End of the Garden

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

A Sacred Contract

There are times in each of our lives when a contract is made or a vow spoken. This vow, the sacred contract, is made knowing that life does not run smoothly, that there will be times when, being human, we wish to run away or change course or abandon our original heart path. A vow helps us through those rocky times. A sacred contract is a lifebelt to hang onto when unimagined obstacles arise that encourage us to throw away the relationship we tied ourselves into years back when things were very different. Doctors make contracts with their patients, vows are exchanged to seal a partnership, a priest will make a vow of service to God and a therapist makes a contract with his or her client. All these contracts are sacred. When these contracts are severed, lives are shattered. There is also a contract between a teacher and student. This too is sacred.

We first meet this contract when as little children we are placed in the care of our primary teacher. We may fall in love with this teacher, it can be our first experience of loving kindness outside the family circle. Adoring our teacher, bringing our mentor little gifts, declaring our undying love for them – all can be very innocent and fleeting. As we grow up this first love is quickly forgotten. But not that experience of being inspired by another through their skill at teaching, a true form of teaching which draws out and inspires the learning. The body remembers, the heart too.

As adults we search for meaning and power in our lives. Finding a teacher who inspires, who moves us out of a place of dullness and depression into meaning through their skills can be awe-inspiring. The mature adult discerns the difference between loving their teacher for the wisdom they pass on from falling in love with this special being. Someone who cannot discern this difference falls in love with their teacher as they fell in love when a little child, and not understand what is happening.

The teacher is a human being. Carrying the responsibilities of transmitting knowledge that has fired and inspired them to follow a path of tutoring can be at times dispiriting and unrewarding. For weeks the sessions are dull, things plod along at a pedestrian pace. One day a new student arrives. This person soaks up everything offered and demands more. This is exhilarating. The teacher is re-inspired, is fired again with enthusiasm. Magic.

Education is sexy. We long to learn. We long to be empowered. We are empowered by many subjects: academic, artistic and physical. At every stage when we stand in front of a teacher, or we are the teacher standing in front of the student, making clear the different roles is crucial to a clean student/teacher relationship. In Asia the student touches the teacher's feet as a sign of respect. This act can be shocking to those educated in the West who have a more informal relationship with their professor or instructor. Witnessing this ritual we see that the student is paying homage to the knowledge being passed on by the guru. The student recognises the teacher as the container of the knowledge. When the feet are touched by the student the guru passes this blessing up to a higher power in the understanding that all teachers are only containers for a certain set of skills. Both student and teacher are human, yet separated by their different roles. The guru does not touch the feet of the student.

As human beings our own nurturing was most probably flawed. Our parents did their best, but like us, they were human too. A part of our psyche remains in childhood and longs to be nurtured. An element of a teacher's remit is to hold and nurture the student. Another element is to help the student mature, become autonomous and independent. Many teachers have not looked closely at their own needs. They forget that they too wish attention, to be nurtured. They find having power over someone else very sexy. Their own un-nurtured child interferes with the clarity of the student/teacher relationship and inappropriate behaviour starts to arise. The play 'Oleanna' graphically deals with the stepping over of these boundaries and the teacher taking advantage of their power over the student - or the student taking advantage of their power over a professor. Both are stepping into places that harm the quality of the transmission. They are not able to see the muddle that arises when a need for intimacy clouds integrity. The sheer joy of finding something that ignites a reason for living gets confused with physical attraction or romantic need. Our want for nurturing and excitement is so present that the unaware teacher or student can lose his or her self in the bliss of learning and can delude his or her self into believing this to be true love.

I have seen this so often: a person’s life becomes dull and grey, then something comes along that helps the sap to rise. It might be pottery, gardening, cooking, or T’ai-Chi. As this greyness disperses there is the potential for confusion to arise between the teacher and student. This confusion gets worse when the student is vulnerable, the teacher powerful and neither have the maturity to recognise their own needs. Teacher: ‘At last, here is someone who loves this as much as I do!’ Student: ‘This is fantastic, and he (and it is usually a he) is so powerful, soft, compassionate. I have never met anyone like this before.’ Both: ‘We have so much in common.’ The teacher’s sacred contract is forgotten. The boundaries are crossed. The transmission is no longer pure. It becomes muddled and muddied.

Life can be tough. At times harsh and heart aching decisions have to be made. How can I live with myself if I do not respect the sacred contract entered into when a new student arrives? The practice of T'ai-Chi Ch'uan goes beyond the outer, beyond the physical inner, into the heart of integrity and respect. The teacher‘s role requires wakefulness and responsibility for the roles that respect their sacred contract. When a student regresses and becomes that adoring child how we, the teacher, manage that moment, then we will know how much we have absorbed T’ai-Chi beneath our epidermis. If we have integrated some of the practice into our every day life then it is possible to keep to the often unspoken contracts made between the student and teacher. Without that absorbtion, a contract can be shattered with devastating effects.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

It's Too Quiet

We are in Dorset. The second day of a weekend T'ai-Chi & Meditation Retreat. It it still. No noise, not even the wind. Perfect conditons for practice and meditation.

