Tai Chi and thoughts of mindfulness the state of no mind – or the way of the idiot
Core techniques of thought or why you can’t think past your big belly.
Centering: Bring awareness to your “dantian,” the center of energy located in the lower abdomen, as the hub of movement and awareness. This is making the lower abdomen breath better with each inhale that makes the strength, power and balance of the entire body placed around this central area which needs to be worked on daily. Perhaps if you can manage to walk and swim those parts of the core daily with between 20 to 40 minutes of varied paces with consistent and steady pace throughout the day. The centering requires deep breath control proper stances and longevity through vitality of maintaining these core positions and breath control for as long as possible.
Don’t walk in the middle of the road at peak traffic times unless you have a big lollipop that tells the drivers to hold up watch out there’s some young ones wandering where you’re going as they think it’s their time to weigh their back pack across the finish line which is a bigger burden than your time wasted being late as usual for your useless corporate meeting.
Softening: Intentionally release tension in your muscles, thoughts, and emotions, allowing for a more relaxed and yielding state. This is the soft style and approach to gentle movements through being relaxed throughout the body yet able to move each aspect with flexibility and strength and agility as though your soft like cotton yet fluid and dynamic like a cat. This requires observing the motion of the dynamic agile squirrels and how they use the quick reflex movements throughout their play as though they are numerous in number but appear from one side to the other as though they are in many places at the same time. This can happen as though you move through the differents space time and distance with the use of breath, soft agile actions and reflexes that appear as though you have struck two places at the same time with one strike, in other words one strike attacks more than one part of the opponent that is the soft rhythmic space around a person. Like being able to move through time as though your physical body can jump from one part of the earth to another like the disappearing act of the time traveler that appears today and is gone now or perhaps yesterday and possibly the future.
Breath Awareness: Coordinate your movements with deep, rhythmic breathing to enhance relaxation and concentration, letting breath guide the motion. Each inhale works out with the first movement to the response which is given with the exhale and the respective movement with slow steady control over the type to determine the effect of bringing power, strength and overall goodness to the entire body. The breath is the central part of bringing in not just air but the energetic life force or Qi into a person that through slow deep rhythmic inhale and breathing out the excess transpired effects of the exchange from the body, air, blood and other used up air from the lungs to the expel of the harmful effects that brings vitality, good health overall wellbeing through breath and body control. The breath is the life and each breath takes in that which is beneficial and removes that which is harmful. Also imagine as the breath is centered in the lower abdomen dantian area and the middle dantain area expands that this unlocks the energy throughout making the person feel light as a feather and comfortable in their weight no matter the size. This breath awareness combined with core centering techniques brings about the next part of the no mindfulness a practice of removing all attachments except for the devotion to the entire Creator of all mass and energy. Even Einstein unlocked his potential with knowing that e = mc2 yet didn’t know that mass can travel faster than light speed as if though a person can blink themselves and their entire being physical, emotional and spiritual from the earth all the way to another place amongst the lower heavens. In other words travelling anywhere observable with the aspect of harnessing that which the Creator of all mass and energy allows, without which a person cannot move a muscle.
Focus and Intention: Maintain full mental engagement by connecting your intention (Yi) with each slow, deliberate movement, ensuring every motion has a purpose. The slower the movement the stronger the focus with the intention to bring as much power and strength with speed being as slow as possible that can at any specific willed time be utilized to strike as though the bullet has already struck the target. This strength through control, complete mental engagement and focus with the upper dantian being completely aware of the surrounding targets that each movement has a purpose and that is to be mastered and improved to perfection.
Mindfulness and “No-Mind”: Practice observing thoughts without attachment, allowing them to pass like events rather than getting caught up in them. This leads to a state of “no-mind”. The words and thoughts that a person has need to be purified and allowed to exist and think yet not to be attached to the person and this requires knowing the power of letters that make the words which can enslave a person in this world or set them free this is followed by allowing and maintaining truthfulness as all words other than the good intended remembrance of the Creator return to a person. That is why the thoughts must flow like water and not hold onto anything and let the mindfulness be complete and the state of no mind achieved with practice of all of the above steps particularly the breath and using slow rhythmic movements to unlock all three dantian points that bring the entire being into a light heartful blessed state that requires knowing oneself and how to let go. Perhaps an idiot may make you realise what your smartness never thought of.
Balance and Stability: Use slow weight shifts to train the body to move with control while connecting to the earth for a sense of stability and groundedness. Let the body move with each guidance that makes use of the techniques and styles to control and maintain balance through ease of stance or strength of style through different stances, this brings a person to balance and stability as the more he practices these soft gentle flexible movements with breath control they will feel as though they are firmly upon the ground yet the body is as light as a cat jumping away from a cucumber.
Yielding to Force: A core philosophical principle is to not use force against force, but to yield like the soft bamboo in the wind, using softness to overcome hardness, as taught in the yin and yang philosophy of Tai Chi. The receptive and fluid reactions to the force around with gentleness and softness can overpower even the hardest of forces. Take for example the strength and hardness of a date palm tree trunk, with the soft reaction of the force of the air movement whether it’s a stormy force of nature or a soft breeze it bends with the movement of the force and obviously there is a breaking point, yet most soft styles can absorb the hardest of strikes just like the punch to the cotton, it absorbs and rebounds with no effect other than a slight touch depression that recovers quicker than a person wearing an iron shirt.
How they are applied
- Moving meditation: The combination of slow, controlled movements and breath awareness turns the practice into a moving meditation, often referred to as “mindfulness in motion”.
- Regulating the mind-body connection: By focusing on physical balance and ease through movement, you send calming signals to the brain, which helps alleviate mental stress and anxiety.
- Managing mental habits: Over time, the consistent practice of observing thoughts and releasing tension can help unlearn cycles of overreaction and help you become less reactive.
- Cultivating resilience: By learning to yield to force, release tension, and embrace challenges without resistance, you build mental resilience and self-mastery.
Just cause your mind is empty doesn’t mean you should not read the best part which is your own story that you are living the greatest story that will be told if you can seek the face of Allah.