The dan tien, the energy center located below the belly button, a sphere, filling with energy and transforming jing into chi. A catholic might even say it is the temple area for the Holy Spirit. But for taoists, it is the energy center. With diligent practice, it becomes very palpable and full, distributing chi to the rest of your body for health and wellness, and eventually to be transformed into shen, or spirit, grace, and wisdom.

The heart–once thought of as the center of emotion, love, compassion, then turned into just an organ, but it really is a spiritual organ as well. It is the source of our love and compassion, of our fervor and emotion, of our feeling and sensing. Cultivate the heart.

The mind–it is the image, reflection, instrument of the collective mind, the universal mind, the mind of God. If we listen, God speaks to us through our minds. Thoughts are very powerful and have power. OUr conscious mind needs to be cultivated, and our unconscious mind mined or tapped into. The fact that we think is the most immense mystery of all, maybe. We think logically and we think intuitively. We must cultivate both.

I have a precious day off today and I’ve decided to spend it pretty much in seclusion. I began the spiritual day scrubbing the bathtub, then reading more Thomas a Kempis and meditating on it for a awhile. It’s harsh, but the lesson today is to be aware of our nothingness without God and without Jesus Christ. Develop that sense of humility and modesty that we are the lowest of the low, sinners, and we need the grace of God to do anything or get anywhere. As I said, a bit harsh. But the meditation was fruitful, as I just closed my eyes and watched the shadowy images you see when you close your eyes, and your mind plays a little rorshack(sp) game, but that’s ok because it’s fruitful to see what your semi subconscious mind comes up with.

I then threw the I Ching, and recieved the hexagram related to modesty. Most of the following are direct quotes from the Brian Browne Walker translation:
(My question to the I Ching was what are my short term and long term assignments).

The Creative acts to empty what is full and to offer abundance to what is modest.
Modesty is not boasting or acting imeriously with others.
It is also the effort to discern what is right and be constant. It is an unwavering commitment to what is correct.
Modesty involves wu wei, or non action–not indulging in arrogant, ego centered behavior.
It also involves action: looking for opportunities to correct ourselves, to assist justice where there is injustice, to give solace where there is pain.
Modesty is holding to innocence, sincerity, and openness in every situation.
I recieved line 6: Modesty does not allow for anger, self righteousness, pride, or self-pity(I engage in that a lot). The superior person stands guard against his own inferior elements.
The changing line brought me to the hexagram Mountain.
Keep still as a mountain. You need to quiet your emotions so you can think clearly. If we allow our thinking to be controlled by strong feelings and emotions, we cannot act with gentleness, neutrality, and graceful wisdom.
Turn your inner conflicts over to the deity for resolution.

As an addendum, I just want to point out that throughout the I Ching, there is reference to the Higher Power, the Deity, the Sage, the Creative, so there is this notion of a God like thing in our lives that we can tap into and fill ourselves with and have guide us along the spiritual path. I always felt there was a conflict in that the tao was kind of impersonal and unfeeling, but I guess, in a deep way, in a mysterious, ineffable way, there is the higher power that works to resolve the conflicts in our lives, that we are participating in, are part of, are a manifestation of. It’s why we embark on this spiritual journey, live the contemplative life, so that we can become familiar with and disciplined in this way.

I’ve written before about adversity, and how in tai chi and in taoism, we are encouraged to learn the lesson in the adversity. This notion holds true in Catholicism, buddhism, you name it. We cannot have a life free of adversity, so we view it as a life lesson.

The same holds true for adversaries. What are they doing in our lives? Are they just there to f with us and make our lives miserable? Actually, in some instances, that might actually be the case. But we can also look to see what the lesson is in these confrontations, what can we learn from our interraction with these people. I will badly quote Mike Murdock again, as he says, the difference between seasons is the enemy we are willing to confront. When we are ready to move forward in the spiritual life, God will send us an adversary. He says David would have remained a shepherd boy if he had not had Goliath as his adversary.

So, make a list of the people in your life that you have had adversarial relationships with. What was the confrontation about, was it a door to a new season, were you able to confront the adversity involved and come to terms with it? Did you actually grow as a result of the experience? How long did it take.

I think sometimes we become mired in an adversarial relationship because we haven’t learned the lesson inherent in it. We have to go through it in order to “graduate” to the next level. I also think sometimes we can interpret an enemy in our lives who is acting as an obstacle or blocking our way, as actually being a good thing, because maybe they are actually keeping us from doing something stupid or going down the wrong path. We don’t realize it because we don’t understand it, or we’re too wrapped up in our own ego desires. Or maybe we need to become more courageous, or become more understanding, or grow a set of you know whats, or some other lesson in the offing.

