About fullness and emptiness
Taoistic classics:
"In the beginning there was emptiness".
(*There was only 'not fullness', there was nothingness).
Advanced tai chi students know the difference between fullness and emptiness
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?
Because it lies below them.
(Tao Te Tsing)
Nature is our teacher:
we can understand fullness and emptiness
by studying wind and water.
The sage experiences without abstraction,
he accepts the ebb and flow of things.
(Lao Tse)
Stay in your center.
When your mind is empty the yang returns automatically
to its beginning.
When your mind is empty the yang returns automatically
and cyclically to its beginning.
Yin attains fullness and gives place to the yang.
This is called exchanging negative (yin) and positive (yang).
The 'dead point' is always the changing point.
This is one of our best young students,he's also a talented martial artist.
But he has a little problem:
sometimes his head is full of the strangest things.
If his head is 'full', the yin cannot give place to the yang.
In our school all of us have a similar problem.
Fullness and emptiness can only be understood
in relationship to each other.
For example in Tai Chi Chuan:
If one leg is empty the other must be full because it carry no body weight.
If one arm is empty the other must be full.
In Tai Chi Chuan we call it: "cross substantiality".
Your mind should be empty.
If mind and internal energy can be freely exchanged,
then there is much satisfaction in performing smoothly and dynamically.
Only when your mind is empty the yin can give place to the yang
and automatically
the yang can give place to the yin.
Only when your mind is empty yin and yang can be exchanged freely
and automatically.
Nature is our greatest teacher.
Automatically.
This is Wuwei-Tzu-jan.
This point between yin and yang,
this turning point between coming and going,
This dead or zero point, this empty or changing point
"This meeting point,
that' s the only place where we can really meet each other."
Botho Strauss
The empty space between Yin and Yang is a very exciting place to be.
The most exciting attractions are between
two opposites that meet each other
in this mysterious changing empty space.
Everything seems to be possible.
Meeting each other but never doing is very exciting.
Full and empty can only be understood in relation to each other.
The fullness of the present is framed by the emptiness
of the past and the future.
Misunderstanding fullness and emptiness is the fundament of all illusions.
The major difference between Tai Chi Chuan and other martial arts
is the development and use of emptiness and fullness.
Tai Chi power can go deep into an opponent's body in a focused manner.
The practioner penetrates into acupuncture points to pass his power into the meridians.
From the meridians, this power goes into the particular internal organ.
Wind and water are powerful elements
We can understand fullness and emptiness by studying wind and water.
Studying and contemplating wind and water :
"The results of gentle penetrations by the wind are less striking than the effects
of brutal force, but far more enduring and more complete".
Lao Tse
Studying and contemplating wind and water :
Taoism came from studying principles, forms, concepts and behaviors.
"Most man find nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of rest,
without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort.
Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness".
Blaise Pascal
Studying and contemplating empty bamboo :
In China for millennia bamboo has been respected for a lot of reasons.
The Chinese bamboo flute :
It's empty and hollow only coming to life when the human spirit moves it.
'Empty bamboo' can easily be made into flutes. The Chinese flute (wind bird) can be used as a weapon, it's a short stick.
Bamboo has been a weapon as far as the tradition of Chinese martial arts itself.
Studying and contemplating animals: the white monkey.
In China the term "the white monkey" is often meant to mean us, humankind.
The white monkey refers to the human monkey mind, producing thoughts
like a monkey jumping from branch to branch.
Tai Chi Classics: about your mind
"Your mind should be empty".
Taoistic classics: about fullness and emptiness.
The motion of the Way is to return.
The use of the way is to accept
The soft overcomes the hard. The yielding overcomes the strong;
Every person knows this
But no one can practice it.
Lao Tse
About Silence
That man’s silence is wonderful to listen to.
(T. Hardy)
Silence is like sleep: it refreshes wisdom.
(F. Bacon)
About emptiness.
Move less, not more.
Not doing is the true doing.
A hundred actions are not equal to one movement of silence.
Wang Xiang-Zhai
SUNGING : EMPTY BAMBOO MOVING
To me Tai Chi Chuan is 'bamboo moving'. Bamboo is not just food but also a reference to Wu Chi (emptiness, or
'the Supreme Indeterminable'), and Wu chi is a reference to the great Tao ('the Supreme Ultimate').
Empty bamboo possesses mysterious power, it can suffer but it's not broken because it can bend. Evergreen bamboo is able to
bow with the prevailing winds, the insides are hole. Bamboos are survivers, they can survive under water, it looks like a
tree but in fact bamboo is a large type of grass with an extremely strong stem. In Taoism empty Bamboo expresses the nature
of Nature (emptiness) but bamboo also expresses emotions of the nature of the Chinese people.
