Spirituality Becomes Practical When Practicality Becomes Spiritual

Have you ever felt that a good part of your spiritual life doesn't make it into your real life? Have you ever felt a frustration within yourself because your life experience doesn't reflect your spiritual desires. Perhaps, there is no separation of the two and it is only in your perception. We often keep our spirituality in a “higher plane” than our earth realm. We can fall into the trap of expecting our spiritual desires to be created in the moment, without necessarily any preparation on our part. Just connect and it's there for us. It is certainly true that everything is there for us, but something more needs to be added for us to have access to it.

I have seen many spiritual seekers forgo the practical tasks of everyday life. But if you think about it, how can we bring our spirituality into the world and connect with others consistently if we don't do what is needed in the earth realm. I am talking about things like, money management, organization, planning, learning new skills, taking care of our bodies, etc. I am sure you can name the areas you neglect for yourself.

I can say for myself that lack of organization in my life has greatly decreased my effectiveness in both growing spiritually and making a difference. That is a painful realization, yet true. What is your limiter. I ask this not in a way to make you feel pain, but for you to free yourself by seeing the truth. (Another fallacy of the spiritual life is that it will be void of pain or conflict, a subject for another blog).

So how would your inner and outer life change if you considered balancing your checkbook, or planning your time, etc a highly spiritual act? Will that take you out of the flow or put you more in the flow? Do things happen for you more spontaneously when you are prepared or when you haven't prepared?

Joe's World

Faith or Hope

There is an old story about a boy who lived in a small village.  Since the village was centrally located, the circus would come to town every year for a month and perform each day.  This boy was captivated by the circus.  He loved the elephants and the tigers. He loved the clowns and the acrobats.  And he especially loved the tightrope walker.  The tightrope walker had a “trick”.  He would push a wheelbarrow in front of him as he walked the rope.  This man really impressed the boy and finally at the end of the month he got up the nerve to talk to him.  He told the tightrope walker how great and fantastic he was. He smothered him with accolades.

The tightrope walker smiled , said thank you, and added, “if you think I am so great, would you like to sit in the wheelbarrow for my next performance?”   No matter what the boy said, his answer to the question showed his true faith.

We can say we have faith in something, but do we act in accordance with that faith?  If not, I say that you just have hope.  You hope it is true.  When you act from faith, you come from a place of knowing.  So faith really comes down to one thing.  Do you walk your talk.  It  is action oriented.  Your best test for faith is how you act in the face of a potential negative consequence. For example, in my business, if I make a mistake, I can lose money to correct the situation.  So if I find myself hesitating to do the right thing because I am afraid to lose the money, I can see where I lack faith and I can correct it.

Since in many ways our faith defines who we are, it is important to look at what you are putting faith into.  Are you putting faith in higher principles and acting from them, or are you putting faith in some lower principles and acting from them.  Analyze your actions and reactions in your daily life and that will tell you about your faith.  Act from higher principles and see what happens.  After you have enough experience with them, you can speak about them to others and be powerful. 

You see, faith is as tangible as your nose.  It affects every aspect of our lives and does not live in some far away ideal world.  So study how faith lives in your daily life and make it tangible and practical.

Joe's World

Let's Be in the Moment

One common spiritual desire I often hear is to be in the moment. I believe this to be true, but I think that we often want to short cut the disciplined effort that is required to be able to get there. We often mistake being in the moment as just doing what we feel like doing at any moment. I have participated in many “spiritual” drum circles where people get in a circle and drum “together”. However there often seems to be a problem. Instead of drumming together, people are drumming out their own rhythms and the sound, if you took the time to listen, would definitely take you right out of the moment. You will want to be somewhere else.

From a spiritual perspective, I believe that the desire to be in the moment really means that we want to be able to connect to and align with a higher power at any time. We really want to be and do in the moment what our purpose calls us forth to be and do.

Did you ever notice that some people in your life just seem to raise the energy no matter what the circumstances and others take it down. It has to do with what they are connecting to in the moment and that can become habitual. If we develop a discipline of connecting to a higher power, it will become our normal state. “To those who have will be given more ….”

So how do we distinguish what power we are connected to at any moment?   It takes study and practice to learn the experience of the higher power. It takes the ability to take in data while staying calm and powerful. It takes working with a system that gives you real feedback so that you can become confident in your ability to continually distinguish the higher power from other distractions. The higher power is based in both practicality and mystery so it can't be recognized with intellect alone.

