You are what you practise

by Richard Farmer

After four years of intense study with Tai Chi, it was time for me to go deeper, and the way opened for me to go and live with a Tibetan Lama called Ven. Geshe Damcho. I joined a small community of people who were attracted by the radiant smile of this golden man who lived in Wales, at the Lam Rim Buddhist Centre

By this time I had tuned myself to the spiritual quest and if that included meditation, then I would add that to my four hours of daily Tai Chi practice. Yet what Geshe-la (as he was called) advised was to meditate for five minutes and then spend the rest of the time looking after the Centre, mowing and cleaning and cooking! Well this was not what I was expecting as I had been used to the Theravada tradition of 10 day silent retreats, and daily meditation was at least an hour if not two, per session, ideally, twice a day.

And yet now, nearly 30 years later, I begin to see what he was saying. You see it is all about practising. “Well of course it is” you say. Often I would sit down on my mat, taken by the heart- wish to connect with tranquillity and all would be well for a while and then one thought would lead to another and whilst I did return to my meditation of following the breath, the feeling, that first feeling of tranquillity, did not. For me, more was better so I would push on and do the hour. That’s what I did, that’s what I had been trained to do at school. Study, push, learn and then replicate for an exam. Do what you are told.

But what was I practising? I was practising pushing. I was practising distraction. I was practising force.

Especially for those of you who have been playing Tai Chi for a while, I wonder, if you met yourself as a beginner, knowing what you do now – what advice would you give yourself? Feel into that nervous student, their ideas of mastery, of getting it, and the dreams of playing Tai Chi in the early morning mists and now knowing what you know – what would you say? I bet it would be some kind of mixture of “Stay at it and soften”.

But if we take those first five minutes, those heart moments, what was I practising then. Well I was right there. I was settling into being more peaceful. I was touching my breath. I was/I am meditation.

It is the same with Tai Chi. Practice doesn’t work, often because we are railroading ourselves into it. We are doing it because “we have to”. Or we keep going, doing this sequence of warm-ups because that’s what you do and by the time we get to the actual Form, we rush a little because we do not have enough time. So what are we practising?

What is Tai Chi, at its heart? It is movement in stillness. Do we really need a lot of warm-ups to become that? How would it be if we had the discipline to simply give ourselves the gift of Tai Chi before we went to work, or after it? Would it not be something wonderful?

The root of the word ‘discipline’ is ‘disciple’. Does that not change how you view discipline? To be a disciple of stillness in movement is very different from making yourself practise.

So when we start, when that first idea comes to practise, let it come from that deep wish. Then feel into a move that will allow you to touch this. If there is a physical need, a stiffness or an injury, then let that feeling of kindness choose an exercise or movement that touches it, or play the Form with this in mind and see what happens.

If you are learning the sequence and you have a new posture to get clear, then connect with the wish to learn it. Let it be a gift rather than a chore. Even the learning of a posture, a new move, can be nourishing, if we use disciple energy.

It is the same with different qualities or Principles of Tai Chi. To apply them, to touch them and allow them into our movements can be something healing and hearted. We are nourishing ourselves and healing those places which have lost naturalness.

So with the heart invitation, a little at a time, we stay close to the heart of the practice, which is to connect and build a relationship with stillness, through the art of Tai Chi.

Gradually these 5 or 10 minutes build, drip-like and create a foundation of engagement. This builds the muscle of stillness. It is this muscle that we will eventually use in our daily lives. The “have to” of things will be replaced by permission. Force will be replaced by invitation. Rigidity by flow. We will, bit by bit, have built a foundation of Tai Chi, and the living of that becomes our expression.

In turn this feeds back into the movement that we give ourselves, out of kindness, at the beginning, or the middle, or the end of our day.

A little regular high quality practice is worth a lot. Have a great practice and your Rising Dragon experience, and your life, will be enriched beyond measure.

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newsletters index page: Winter 2009