The new book "Das Daodejing im Taijiquan" by Jan Silberstorff on the concrete practical application of the Daodejing in Taijiquan training is available in the WCTAG-Shop .
Reading Sample - The Daodejing in Taijiquan - Verse 38
In Taijiquan classes we encounter a wealth of suggestions that make our own training more comprehensible and, I hope, enrich and deepen it immensely. However, in order for all of these suggestions not only to lead to a technique-oriented, mechanical training, but also to a holistic system that reaches into our entire life, a structure is needed in which all of the previously given suggestions can find their place and even settle down. A structure makes it immensely easier to link the various clues into a common thread. This red thread is the path that brings me closer to the goal. The path is the goal. This path can be followed through the red thread, the structure. But the path also leads at some point to a goal that lies behind the path, indeed finds the path lying behind it. The goal then perceives the structure as that which represents the raft that one no longer carries around with one on the other side of the river, but leaves lying on the bank. But without it I can't get to the other side either. Now, in the Taijiquan system according to Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang, we have been left with a very clear training structure that always lies ahead of us. Because even after reaching the fifth level, the improvement never stops. This structure guides us little by little through itself. Or rather, through the experience that I gain through it in my deepened training. In this way, we almost automatically arrive at the sequence as Laozi gives it in his verse 38:
失道而後德. 失德而後仁. 失仁而後義.
失義而後禮. 夫禮者忠信之薄而亂之首.
If SENSE (DAO) is lost, then LIFE (DE).
If LIFE (DE) is lost, then love.
If love is lost, then justice.
If justice is lost, then morality.
Morality is insufficient for good faith and the beginning of confusion.
Since we want to develop upwards on our path, it is permissible to outline it once in the order of practice as ascending from the bottom to the top:
From confusion I rise to morality.
From morality I rise to justice.
From justice I rise to love.
From love I rise to LIFE (DE).From LIFE (DE) I rise to SENSE (DAO):
DAO 道
⇧
DE 德
⇧
Love 仁
⇧
Justice 義
⇧
Morality 禮
⇧
Confusion 亂
⇧
人
Thus, on the way to the summit of his creation, man (ren 人) climbs within spiritual practice, leaving behind his own confusion, first the hill of morality, custom and the social obligation to order. From there, arriving at the clearing of justice, he can leave behind this custom insofar as he also voluntarily obeys it, since he now also concedes to the other what he himself would like. Through the deepened practice of selflessness, he then climbs onto the rock of love, which in turn makes justice appear unnecessary. For if I would rather give to the other than receive from him anyway, where is the need for intentional sharing? From there, the path is not far to Perfect Virtue, to true LIFE, to the original active power of the DAO itself, the DE. He who can dwell in this state has long been above the clouds under radiant sunshine and blue skies. Everything, even love, comes easily to him, for he is in eternal joy - how could he be anything but loving and kind? From this mountain top, plunging into the deepest abyss of the world, letting go of everything and falling only into his own creation, that is, into himself, is then the ascent into heaven, even beyond it, to that without which nothing is and which itself is not, although it is eternal: the DAO.
The purpose of this article is now to relate Laozi's statements consistently and directly to our Taijiquan. In this way we want to transfer this ascent to perfection to our Taiji practice:
Morality, li 禮,
means primarily rite. Rite means rules.When a new student begins Taijiquan, the first thing he needs to get rid of his unprincipled, uncentred and uncoordinated (luan 亂) movements is rules and ritual. The rules are the basic requirements of how a movement is to be performed. We find this summarised in the headings of the Wai and Neisanhe, the Outer and Inner Unions. The rite is the form itself. A ritual of movements, given to penetrate through them to the universal truth of Taiji. Once these two things have been mastered, i.e. the ritual of the form can be performed with the requirements of the rules, the next step is to be tackled:
Justice, yi 義.
But what is justice in our Taiji form? In the social-social sense, justice means balancing the needs of all people so that no one comes off short. Justice therefore means that one is balanced with the other in such a way that all are in balance with each other within a certain level of flexibility. If one has too much, he gives to the other. In terms of our form, this means that now that the basic requirements of the form have been mastered, I must begin to balance all parts of the body, be they external, be they internal, be they material or be they spiritual. Attention should be balanced with the heart. The inner energy should be balanced with the strength. The tendons and bones should be balanced with each other, as well as shoulders and hips, elbows and knees, and the hands with the feet. In the same way, everything that lies in between, down to the smallest detail, should be balanced with its counterpart.
Just as Chen Xin, 16th generation of the Chen family writes about it in his Taijiquan Tushuo in relation to the Pushing Hands:
"The hands are like a scale. Weigh something and you know it is weight. The path of martial arts practice is to have a scale in your attention. Through this invisible scale you can approach your opponent in terms of his movements forwards and backwards and his speed. Use the awareness that is to be mastered in daily practice. Weigh visible signs by an invisible scale and regulate what both hands perceive, adding or taking away if necessary: He who can do this is called an Excellent Hand (Master)."
So we have to complete this in the solo forms within our mind and body. Everything in the body must be balanced and in harmony with each other. Then what may happen on the outside within a just society arises naturally within the body: we become content. With further harmonisation within our mind-body, this contentment increases to a desireless feeling of happiness, caused by the literal inner peace that has arisen in us through this. This feeling of happiness automatically leads us to a feeling of
Loving kindness, ren 仁.
For in my desireless joy, there is nothing that I begrudge or do not wish for the other. We can see this in the fact that, once we have trained in this state, we develop a loving feeling towards the nature surrounding us, the trees, the wind and also towards our 'little fellow inhabitants', which we now treat with care and on which we certainly no longer want to step. In this way, through this experienced loving kindness, life habits also change, such as a possible change to a vegetarian way of life, a respectful treatment of other people, animals, plants, also of ourselves, in short of the whole of creation. This feeling of oneness with creation, in turn, is the entry into its
DE 德.
In these stages of our Taijiquan training, our sensation therefore goes far beyond the physical. The feeling of self-defence also develops from an attitude of 'protection from the other' to an acceptance and learning to understand the other, and the actual survival instinct and the search for protection is shifted to the non-spatial and non-temporal in whose freedom I can be eternally and unharmedly non-self. If physical self-defence is ultimately only a delay of the actual problem, dying, then ways open up here for the practitioner to overcome precisely that which we call dying - which can certainly be called self-defence to the highest degree. Even if it is precisely for this that we have to surrender our self when entering this state:
沒身不殆
,Without self - no danger!’ (Daodejing Verse 52)
And thus the entry into the flowing original power of the ineffable, the DE, brings about the subsequent unification with the
DAO 道.
In this parallel between Laozi's path of development of a society towards unification with the DAO, we find concretely the different stages with their requirements or events of our Taiji practice. While the first two stages of the rite and the rules, or of righteousness, still involve active action, the practice changes through the experience of loving kindness with constant uninterrupted movement and deepening inner peace to a growth into wuwei, non-action:
孰能安以久動之徐生.
‚Who is able to gradually generate tranquillity (peace) through persistent movement?‘ (Daodejing Verse 15)
While in the first two stages we actively try to create a certain state, the deepened states of the last three stages come about by themselves with continued practice.
Thus, via the structure of the Chen Xiaowang system, we find our way to an overarching structure that is able to penetrate the entire being, indeed the entire creation itself, and makes it possible to experience it.
Just as Laozi describes it in verse 38.