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Tai Chi Chuan is the art that espouses emptiness. One must move without force to realize true Tai Chi. And, in Tai Chi, you never run out of emptiness.

Tai Chi Chuan is the art that espouses emptiness. One must move without force to realize true Tai Chi. And, in Tai Chi, you never run out of emptiness.

One must understand, of course, that there are stages to the concept of emptiness. The beginning student will have one viewpoint concerning this principle, and the advanced master will have another, and there is plenty of degrees in between. Indeed, one could almost say there are as many viewpoints of this great nothingness as there are students to perceive them.

In the beginning there is much confusion. The beginning student tries to get in the way, has realizations of the mechanistic nature of the universe, and works his way through confusion. Eventually, the beginner starts to realize that there is more to this idea of space than he at first thought.

One can perceive a great nothingness inside the body. The apparent concreteness of blood and brain gives way to perception. Awareness seeps unhindered through the machinations of the apparently real body.

This is understandable through practice. The beginning student becomes advanced as reaction time dwindles and begins to move in harmony with the incoming attack. It is a short journey, once started, until the student commits his body to that of the attackers, and is able to draw upon the energies of two bodies.

Eventually the space of the body gives way to the realization that there is a great space. Indeed, the body stops being a dividing line between the student and the universe. The student becomes master, and his perceptions are not stopped at the threshold of space, but rather are unlimited and as far as he can perceive.

The new master practices with new students, and he speaks of great space, and he gives way that the newbie may fall into that great space, an entire and new and glorious perception of the universe. Slowly, the new student accepts the reality of the master, understands gravity only to reject it in his notions, and the cycle evolves. The fresh seed grows, becomes a young tree, seeks the heavens, undergoing evolutions of life that enliven the mind throughout time.

This is the eternal path of Tai Chi, never ending, immutable, hastened only by the striving towards knowledge by those who who would know. This is the tai chi of a race, of humanity, and it is a goal and a method and a principle that should be sought by all. What would happen if all the countries of earth gave way to the virtue of the people?