Brenda Sparks Prescott

My Tai Chi teacher in this life is Ben Booth of Dharma Voyage. I’ve been studying with him for more than a decade.

What is Tai Chi? It’s often translated as “grand ultimate,” but that’s just as opaque, isn’t it? Here’s what I found in the search for an answer to that question.

Tai Chi is a fine fiction with many layers of meaning, but if you don’t care about or don’t see the subtexts and suprastructures, you still get treated to a good story. It’s a great practice for long-term toning, keeping joints supple, and improving balance on one foot, or even better, two. It’s a moving meditation with Teacher’s invitation to pay attention but not focus, hit every position while maintaining flow, keep class togetherness while executing your best individual form. “It’s this and that,” Ben says, pressing his two fists together. But which ‘this’? What ‘that’?

It's the solid core of a mature oak tree anchoring the lacy wave of its furthest leaves. It’s blades of summer grass rebounding from a firm foot step. It’s a hawk flying even with the car window and an eagle feeding on the side of the highway. It’s dream practice of parts of the form that aren’t a part of the form practiced during the day. It’s Teacher commenting that perhaps the extra parts of the dream form may not be extra at all, but part of the Form.

It's making a life-changing commitment to the demands of a Dharma Voyage mastery class retreat-in-place. It’s questioning everything, every single thing in life, including the form of life itself. It’s a red steel crane fishing for the steely bones of an art museum. It’s the midnight wink of the red crane’s red light eye. It’s the sick sycamores. It’s the texture of a hiking trail—the cushion of piled leaves, the humps of tree roots, the crowns of rocks and pebbles. It’s the space between form and non-form. It’s Teacher saying, “You have to be desperate and insane to accomplish anything.” In a moment of physical danger, it’s asking and answering the question, “What do I need to live?”

It's the shuffle and clatter of timeless masters joining Teacher in leading the class. It’s letting the big muscles do the heavy lifting.

Tree-rimmed snowy field,
Christmas eagle perched,
Flaps, lifts, circles, glides.

 It’s the differing story lines of the Tao Te Ching and the Te Tao Ching leading to the same nameless place. While reflecting on those two different paths and practicing the form, it’s finding the connections between the beginning and the end of the form and the energy that vectors from each toward the middle. It’s the morning conversational music of neighborhood birds, some passing along a riff from left to right, others calling and responding from tree top and roof’s edge. It’s the upright posture of a century-old steel beam in the corridor of a former factory.

It's Teacher pointing at the moon even when all you can see is his finger. It’s the Tao Te Ching saying:

The very highest is barely known by man.
Then comes that which they know and love,
Then that which is feared,
Then that which is despised.

 He who does not trust enough will not be trusted.

 When actions are performed
Without unnecessary speech,
People say, “We did it.”

 Thank you, Teacher. “We did it!”