POWER OF TRANSFORMATION
“The inside and the outside – they are made of the same flesh”. This is reportedly the cry a student of Chan (Zen) cried out when he reached enlightenment. It is an apt description of the basic principle a Tai-chi teacher tries to teach to his students to bring them to their first perceptual breakthrough.
Every discipline of personal development is based on the principle that, to change one’s life, you need to change what is going on within yourself. What else can we do? We can’t change the whole world around just to our liking.
And so we learn how perfecting proper body mechanics allows us to perform physical tasks easily. Learning about the mechanics of our attention (mind) allows us to be effective in interpersonal relationships and in navigating our lives.
As we discover the physical and mental behavior patterns that presently fill us, learn which ones are effective and which interfere with our power in life, we can reconstruct the very mechanisms we use to live our lives.
And then we discover that much of the way we perceive the world around us is really a reflection of the patterns of behavior within us. As we become more creative in gaining Tai-chi skills, the world itself seems to change and not be as threatening or as cold.
The student discovers that much of what he took to be the cold reality of life was just the projection of a story he was telling himself, onto the world outside.
At this point he realizes that part of that story was his identity. To really gain power in life, to be able to drop the behavior patterns of battle and self destruction, you have to allow that story about your identity to change.
And then you become just a simple person. In another Zen story, a Buddhist student brags to his Taoist friend that his Buddhist teacher can create miracles. “With a movement of his arm he can make an entire dinner appear in the middle of the forest. He can knock over a band of robbers with one breath. He can clear a valley of fog with one in-breath.” The Taoist student was not impressed. “That’s nothing compared to my teacher,” he said. “What can your Taoist teacher do?” The Taoist student replied, “When my teacher is hungry, he eats. When he is tired, he sleeps.”
To what degree do the stories we have been told, affect our perceptions and our behaviors? We trust that pieces of paper (money) have great value and then numbers in computer memory have great value and then learn, as we have lately, that there is nothing really backing up that value. These are stories we tell each other to help our lives run smoother.
But we have all learned what happens when some of us no longer believe those stories. Perhaps we need to base our lives on stories that are not “built on shifting sands”.
In the novel, The Doubting Snake, I suggest this battle of stories is the basis for the underlying drama of our times and that those who become the new story tellers, can lead us into more meaningful lives.
But we must begin by understanding the stories that we have based our lives on. To what degree is health, loving relationships, and a feeling of connection to the earth important in our lives? And to what degree does the quest for money overshadow these values?
If you tell yourself a new story, a healthy one, that story may resonate with others and become their story. The power of life is to be the story teller and not just the actor portraying someone else’s story.
Transform the inside to transform the outside. This is what every Tai-chi student must realize at deeper and deeper levels.
