Monday Morning Tai Chi Training Tip # 377
Summer House Thoughts
As I have shared with you in the past, I so enjoy sitting on the top of the outbuilding, at our house, which we call the Summer House, feeding the Stellar Jays, and letting my thoughts run around like the squirrels and bunnies. After 50 years of full time Tai Chi practice and study, thoughts sometimes pop into my head, from where, I sometimes don’t have any idea. Here are a few from this week, and I think they are interesting enough to stimulate you to let your own mind explore where it wanders to.
“Most of the time, when I start a round of Tai Chi, I realize that today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
“I am everything I am not.” Think about that.
“Just as our Tai Chi forms move slowly and steadily from beginning to end, so does our life. We know the ending of the form, not the ending of our life. Possibly it never ends, just keeps evolving to rarer and rarer dimensions.”
“Up Right and Be Right Make All Right.” Up Right means to use the physical to elevate the spirit. Be Right refers to stimulating the emotional body. Make All Right means combining the body, mind, and spirit to attain higher state of consciousness.
“A person should be judged not by what they have, but what they give. A smile is worth a lot.”
“Confidence comes from competence. Competence comes from practice.”
“You don’t own a gift until you’ve thanked the giver.” I just sent a special gift to someone and I never heard back, not even to let me know if they have received it. Bad form. I had a wealthy relative who always sent me very generous gifts. When my mother passed away, I was 9 years old and I then stopped sending thank you notes. She stopped sending me gifts and she cut me out of her will. I learned my lessons on thanking.
“ Balance is perhaps the major philosophical as well as physical idea in Tai Chi. Wasn’t it Michele Obama who said, when speaking of bullies, “ When others go low, we go high.”
“Just as you “can’t judge a book by its cover”, you can’t judge a Tai Chi player by his or her outward appearance. You have no idea of where they are coming from or where they are headed.