I feel somewhat fortunate in that my list of mentors, friends, and teachers is much longer than my list of former enemies and adversaries. But there are great lessons in my list of adversaries for me.

Related to this, I would say, in practicing a martial art like tai chi, the masters became great by fighting some very formidable enemies. You learn in that relationship big time. While I do not wish to encounter enemies on a physical level, we can spar and have friendly adversarial relationships to develop those skills. I contemplated recently that it was interesting that I’ve been practicing a martial art for nine years now and the universe has not sent me an adversary to actually fight! My conclusion is that while I place great importance on the martial aspects of tai chi chuan, I suppose my role is more of a contemplative, spiritual nature, and as a teacher(what a both proud and humbling moment to be called sifu without requiring it). The other conclusion I came to was that maybe I’m not ready for a physical encounter yet and the universe is waiting for me to get a little bit better at what I do!

My interpretation of exercises like this is taoist and Jungian–I interpret the importance, meaning and significance of the synchronicity of things the way I would interpret a dream. There is the added dimension in taoism and jungian psychology of the collective unconscious or the collective wellspring that we can tap into, so that it is not just us individually, but something universally as well.

So here’s the exercise–assume that you are where you are, or you’ve been where you’ve been for a reason. It’s not just an accident, say, that you were born in Texas. So, make a list of the geographical places you’ve been in your life–what were the lessons you were supposed to learn there? What was your purpose in being there? To learn something? To teach something? Teach something to someone? What role did those times play in your spiritual development?

I’ve played this game many times. For a lot of my life, the geography made a lot of sense. Being born in Newark, NJ, living there most of my life, the grammar school and the high school I attended, going to college in New York, returning to Newark. Each of these geographical locations played an important role in my spiritual development. The places I visited, like Mt. Savior Monastery in Upstate New York.

In recent years, I’ve been perplexed by some of the geographical changes that seemed to be happening to me–working in different stores, further and further away from home. Westfield NJ was a particularly trying period in my life, working there. I didn’t understand why I was there. I still don’t, really, although I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand it, or at least attach some meaning to it. When I got this current job, it was a bit bizarre that I would be working in Menlo Park, NJ, 29 miles from where I live. But if you play this exercise, you look for the reason you were sent there, what was the point, who were you meant to encounter there…

It’s becoming more interesting because I’ve just been given a store much closer to home and am interracting with a whole new group of people, all of whom have ties to Newark. My assistant manager, in fact, lives across the street from the house I lived in all my life before moving three years ago to Caldwell, which is a very special place for me.

Related to this is the holiness of certain places, or at least their specialness. I love showing people my special places. They are filled with energy, with chi, with holiness, with a certain something. For me, my home in Newark, Branch Brook Park with the Cherry Blossoms, The Basilica in Newark, The Steps of Low Library in New York(I am partially convinced that these steps are located at the center of the universe), Mt. Savior Monastery, the Pit, as we call it–a parking lot where I practice tai chi with two of my students. There are other special places. What are yours.

And if someone exclaims when they see you, “What are you doing here,” tell them what you’re doing there!
(while I do not endorse the ministry of Dr. Mike Murdock and the idea of sending him money in order to reap a financial harvest, I did get this idea mostly from him).

Personal development, spiritual growth, enlightenment, awareness. This is the foundation of the contemplative journey. It’s not just catholicism, or taoism, or buddhism, or hinduism. It’s a synthesis of all these as we lay a decoder onto the jumble of chaos. Move it this way, and the cut out holes display the doctrine of the church. Move it that way, and we see the flow and wisdom of wu wei of tai chi and taoism. Move it up or down, and you get another message. Remove it, and you are tempted to become an absurdist because all you’ll see is a big square of letters spelling nothing.

But there are truths. Truths revealed to us in contemplation, in prayer, in silence, in tai chi movement. We know, intuitively, in our heart, that there is a divine spark in all of creation, including us. Stop there. Once we start to go beyond that and create philosophies and religions extrspolated from that one revelation, we start to go down a slippery slope. Not that we may actually have extrapolated it correctly, but…

We know that we have a mind, that we can think, that we have consciousness, and intuitively we know that this mind is a reflection of, an image of, a mind source, a universal mind, a wellspring of mind. Stop there.

We know that we are meant to be aware of something more important, something more holy and sacred, that we are holy and sacred. We are aware of a brokenness in this life, an alienation, a separation by virture of our being manifest physically. There is chaos and order. In my current reading of Thomas a Kempis, I am seeing the emphasis on seeing the miseries of this life and an exhortation to put your sights on Christ and Christ alone, and on the life in the hereafter. The theology of Kempis is purely and emphatically eschatological.

