It rains hard on a covered thing

It rains hard on a covered thing

It rains not hard on an open thing.

—-By Luangpor Teean, (1911—1988)

The purpose of Buddhist and Taoist practice is to end suffering, duhhka.

Suffering ends when there is awareness.

The cultivation of awareness in every moment is the heart of Buddhist and Taoist cultivation.

The cultivation of awareness is to keep mindful in all position, standing walking, sitting, blinking of an eye. For when you are aware of your present moment, then delusion will melt away like snow under the strong heat of sunlight.

In order to end suffering, we should let thought flow freely and let awareness see thought and break through the chain of thought and swims against the current of thought. This required us to strengthen our awareness thought rhythmic bodily movements, one movement at a time. Thought the development of awareness, wisdom arises.

The key to this practice is the simplicity of approach: aware of one movement at a time.

During Taiji practice, one tends to get too involve with the internal sensations and then losses the simple awareness of the movement. This is analogous to being in the mountain and not being aware of the mountain, having been so involved with climbing up the cliff. By being aware of the simple motion of the movement, this gives one a calmness and tranquility that is different from normal practice. In a normal Taiji session, one tends to have a habit of striving, to improve, to pump the Qi. All this effort of practice goes contrary to the Taoist vision of Wu-wei, effortless. Having simple awareness of lifting an arm in White Crane, is very different from having the complexity of that lifting is a defense against a overhead chop.

In this way, one comes full circle. From the beginning of not knowing, acquiring knowledge and finally, one is back to the simplicity of plain movement. We tried so hard to accumulate knowledge in Taiji but at the pinnacle, one has to let go of all accumulation and see into the heart of simplicity.
 
 

Saturday, January 05, 2002

Dynamic Meditation was discovered by a Thai Buddhist monk Luangpor Teean, (1911—1988) he called it Satipanna, Awareness in motion. Instead of fighting to suppress thoughts or simply witness them, Reverend Luangpor placed his awareness on the physical, dynamic movements of the body.