Prescott Tai Chi Classes

Hello Everyone. I hope you have had an enlightening day in some way that you either understand now or will understand further down the River of Time.

Sometimes when I teach a meditation course I will discuss the nature of meditation as “training wheels”. Let me explain.

Sometimes we sit and learn a new special breathing technique. Or perhaps we learn a Mantra or a series of Mantras. We might study and practice a Mudra, ( a way of holding our hands while we meditate.)

I could go on and on because there are practically an infinite number of different forms of meditation.
From time to time we have a discussion about mindfulness. This is when I occasionally will compare “practicing Meditation” to a set of training wheels.

Truly we are learning to hold our mind in the moment and not allow our consciousness to get stuck in the past or in the future. We sit and still our body, quiet our mind and lead our consciousness to emptiness.
The point is to learn to “take it with you’ You can begin practicing right now. As you walk from one room to another you hold on to the present moment.It would also be accurate to say you constantly release the present moment as the new moment is born.
In Buddhism there is a concept of leaving no stain. This is the idea of having experience, yet allowing it to be empty as it actually is because it passes by and is gone in exactly the moment it arises.
To leave no stain is like carrying no baggage from the past.
This is not the same thing as forgetting , it is allowing our perception to stay pure, clear and empty.
You may consider it as the empty Sky of Mind if you would like. We can also see experience passes by the rice paper of our mind but we don’t allow it to leave a stain, or an emotional response that holds us back.
How could it hold us back? When we are carrying an emotional reaction and focusing on it we lose our mindfulness of the moment.

This moment is Meditation. This moment is the only moment we are experiencing. Meditation infers that we train ourselves or receive a transmission from a teacher that helps us release the past as it passes and live in the moment as opposed to anticipation of the future.
This does not mean that if you have thoughts of the past or future that you have stained your mind and now you have an irrepairable consciousness. We are talking here about the practice of meditation in this moment.
We wish to have most of our perception empty, not carrying anything. It could be simply put that we see what we see, hear what we hear, feel what we feel, taste and smell what we taste and smell and allow the experience to dissipate as clouds in the Sky of Mind.

This is closer to what is meant by meditation. Please don’t misunderstand. I most certainly am not saying that meditation techniques do not have their own very important place, they do.
One does not want to get stuck there is all. Life in the moment,mindful as each moment passes and not walking around daydreaming. We have all heard to let go, or let it be, there is a subtle truth in this.
So we can sit ,breathe and chant. Walk, watch the sun set and perhaps notice a new flower blooming.
We can continuously practice meditative states , wakefulness, mindfulness , awareness of the moment, awareness of this moment passing.

Learning how to release an emotional charge from an experience can be a useful life skill. We can learn a lifes lesson by absorbing useful information from an event and then let it go. The importance of the lesson exists and becomes a part of your ability to relate to life and the people in it. We just learn to put down the emotional baggage and live free in the moment.
This does not infer a life with no responsibilities.Although some people choose to change the meaning of the word responsibility.
It means the ability to respond.

If our mind is clear and we are not carrying illusions from the past or future we have the ability to respond in the present.
Be here now,live life in the moment. We have all heard these cliches.
They are actually meditative skills that take the profound lessons learned from the Meditation traditions and teachers and bring them to life right along with each new step.

One may even intentionally meditate upon the deeper meaning of an article like this one. This can be done by reading it through two or three times and allowing it to sink down into our sub-conscious mind where perhaps deeper meanings that apply to our own life can come to fruition. We can come to more permanent understanding through direct experiences than we can by having words fed to us. However words can be carefully used to help teach others where experiences can be found, discovered by one’s self so the direct experience becomes a permanent lesson.

This is a simple lesson on meditation, nothing more than a set of training wheels. thanks for listening. Now smile deeply to yourself and salute the highest aspects of all beings. I wish you light, love and happiness.
I will talk to you again real soon.
Namaste

I believe in the power of Tai-Chi to participate in a significant way in helping the world put more energy into cooperation and less into competition. This is an underlying aspect of the credo of Tai-Chi. I wish for all practitioners to share their breakthroughs as opposed to sticking them up their sleeve’s where they can actually only stagnate. the rising tide lifts all boats and together we can assist in the propagation of Tai-Chi with intent.

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Philosophy by aaronK