Acceptance and patience are virtues of the catholic and the taoist. The taoist knows that life is yin and yang, up and down, coming and going, chaos and order. Tai chi, and the I Ching help us to discern when to act and how to act during the changes. Reliance on Christ, reliance on the Sage of the I Ching. We fret and worry so much in this world, because we feel we have to take responsibility for everything and do everything we can to protect ourselves and others from misery, from adversity, from chaos, from attack. It is a misguided desire, no matter which matrix you are approaching it from. Wu wei, non-action in the sense of not acting out of the motivations of the ego. Acting in the context of right action, of pure action.

If you listen, you will become aware of the seriousness of the endeavor. This life is fun and joyful despite the adversities, but it’s also serious. It’s school. It’s not to be wasted. People watching can be fun but it can be scary too. How many people are oblivious, walking through life like zombies, with no enlightenment, no awareness?

What would be the concept of sin to a taoist? Not using proper principles. Not being in harmony with the tao. Not developing taoist virtues as discussed in the I Ching:humility, simplicity, patience, perseverence, not acting out of the ego, greed, pride, and on and on.

Being in a state of grace is that experience in tai chi in doing the forms, in doing push hands, of a sense of oneness and completeness, the zen experience, the sitting in meditation experience. I was watching an interview of a modern day catholic exorcist. He was extrememly humble, didn’t play up the fear factor the way the movies try to glorify evil and make it more powerful than it is, but when you listen, you realize people are much more willing to believe in the power and existence of Satan and demons, but doubt God. But if you believe in one, you must believe in the other…I’ll leave it at that, I know I’m rambling a bit…but you realize it’s serious business, this spiritual journey of ours. There’s work to be done, disciplined, practice.

As you become more aware of the higher things, the more spiritual things, the more mundane things can be seen in much better perspective. A funny experience was today, on my day off, I received several somewhat frantic phonecalls from work, all about seemingly important stuff. Yes they were important, but it was more about calming people down and letting them know it was under control and we could handle it tomorrow. But what would have once caused alot of fretting and worrying on my part, I perceived in a moment as puppies nipping at my heels. It’s a funny perspective, no disrespect intended for the people who called today, including my boss.

The catholic way, the way of Christ, is the way of the cross. But there is hope–that is the faith and belief that by virtue of Christ’s death and ressurrection, the Holy Spirit is present, here and now, living in us–we are a temple for the holy spirit–and the holy spirit is amongst us, connecting us in the mystical body of Christ. The other cool thing about this is that Christ is present, here and now, in the mystery of the Eucharist or Blessed Sacrament. Christ, in all of his mystery and ineffability, is present in the Eucharist and the Blessed Sacrament. If you don’t get caught up in all of the infantile understanding of church and religion, the above statements are awesome and amazing.

In taoism, our body contains original chi and can take in and transform cosmic, universal chi. Our body, our dan tien, becomes a mechanism for alchemizing this energy, this spirit, this thing and developing it ultimatley, to shen, or spirit chi. There is a source from which all things come and all tings return. We can tap into it, we can store it, we can use it, we can alchemize and transform it. We are also transformed and made new, language that works both in catholicism and taoism. Who can practice tai chi chuan and qi gong every day and not experience this transformation into being a new man or woman? It happens naturally.

So, whether you are sitting in adoration of the Host, sitting zazen, or breathing in and out to the dan tien, you are engaging in the mystical practice, and you are experiencing the sacred, the holy, the ineffable.

I love the idea that “God” spoke and we are, Christ is the “word” of God, the word became flesh. What an amazing thing to contremplate. As a tai chi man, I experience that my mind, my thoughts, are a relection or a manifestation of something, so it leads me to believe that in some mystical way, the tao is conscious, does have thought, is universal mind or universal thought, that certain character traits and virtues are inherent in the tao, that gentleness, kindness, compassion, and love, modesty, humility, patience and acceptance are all important on the spiritual journey, and to a degree that I still don’t quite understand, knowing tai chi chuan not just as a chi king or meditation, but as a martial art, is important as well.

Physics teachers would/should make excellent tai chi chuan fighters because if they understand the forces of physics they would understand what’s supposed to be happening in tai chi chuan. Torque plays a very important role in tai chi. I would suggest that the resultant energies or process of the physics involved could be called “chi.” Here’s an ok explanation of torque. Can you find it in tai chi? In push hands?