In Tai-Chi, I find all the elements are there to learn to be in the moment. Do you have a system that does it for you?

Joe's World

Spiritual Freedom is Discipline – part 1

In many spiritual circles there seems to be a special admiration for the free spirit.  The people who can just go with the flow and wing it.  The spontaneous ones. They are the people who are supposedly most plugged in to life.  But the question is, do those people truly experience freedom?

I have lived a lot of my life trying to be that free spirit, and from my experience, it does not really give you true freedom.   In fact, I was experiencing a lot of stress below the surface because there was nothing I could count on and I was often less prepared to get the most out of myself.  If you think about it, true freedom or aliveness comes from the interplay of flow and structure. Water flows powerfully in pipes and music has both notes and space.   We often mistake structure as something that will keep us rigid, but if used properly, it gives us a powerful way to create.

We are amazed by sports figures like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, who seem to come up with moves out of thin air.  We love a great guitar solo or a great dance performance.  The great performers who create  on the fly and make things look easy have spent many hours practicing and are so grounded in structure that they can be completely present.  Their total presence in the moment allows them to be spontaneous because all of their intelligences (body, mind, emotions, etc) can work together.
That is what gives us a spiritual experience as the knowledge arises from someplace bigger than ourselves.

You could say that the way to freedom is by training to become present. And to become present, we must be aware of structure and flow.  In Tai-Chi, we practice our form (structure) and we practice flow ( how we are moving while doing the form).  In pushing hands we practice the interplay of both.

So think about the times in your life you have felt the most freedom with the deepest sense of  inner satisfaction, not just a fleeting good feeling.  Has there been both structure and flow at those times?

Joe's World

Spirituality and the Ideal

There is an old joke you may have heard about a man who lived in an area where there was a flood that rose to just below the roof of his house.  So he climbed on the roof and asked God to save him.  Soon after, the police came by in a row boat and told him to hop in.  He said “No, God will save me.”  Later, a helicopter hovered over him and he sent it away saying “God will save me.”  After he sent away a canoeist who came to help him, the flood got worse and he started to drown.  He cried out to God, “ Dear God, I have always believed in you, but when I asked you to save me, you never showed up, and now I am drowning.  Why did you ignore me?” And God said, “You idiot, I sent you a row boat, a helicopter, and a canoe.”

One way we can trip ourselves up in our quest for enlightenment is that we can hold some ideal of what enlightenment should look like.  I always thought that I would really have arrived when in every second things worked out exactly how I wanted it to.  I would never have a flat tire, I would never be in a traffic jam, everyone would love me immediately, etc.

So we can think that until we  reach our ideal, we are not enlightened.  Since that ideal of enlightenment is only in our head , it really isn't valid.  So we can end up trying to obtain something that we will never have and miss what we really do have.

We can call for spiritual guidance but then we don't listen because it doesn't fit the ideal.  Learning to listen and follow spirit takes practice.  In Tai-Chi , this is what we practice.  When doing the form, we go at a pace where we can watch what is happening with our body, mind, and emotions.  We learn to observe from a place of inner quiet.

When doing pushing hands, we learn that when we have a preconceived notion about what we need to do, or what our partner is doing, we will put ourselves in a weakened position.  When we can move fluidly based on what is happening now, we are in a stronger position.  We train this awareness until our fluidity becomes a natural way to be.

We also learn to stay aware under any circumstance.  One of my most memorable moments in Tai-Chi was not when I felt like I was dancing and being light on my feet, but when I got punched in the face.  I was able to experience the awe of that moment and continue to flow and keep my energy level from dropping.  Now that was a spiritual experience.

Do you define what spirituality must look like?  How does that affect your ability to communicate with your heart and soul?

Joe's World

Looking back, I can laugh out loud at my spiritual journey because I believe I missed the obvious.
The brother of my best friend in high school studied personally with the Dali Lama and he tells a story about the first time he saw the Dali Lama speak.  To the best of my memory, the story goes that after his talk , the audience was able to ask him questions.  A student asked the Dali Lama what the secret was to living a spiritual life.  Everybody took out their notebooks and with baited breath waited to write down the profound words of wisdom that they were about to hear.  The keys to the kingdom.  They were ready to write down many words and many sentences.  As the Dali Lama was about to speak, everyone focused in , not to miss the the pearls that would change their life forever. 
And then came his answer.   “Be Happy”.  It seemed too simple.  Was that all there is?

Now I can't say for sure this story is true because I wasn't there, and the details may not be correct, but I think it has a great point.

