. So celebrate the fact that our Tai Chi study never ends.