Chinese can have a bamboo-mind, bamboo-eyes, bamboo-legs-hands and fingers, bamboo chi, bamboo melancholy. Bamboo walking,
bamboo waving, bamboo touching, Chinese can become 'bamboo', they can become humble bamboo. Bamboo has great yang and great
yin aspects, great chi! Lucky bamboo
creates harmony and tolerance (it grows apart-together), it is a symbol of happiness, strenght, rapid grow, longlivity,
good health, flexibility, tranquility, resilience, freedom, fullness and emptiness, fame, good relationships and love.
Evergreen bamboo-plum blossom-pine are the 'tree happy friends in winter', and a lightweight (sharpened) bamboo stick is a
famous Chinese weapon.
Being the most natural instrument the Chinese flute goes very well with Nature. The Xun (vessel flute) is made of
clay (earthwind instrument). 'Dizi or Ti' is usually made of bamboo (woodwind or a wind-bird instrument).
China has produced what may be the earliest complete, tightly-dated playable multitone musical instruments.
A nearly 9000 year old bamboo flute is found here. Bamboo flute music is the go-between or the intermediary between
material and non-material things, Chinese flute music is medicine to preventing bad chi.
Tai Chi is 'the practice of bamboo moving', your mind should be empty like a bamboo, your body follows the mind.
Bamboos cannot speak, but they can breath air out, so they can at least whisper, the rustling of their stems and leaves
against the wind sounds like a whisper:
"Heaven is my father, and Earth is my mother.
All people are my brothers and sisters and all things are my companions".
Chang Tsai (1020-1077)
THE HUMAN MONKEY MIND
The universe contains many galaxies. There once was a star in which clever animals invented their mind to fill
themselves with self-importance, with what they are not. And when it is all over with their star and their mind, nothing
will have happened.
Nothing is permanent, everything comes and goes. Sometimes we need a push from other people or a good reality slap in the
face to open our eyes.
Empty the mind, and everything is possible.
In Taoism the white monkey refers to the human monkey mind, our monkey mind is a fool's paradise. We all suffer from monkey
mind, the monkey mind is always on the move producing up thoughts like a monkey jumping from branch to branch. But the
monkeys in our mind causes "havoc in Heaven". Therefore in Tai Chi Chuan the posture "step back and repulse monkey" means :
"empty the mind from monkey mind thoughts". Monkeys are martial acrobats, in particular with their favorite weapon, the
short stick or the Tai Chi staff. Repulse left and right going forward and backward, repulse north, south, east, west,
repulse monkey may in fact be performed any number of times.
"Repulse monkey".
The mind should be empty (Tai Chi Classics). Emotions set the heart afire. The ultimate aim of Taoist practices is to feel
our emotions, but to not let them take hold to cultivate a quiet mind. So the tai chi posture 'repulse monkey' refers to
the reality that nothing is permanent, everything comes and goes. Perform empty steps, repulse monkey. Empty the mind,
even if you feel that your mind is empty, your mind is not empty at all. When the mind is empty, free of thoughts and
emotions anything is possible.
Your Tai Chi form should be an empty form.
If we try to fill ourselves with self-importance we will not be able to stand firmly. Lao Tse's advice is to empty
ourselves and to stop trying to fill ourselves with what we are not, and instead live as we are. In the form the empty mind
creates an empty world where love and beauty is possible. Your martial applications should be empty, love is empty,
all beauty is empty, in Taoism everything and everyone is empty of but full of everything else, what means that every
moment or object is dependently interconnected with and contingent on everything else. Everyone is dependently
interconnected with and contingent on everyone else and therefore anything is possible.
The Middle Way is an empty way.
In Taoism the Middle Way (the Way) is an empty way where anything is possible. The Middle Way is very much associated with
Taoist teachings. "The Middle Way" suggest that there are dangers, the danger of falling off or falling down on one side or
another. The Middle Way is the pad where there is peace, harmony and bliss, the Universe remains in that empty state of
equilibrium, when there is that kind of balance. There is unity of all opposites, if there were not such a unity, there
could not be equilibrium. So when the Yin-Yang balance in the form is disturbed, duality arises and then continues the path
of diversity (the path of the 10000 things), the path of duality. The Middle Way is an empty way, we do not know anything
about the Middle Way as we are still at the beginning of the Way.
The mind should be empty.
Repulse monkey may be performed any number of times. Step back and repulse monkey, perform an empty step and try using your
monkey mind to stand not on your legs but in them. After that stop all trying. Don't think, just do it.