How often do we make being happy so difficult, so complicated, so unimportant. I know that for most of my life spirituality was burdensome.  So often in the past, I got stuck in trying to be happy or convincing myself I was happy. I would list in my mind all the things I had that other people didn't necessarily have like a good paying “professional” job, ability to take excellent vacations, athletic ability, I was good in math, etc.   That is how I tried to convince myself how great my life was, but I wasn't authentically happy.  Authentic happiness does not have to be explained or rationalized.  I can see that for me, the thing that most kept  me from being happy was my mind.

Many spiritual seekers, I believe,  make the mistake of thinking that the mind has no place in spirituality because it gets in the way.  However, from my study of Tai-Chi, I have found that the mind is just as important to my spiritual growth as my heart and it is actually aligned with my heart, soul , and body in its spiritual functioning when I use it correctly.

When practicing Tai-Chi, I have noticed that when my mind is engaged in a way that is trying to figure out things and explain them , I am completely out of sync and have no idea what is happening around me, even though I think I do.  I can't listen to my teacher because I am too caught up in a world of knowing.  He will ask me to do something differently and I will do it the same way I always did it.

When my mind is in an observation mode, noticing the details around me, I am present to what I am doing and adjusting as I go along so that I can improve from my teachers instruction. My observational state of my mind allows all my other intelligences (body, heart, emotional) to work freely, effortlessly, and powerfully.  That state creates authentic happiness.  I may not get the Tai-Chi move correctly, but I know the next step for me and it is fun.

So the magic of practicing Tai-Chi for me is that I am training myself in a way to have authentic happiness in my life because I am learning how to use all my gifts together. I can have my spirit, my heart, my body, and emotions all work together and bring myself to that “spiritual” state even in stressful circumstances.

Spiritual principles are nothing new, but we often don't get to practice them consistently.  The magic of Tai-Chi at DojoKitchen is that it gives me practical tools to practice being authentically happy.  Practice makes permanent.

Do you talk about being happy without authentically being that way?  I honor your desire to be happy.  It is said that seek and you shall find.  Part of seeking I have found is finding the right tools.  Tai-Chi is that tool for me.

Joe's World

In spiritual quests, at least for me in the past, when something “goes wrong”, I would find myself doubting and even getting angry at God.  That has changed greatly since practicing Tai-Chi on a serious level.

For the last few weeks, I have had a tender knee.  In the past , I would have been mad about that , thinking from a spiritual perspective that my body should  be without pain, or should heal extremely fast. It would be my measure of  how spiritual I had become. So in the past I would be feeling unhappy about my injuries, never noticing how miraculous my body is.  Think about it, broken bones heal, wounds stop bleeding, etc.  How wonderful our bodies are.  I never realized how full my life can be no matter what the state my body is in.

From practicing Tai-Chi, I have developed a great respect and trust for my body that is undeniable and filled with joy.  I am using my tender knee to learn more about my body.  I have discovered that my quadriceps and hamstrings are more than one muscle.  I have seen how the knee interacts with the rest of my leg, pelvis, etc.  I have not had to curtail my study and I am enjoying and appreciating my body in new ways.  In fact, my skills are increasing due to my injuries.

And the best part is that as my knee heals, it is working better than ever.  And as my knee heals, the rest of my body works better.  The great thing about learning about your body is that you can have confidence that with proper care, which is actually fun to do, you don't have to give up your youthfulness. 

I am not advocating getting injured to learn, but in life when things don't go as you want, we have a choice about how we will deal with it.  When you can create a loving relationship with your body, you can expand that to all parts of your life.  You can see the magic of a loving spirit right here on earth.  Just because things aren't the way you think they should be doesn't mean that you can't be “unreasonably happy” as my teacher, Sang, says.

What kind of relationship do you have with your body?  How does that parallel with the rest of your life?  How does that map to your spiritual life?  Have fun noticing.

Joe's World

We often think and speak about spirituality as a far away mystical place or as an abstract intellectual idea.  In both cases, it is easy to miss the beautiful spiritual world we live in right here on earth.  It is easy to disconnect our physical life from our spiritual life.  We have heard many times that the physical world and the spiritual world are interconnected, but we don't have many tools to teach us how that is true, so we often get stuck in our knowledge and lack understanding about our own connectedness and true nature.

