Tai Chi Talks: Tao Te Ching Chapter 6

[@philipr8245]

Thanks you for your interpretation of the script. Trying to explain or understand something that cannot be described. Got it!

[@DarsanaMartialArts]

Hello, @philipr8245. Thank you for appreciating my work. I'm glad you got something out of it.

[@LucVanGael]

Thanks again for sharing this. I appreciate you mentioning Carl G. Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Joseph Campbell in your explanation. As for the wuji, I like to look at it as the 0 in the Fibonacci series. The series starts with 0 (wuji) (look at the shape of the number: a unit that contains everything), then comes 1 (consciousness?), another but a different 1 (intention?), then the two appears (action? birth? big bang?) which immediately produces two opposites or complementary ones. Then we have the 3 (trinity?) (yang, yin, and yong? / upper, lower, and heart dantien?). We continue with number 5 (senses?), and then comes 8 (form of infinity). Finally, the ten thousand things spring from wuji. The Fibonacci series can be found in nature and, when its given a visual form, it brings such a beautiful spiral, a spiral that contains the (ideal?) ratio phi, the golden ratio. However, I do not look at wuji as a perfect balance without any movement, but rather as flows that move and pass next to each other and flow into each other with an infinite number of possibilities. We can certainly experience these internal movements in our wuji stance. Even though it seems possible in our physical world to let things balance on each other without any movement, there is still an internal movement in those things (vibrations of atoms, ...). In my experience, in my feeling, the great void is not empty. 'Nothing' does not exist, but there is simply no 'something' that can perceive these flows in that 'nothing'. Only when that 'nothing' realizes itself, when a consciousness arises, a self-awareness, only then a 'something' is born (the first 1 of Fibonacci) and the infinite possibilities can come alive. Although the surface of still water is perfectly flat and shows no sign of movement, there are always flows present underneath the surface. Still water flows beneath the surface. In our tai chi we always tend to focus on our lower dantien, as we are material creaturs in a material world. Maybe it is not a bad idea to put some focus in our upper dantien during our wuji stance. A focus at the spiritual. After a while, the focus will automaticaly shift to te lower dantien and movement (taiji) is born. Let us let the upper dantien (yang) connect with the lower dantien (yin) into our heart dantien (yong) and live from our hearts. With my comments above I do not mean to be pedantic. I hope you do not experience them as such. For myself, I always find it valuable to find out how someone else look at things. That is exactly why I find your videos so valuable. Thanks again.

[@DarsanaMartialArts]

Hi @LucVanGael. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading them, and I always appreciate what you share. As for wuji, I would say that by definition, it doesn't exist. It is THE Unmanifest. It is unrealized, infinite, potential. The moment something is happening, it becomes a manifest, finite thing that has beginning and end. Then it is no longer wuji (though the principle of wuji is still and always present). The concept of wuji is useful for practice, however, on many levels. Physically, I think the balance of forces (as internal vector equilibrium) is a useful way of interpreting it. A zero point of potential. Your Fibonacci origin point. Of course, you are right that we are never fully at zero. There is always movement in the manifest. That is why manifest being is always technically Taiji, not Wuji. The principle of wuji is crucial, though, and our focus on it is what draws yin and yang into the dynamic harmony of taiji in our practice. In the same way that zero allows us to grasp positive and negative integers. So, wuji isn't something we can see or do, by definition. Just like zero doesn't have manifest existence. Wuji calls to us from the realm of the infinite. Our practice is a process of coming ever nearer to that, like the curved line that comes infinitely closer to the straight line but will never touch. Yet all that we are and do emerges from wuji and returns to it, as we will ultimately, when our time in the manifest realm is done. I like your inclusion of the heart. I would say that it is the bridge between the infinite and the finite. The point from which we intuit their connection and meaning wordlessly. Regards, Grant

[@cameronameri]

Outstanding lecture! Thank you.

[@DarsanaMartialArts]

Thank you for saying so. I'm glad you got something out of it.