"I can't bear it", exclaims a participant, "The silence is deafening."

Beware the quiet. We may long for peace, but when it arrives, can we deal with the noise inside?

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Greed

Who isn't greedy for something? We all recognise the greed that gets us into a shopping centre, a new car, a bigger house - and the most obvious, that which expands our waistlines. But there is a more subtle form of greed: greed for knowledge. We can stuff ourselves with facts just as much as we can stuff ourselves with food. And like that drug that prevents fat from being digested which necessitates a form of nappy being worn to deal with the inevitable leakage, so we can overstuff ourselves with facts and skills without absorbing their meaning or taking them into our every day life. Bits of knowledge leak out undigested, without sticking to our gut.

Someone has read about T’ai-Chi, seen it on the telly or a friend has spoken glowingly about its effects. They sign up for a course. They don’t know what to expect when they roll up to their first class. This person has never met anything like this stuff before, it is mind-blowing. During the first few classes there is so much to take in. Being an average Jane or Jim, (who aren't really average as when we get to know someone there is no such thing as average), he or she has learnt that to achieve in life we have to strive, to push, to be out there, to compete, and get as much as possible out of whatever is on offer. Wow, this is great stuff! Then: things change, as they often do in life. By the third or fourth or fifth class this stuff is far too slow. Why can't the teacher just get on with it? Why can't we do more?

Of course in the same class there are those Winnies and Walters who are struggling to keep up, who feel that the work is being presented far too quickly, why can't we do less in each session? Why do I have to practice? There is a feeling that they are not getting it, or at least not getting it right, whatever 'it' is. Is there a way of learning this without me having to remember anything? It feels 'nice' when we work together, but really, it is too much having to think too.

Both are tied up in some sort of greed. One is the greed for more facts without reflection, a Teflon approach, the other is a greed for experience without responsibility. The teacher too wishes to see the students progress, to have realisations and understandings about the physical philosophy offered. Their own desire can often be a barrier to transmitting the work clearly, with ease and humour. Their own greed to wish to see a group of students ‘doing well’ can prevent the heart of T’ai-Chi being explored and digested.

So how to cut through that lot - all the different belief systems, ages, levels of education, physical ability and expectations brought by the rainbow variations of people coming to the average T'ai-chi class. Being able to hold this disparate group together is like a juggler attempting to keep at least six balls in the air.

T'ai-Chi offers wonderful solutions to the different desires we all have. One student wants to learn more, demands to learn more, because that is what one does in an educational situation. Another begs to not have anything new that week. Several are ambivalent about it all and are rather drifting along - and may not be there the following week. To offer something of value to all the different expectations each student projects onto the teacher means that he or she has to delve deeply into the heart of T'ai-Chi - the process, posture, breathing and the calm, steady mind. By putting into practice the pith of T’ai-Chi the teacher can prevent him or herself from getting caught up in all those fears and expectations. If the teacher understands in his or her heart that T'ai-Chi is a process not a goal, a journey, not an arrival, then it becomes easier to balance all the differing types of greed being displayed by everyone including the teacher’s own desires.

T’ai-chi is the art of life. The form is a model of existence which starts simply, in the middle comes lots of twiddly bits and ends in great simplicity. We start life as an embryo, a helpless baby: simplicity. As we grow up all the twiddly middle bits take over: school, university, career, relationships, children, retirement, hobbies, big financial decisions, travel, etc. etc. Growing older we reach another great simplicity: death. In practising T'ai-Chi we are modelling how to give birth to the new - or change, each and every moment of our lives, and how to die, to mve on, or let go. T'ai-Chi is about meeting change with ease and grace, to let go and unburden, to free ourselves of all the clutter we carry mentally and physically and to learn to live fully.

And there is another often unacknowledged greed: for spiritual enlightenment. We want to be better people. We want to be good. In striving for that goodness we miss a lot. We can so easily miss the essence. Basically T'ai-Chi is teaching us how to breathe, how to stand up in the body we live this short life in with ease, how to flow through the joys and difficulties we meet on the way, how to be present each moment, smell the air, listen to a friend, see the trees and snow and sun. To prepare to simply let go into the great mystery of death, as we allow ourselves to experience the great mystery of birth.

We may think we are teaching a physical exercise form. We may believe we are learning a mysterious martial art. Ultimately we are learning how to flow each and every moment of our lives.

When boredom sets in, when patience deserts us or the budding practitioner, go directly back to the breath, the relaxed posture, the calm clear fearless mind. These moments of impatience and boredom are great opportunities to practice T’ai-Chi. That is when we absorb the essence of the art and it teaches us how we can weave the techniques into our being so they are there for us each moment of our lives and not existing solely for that hour and half each week in the classroom. Those moments of frustration can become our teacher, enabling each of to see where we are impatient and uncomfortable with the thoughts and tensions we carry within. It is the process, the journey that counts. Not the getting there. There is nowhere to go in T’ai-Chi. Except to the centre of our hearts. To that generous, vulnerable soft spot.