Tai-Chi, in my experience gives us an opportunity to intimately examine our true nature.  
We get to experience our miraculous nature and our child like nature.  It allows us to practice spiritual principles with our own body where we can see those principles work in the physical world.  This practice allows us to develop deeper faith in our creator and allows us to learn more clearly what we are passionate about.  While doing Tai-Chi I have learned to slow down and savor the moments of simple beauty such as smelling a flower or enjoying the taste of a juicy pineapple.  I have learned to enjoy the simple pleasure of smiling for no reason.

In the spiritual world of feelings and intellect, there is no place to test our wisdom.  We read and hear things, but how can we rely on them without testing them?  The physical world is the place we can get feedback and confirm the truth.  I imagine there will always be mystery and unknowns to life, but just as we can learn to drive a car without understanding physics and thermodynamics, we can harness our spirit and go beyond our limits by learning to map the spiritual with the physical.

When practicing Tai-Chi, you get a very intimate experience of the miracle that your body is.  Whether you experience graceful movement, centered thoughts, healing, or other things, Tai-Chi gives you an ability to do things that you never thought you could and it also allows you to know the elegance and strength that only a greater being can create.  This comes from practicing, observing, experiencing, and being curious.  It takes more than just thought.

Whether you practice Tai-Chi or not, have some fun this week noticing how your physical world relates to your spiritual world.

Meaningful Spiritual Experience

It seems that spirituality becomes important to a human being at some point in their life.  Even if someone decides that there is no God, it seems they have to go through some deep thinking on the issues of life to come to that decision.  At least all the people that I have met so far seem to go through this.  Maybe it is just the crowd I hang out with.

One thing that I often encounter is that most spiritual practice lacks a physical component, and I don’t mean rituals. 

This beckons the question, can you have a spiritual experience without the body?  Even if you had an intellectual epiphany, don’t you still need the body to have the ‘Ah-Ha’ experience?  All that spine tingly sensation and the pleasurable joy you feel is a physical reality.  When we are seeking a spiritual experience, it’s not possible is it?   

We’ve all had spiritual experiences by accident in some point in our lives.  We were either in nature and were captured by its grandness and its beauty, or experienced the genuine love and kindness in our own lives that we so often read and hear about people such as Mother Teresa.  Some of us have life-altering realizations that change the course of our lives, a pivotal moment in our lives, where we become sure of what our life purpose is.  It seems like for most of us, we just feel lucky to stumble upon it. 

I think that having these accidents is good sign.  It means that we are all able to experience it.  So, is there a way to get there consistently?

It seems like there are few things that trigger these experiences.  When we connect with something that is grand and vast, something that is beyond us, we seem to have a spiritual experience.  When we come into contact with something that is extremely beautiful, we are captured by it and that also gives us a spiritual experience.  We are also relaxed and our mind is free of thought when these things happen.  These experiences also happen when we make deep meaningful connections with others, or when we accomplish something that was either meaningful or very challenging.  We have spiritual moments when we come across concepts (truths) that are deeply profound and bring about a paradigm shift in our own lives. 

So to summarize:
1.    Grand
2.    Beautiful
3.    Deep relationship with another
4.    Relaxed
5.    In the moment (mind free of thought)
6.    Meaningful work
7.    Overcoming challenge
8.    Knowledge that brings paradigm shift     

I am sure there is more of than this, but for the purpose of what I am writing, I think this will make the point.  I think one of the reasons why we have such a limited spiritual experience is because most of us focus only on trying to practice our spirituality through one or two of these ways.  A lot of us take the intellectual route where we are trying to get the knowledge.  This makes sense because knowledge can lead to wisdom. 

For example, in a book I read, there was this lady who was tasked to create a Sex Ed curriculum.  As she was creating this, she realized that knowledge by itself wasn’t going to do anything.  She had been reading a lot of books on how to lose weight.  At that point in time she knew enough to be able to create an entire curriculum on how to lose weight but she realized that reading all those books hadn’t helped her lose any of her weight.

It is interesting that in the entire list above, only one is truly intellectual.  The other has more to do with interaction, being plugged in.  Plugged in to what?  Into nature, into an environment that is beautiful, being plugged into people, being plugged into yourself, being plugged into work, … being plugged into reality. 

When God refers to himself in the bible, He refers to Himself as “I AM’.  I have also read that there is a thought that the name of God ‘YHVH’ (Tetragrammaton) means, ‘that which was, that which is, and that which is to come’.  In short, it describes the ultimate reality.