I’ve written before about encorporating tai chi way and mechanics in everything we do. Have you tried? Can you put on your coat the tai chi way, effortlessly, as if they coat were putting on itself? Do you open the doors, grab the handles, twist, push, pull, as if doing chin na? I love to drive my car effortlessly, realizing that my two hands, with sensitivity, can steer a two ton vehicle(I’m going to look up the mechanics of power steering after this writing). Can you “steer” an opponent the same way, effortlessly with your hands sensing where the “vehicle” is going and helping it get there. I also love to go through the automatic doors at the mall, using circular movements of my arms and hands to make it appear as if I am magically using my chi to open the doors. Done with good timing, the line blurs between illusion and reality, are the doors opening regardless, or am I opening them with the motion of my hands? The way you hold a shoe, make an espresso, dress, shower, can all be done as if it were part of a tai chi form.

I’m in Book Two of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. I’m reading and meditating on it this time around from the taoist perspective, from the tai chi perspective. I think it’s an interesting experiment to approach my catholicism and Christ as if I were reading some new eastern text with great mystical depth to it. The canon has belonged for so long to a particular group of interpreters, the church in general, but perhaps with the exception of people like Thomas Merton, this comes at the exclusion of approaching these truths they way we embrace, as taoists or tai chi practitioners, the truths of eastern philosophies.

The Way of Christ is the Way of the Cross. We are taught that this life is an alienated life, one with misery and adversity inherent in it. We are asked to walk the way of the Cross, to be accepting of suffering, and to transform it into something positive. In catholicism, it is ultimate union with God the Father in Heaven. Read that sentence knowing it is language used to describe something indescribable.

People often take up certain religions or philosophies in the vain hopes of avoiding the adversities of life, of finding the magic formula to life that will help us be successful and have money and never suffer. Buddhism, taoism, catholicism, all teach us this is not possible. Life is coming and going, up and down, folding and unfolding, yin and yang. Adversity can be used as an opportunity to learn and to grow. How many taoists think that by learning the secrets of synchronicity, they will be able to find a parking space whenever they need one!

Kempis encourages his monks to fly from this world, or worldly things, to be focused on Christ, to not be too familiar with others, to enjoy one’s solitude and silence, to not depend on the things of this world because they are temporal and don’t last. Grace and faith come and go, and it is important to be vigilant and steadfast, to continue on even during the darkest nights of the soul. Yes, this life has its joys and it can be hard too. We were born to labour. We cannot escape that. But in the Christ concept, there is a reward, and this life does have meaning.

In taoism, we learn not to be caught up in the ups and downs. We let them happen and we ride the waves, we go with the flow. We don’t give up on life, we embrace life as it is, and strive to be part of the rhythm, harmony, way. The I Ching encourages us to become superior persons, and to do this through modesty, acceptance, equanimity, and gentleness. If we foster these things they will flow from us and influence those around us. Hexagram 37 of the I Ching tells us, a healthy family, a healthy country, a healthy world, all grow outward from a single superior person.

Taoism, the I Ching, is a guide on how to live our lives in this life, how to deal with life’s adversities, changes, and turning points. It teaches us virtues and characteristics. We grow, we develop, we learn. We understand that we are part of the process, we are the process itself.

What happens after? I don’t know that taoism addresses this. I think we might just get turned under the soil like a farmer’s plantings, and new plantings come up. Does my soul live on, does my individuality remain? I personaly would like to think so. I’m looking forward to more levels, more dimensions, looking back at this life and finally being able to say, ahh, that’s what that was all about.

I’ve been trying to follow the news and read up on what’s going on, and I can’t help but think we are repeating the betrayal of Viet Nam–getting the vietnamese to buy into what we were selling, promising we’d be there, and then high tailing it out, or even more so, of the betrayal of the American Indians, to whom we sent so many intermediaries to sign treaties–peace in exchange for land–and then reneged and sold them a new treaty, and then reneged, and sold them a new one.

I am not a proponent of war. But I do firmly believe that if you do go to war you should go to win and get out. There should be 8 billion troops there, getting the job done, and coming home. What are we doing? Why would a village elder ever trust an american promise? I don’t purport to understand the situation in its entirety, but you listen to the supposed experts, and the way seems clear–we need more troops, we need a rebuilding plan-clear, hold, build, something like that, and we have to resolve the pakistan problem where the enemy is. Critics of the administration say the president should do what General McCrystal tells him to–listen to the boots on the ground. I believe the president should weigh his advice, but we should also accept that the president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, not general mccrystal. Having said that, I don’t know if they president is going to handle this right. I was very critical of dick cheney and donald rumsfeld for the way they ran the wars in iraq ans afganistan–they didn’t learn their lessons–and now I’m fearful that Obama is making the same mistakes.