I breathe, I relax, I loosen up. Instead of having the rug pulled from beneath my feet, I learn to dance on a moving carpet. We open up our hearts as we loosen up. That is T’ai-Chi.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Finding Peace in a Noisy Place

This morning I received a message from a T'ai-Chi teacher in Houston. He told me about the classes he runs in a local dance studio and the conditions of this space. "There is a large air handling system that runs the entire time of the class so I'm talking over the noise.... " He told me he feels he is going nuts in these conditions, what with the noise and the variety of the backgrounds his participants bring to his sessions. So for starters let's consider how we can create a pool of peace.

Peace arises from within. Outside conditions may be chaotic and noisy. We can include the chaos in our practice. Or - we can try to push the chaos away. One action may be helpful, the other feed the chaos. We have a choice.

When we practice T'ai-Chi or meditate or any other technique that supposedly offers us peace, then we are disappointed when everything seems just as muddled as before, just as noisy either in the mind or externally. The promised peace eludes us. We get upset. We may even go nuts!

One of my teachers went on a solitary retreat. He chose to start this retreat in the mountains on the East side of the USA. He had lovely little home: it had electricity, a bathroom, a kitchen. It nestled in the middle of tress. He was alone with the only disturbances being the animals and elements. Everything was conducive to the deepening of his practice for the first couple of years. Then the community who owned the land decided to build a temple. His little home was torn off its foundations and put elsewhere. The electricity and water were disconnected. A multitude of builders and machinery moved onto the site. He was surrounded by noise. He contacted his retreat mentor telling him that he had to move somewhere else in order to carry on his solitary retreat. His teacher told him to stay where he was. The purpose of the building was pure, so his task was to learn to weave the noise into his meditation. He spent the next few years meditating in the middle of this noisy building site.

His brother was the Abbot of Samyé Ling Monastery in Scotland and encouraged him to move there, promising him a peaceful place to carry on his retreat. Off he went to Scotland. All was well and peaceful for a while. Then it was decided to build retreat houses for the men and women who wished to go into long-term retreat themselves. Once more our meditator found himself in the middle of a bulding site. For the next two years. Again the purpose of the bulding was for the good of others. Again Lama Yeshe wove this constant noise into his meditation.

Now when he teaches us to meditate he passes on this experience to us. We create the peace we wish from our own hearts, our own attitudes. There is never a perfect place to practice. I can remember once when teaching meditation a student complained "I could do this in the Himalayas" inferring that Isleworth was too noisy for meditation what with the traffic and the nearby busy, busy Heathrow airport with planes flying in low every ninety seconds. I have visited the Himalayas several times, conditions there are much harsher than those we meet in our church halls, dance studios or college classrooms. Our studios and classrooms have conditions far superior to any I have met in the Himalayas. Things like running water, regular electricity supplies, good transport systems, heating, cooling, bathrooms..... OK, and I agree that where most of us live and teach there aren't the snow-capped mountains and the clear star-blazed skys, the clean air of the high Himalayas.

When we practice our T'ai-Chi or meditation it is helpful to begin by listening. Simply listen. Listen to the sounds in our heads, in the room, outside the room. They are ALL the music of life. Embrace these sounds, let them be a part of the practice, not an enemy. If they become our enemy we then spend all our time trying to repell this 'disturbance' and use our effort and energy in pushing stuff away and not in the development of our practice. Soften, relax, yield to the noises. Think what our lives would be without them: no airconditioning or heating? Would you be very stuffy or cold? No buses, cars, trains or planes? What would our lives be like without these machines? They are all there for our benefit. It is our attitude that turns them into demons.

So when a plane flies overhead as you try to explain a tricky point in the practice just look up, see the beings in the thin metal tube and welcome them heartily to your country, your town. Bring them into your practice. When noise leaks from the studio next door, rejoice in the celebration of life and return the peaceful quiet place in your own heart centre, and carry on the practice. If the teacher finds it in his or her heart a way to weave the sounds of life into the practice, then the students will do so too. With great ease and simplicity. Use the constant drone of fans sending clean air into the space as the drone in Indian music, the drone is the support of the melodies the musicians weave around it.

Most of all yield to the conditions. Accept that which you cannot change, change that which you can. It is so rare to find a perfect space in which to practice. And if we think about this, the reason for this becomes very clear. None of us is perfect, so expecting perfection from outside conditions is unreasonable. A deep part of the practice of T'ai-Chi is to be able to work with what we have and not with what we want: both physically and mentally.

And always return to the pith of T'ai-Chi: soften, yield, breathe, open the heart, feel the twinkle in the eyes, and trust the practice will always lead you to a peaceful place.