Whether a person believes in God or not, it seems like life is not in the logic of things.  It seems like life is in the rich experience of reality.  We live in a society where we live in our thoughts.  So much of our lives are consumed and caught up in media.  We interact with the computer, we watch TV, movies, play games.  We live in a world of signals.  Most of us have lost the activities that ground us to our bodies, where we get to soak up hammering a nail into a project, or we get to wrestle with our friends, where the physical reality soaks are minds with sensations that are pleasurable and rewarding.             

I think it is no accident why Jesus gave the following answer when a lawyer asked him “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  He answered:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”

I think our lives are deprived with the nutrition of spiritual foods of good relationship, things that feed our soul such as beauty and grandness, and things we get to do with our bodies that bring us physical joy.  It seems we try to compensate this through more knowledge in a world inundated with knowledge already.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love knowledge.  But even for those of us who are addicted to knowledge, and yes, I am a knowledge addict, this line comes to mind “Wisdom is practicing what you know.”       

I just think we are aching for more than intellectual knowledge.  I think we are looking for a real interaction, where we get to do full contact spirituality.  We are unable to lose our unhealthy spiritual weight even though we have a lot of spiritual knowledge.

What Matters in Life

Yesterday was the 5th Memorial of my teacher, Gabriel Chin.  We got together at The Cube at 4 o’clock to practice Tai-Chi and then we all went over to TK Wu for dinner (a Taiwanese Restaurant.  Gabriel was personal friend with the cook and owner of the restaurant.  He help the owner set up the restaurant.  They are family).

It was great to see all the people.  Before we started the White Crane Chi-Gong and Tai-Chi, we were catching up with each other.  Before it was time to start, one of the original members came up to me and said “Isn’t it interesting that it been 5 years since Gabriel left us, and we are still getting together here to celebrate the legacy he left us.  Makes you think about what’s important in life.  I think you should mention that before we start.”  (This was Joseph Staron blaming the idea on Jeff Nofts.  Between the 2 of them, you can never know.).  It does make you think about life doesn’t it? 

I was chewing on this big thought more this morning and I thought it was interesting that 1/3 of the people that gathered never new him.  They were new students.  They just got together because Gabriel had shared something with us that we can share with them.

Spirituality?

When you are in martial arts one thing becomes apparent to you very early on.  There are things that work and things that don’t work.  And there is a tremendous difference between doing it right and not right.  If you have the right leverage, and you have captured the opponents balance properly, it is effortless.  But even if you are off by a hair, if you don’t have it, you don’t have it.  

I used to liken it to a house made out of a deck of cards.  It’s either standing or it’s not.  It’s all in the balance of things.

This experience teaches us there is a proper way to do things and that if things are done in that manner things come to you in a rich and rewarding, but effortless way.  To me spirituality is recognizing and working on that effort to be in the flow with the guiding forces of life.  Often times, I think we make spirituality too difficult.  It becomes too abstract and too conceptual.  I think spiritual experiences are found not only in the grand things but more often in the small things, in the more tangible things of life, such as looking at a snow flake through a magnifying glass with your kid, or if you are a kid with your mom or dad.

Spirituality is not just nice, but it deals with all aspects of life.  It is like air.  It’s everywhere.  It is subtle and often times we don’t know it is their, but when it’s not there it becomes a stark reality.  It is subtle but it is powerful and it is a reality even though it is not obvious.

We learn how to breathe so that we can recover when we are sparring and we feel out of breath and our lungs are burning, our muscles slack from fatigue.  Then at some point, we realize that we got fatigued because we weren’t breathing to begin with.  So, we start on breathing more often.  Then we realize that most of the time we breathe but when the pressure is on we still hold our breath.  Then we learn how to exhale when the pressure is on so that we still keep on breathing and we relax more so we don’t get exhausted.  At some point, we learn how to breathe so that we store energy ahead of time in anticipation of the energy that will be used so that when we start the activity we don’t run out of breath.  Then at some point, we learn that the rate of breathing and the depth of breathing matters.  This story of breath continues, for there is much more to be told about breath and its secrets, and it is a wonderful story.

The situations of life can be tough.  Air itself is there just to give you life.  It is there to support you.  It is always there.  It never leaves you.  But you do have to learn to let it support you.  When you learn how to let the air support you, it is possible that the toughest situations in life can be taken with a breath.  Spirituality is this journey not unlike the journey of breathing to a martial artist.  It is this relationship you develop where you learn to trust it and the more you learn to trust it, it teaches you more.  But you cannot learn it until you are willing to learn from it.  It seems there is truth to the saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

The Art of Worship

3/24/10

Hello my fellow friends!

For us, practicing Tai-Chi and using it to live out the Biblical principles as best as we can according to our understanding is a joy in our life.  For us Tai-Chi is our art of worship.  Some people use art, some people use music, we have learned Tai-Chi is a wonderful way to come closer to God. 

This blog is intended to share our experiences with anybody who likes to see how we apply our understanding in our lives, and is in no way intended as a means to convince anyone.  Rather, we would like to spur ideas as to how you could utilize your understanding of your own spiritual journey of whatever your back ground you come from in tangible ways. 

   

I have been having a real exciting spiritual journey recently.   I woke up this morning tired and groggy.  I could feel my whole body is off, and I could feel my meridians are not flowing and my energy was stuck.  Not getting enough sleep recently doesn’t help.  I am grateful at these times that I can identify some of what’s off with my body.  Otherwise, I would just think that I am tired and would feel there is not much I can do about my condition besides resting. 

I started the morning by moving as if I was doing the form, and my joints started feeling better.  I started relaxing my brain and I relaxed them further by relaxing my facial muscles.  I softened my eyes, and I slowed my breath so that I felt pleasure in my breath.

On days like this, it seems I take more delight in God’s creation.  I started taking things at pace.  I relaxed my body, and I found my center.  I stopped all rushing.  I found myself in a meditative state.  I started feeling the energy starting to flow in my body, my body resting.  I felt that I started moving slower than my body was expending the energy.  Now I feel my body receiving the energy and I am resting in God’s embrace that is available everywhere.  It is on these days I feel most thankful and most restful.  It is amazing even when I have no energy how everything gets done.  It seems like the body when stressed starts rushing to get things done sooner, but by stopping this process, there is infinite energy available.  I think the hardest part is to remember that the energy is always available, and it is already there.  We can just receive it. 

While I am waiting for the computer to turn on, I read a few passages.  I figured I might as well put this time to good use.  I am reading proverbs, and chapter 8 is Wisdom itself talking to us.  In Chapter 8, verse 22 - 23, It says,

The LORD made me as the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old.
I was made in the very beginning, at the first, before the world began.

Wisdom is his way.  I felt that we are learning to live by wisdom, not just thinking it.  By reading all of chapter 8, I got the distinct understanding that Wisdom is having the knowledge and understanding of how God’s law works, including the laws of nature.  The following lines gives an even better idea (Proverbs 8:28 – 31).

When he placed the clouds in the sky, when he opened the springs of the ocean
and ordered the waters of the sea to rise no further than he said. I was there when he laid the earth's foundations.
I was beside him like an architect, I was his daily source of joy, always happy in his presence---
happy with the world and pleased with the human race.

I realized that I feel this joy that Wisdom feels because she resides in me when I align myself with the laws of God that He wrote in this world.  When my body is obeying and following the law, it receives Wisdom. 


When I came across the following lines in Proverbs 8:53:

Those who find me find life, and the LORD will be pleased with them.
Those who do not find me hurt themselves; anyone who hates me loves death."

I was reminded of the principle that ‘We are always training whether we are aware of it or not’.  Which leads us to a sister principle ‘We are either growing or dying’.  If we do things right for our body we go towards live, and if we do things misaligned we go towards death.  For instance, a lot of us using the computer have stiff upper backs and have slight hunch.  Most people don’t think in these terms but we are training to have a hunch.  Over time, we get stiffer and stiffer in this position so we can perform our jobs better and more efficiently.  We get what we practice.  We are practicing to get a hunch back.  Now while we are practicing to get a hunch back, other muscles are atrophying.  This is because we typically sit 8 hours in front of a computer yet, most of us don’t do anything outside of sitting in front of the computer.  So, all the other muscles are becoming weaker while our hunchback is becoming stronger.  We all know that a stiff upper back is not a way to go.  Our life is becoming more and more limited, less and less movement.  In Taoist thinking, not moving is death.  Anything that has life has movement.  I think this is a very simple yet powerful principle that is demonstrated in all aspects of life.   

I find it a fascinating journey to read the scriptures and be able to see it not only in all aspects of my life, but that it also helps specifically with my Tai-Chi, and practicing Tai-Chi allows appreciate the bible even more in a tangible sense.  It is a wonderful practice to be able to intellectually ponder the word of God but at the same time feel you can appreciate them in a concrete and tangible manner.