Professor Cheng Man-chi’ing, in his work Thirteen Chapters On T’ai Chi Ch’uan, tells us that to study t’ai chi, we must begin by “investing in loss.” It is a call for flexibility in our mind and body. The example he gives us is the teeth and tongue.
We all know that the teeth are rigid and the tongue is soft. As he states, “the teeth and tongue occasionally have disagreements, and the tongue must invest in loss, but in the end of the teeth will crumble from hardness, while the tongue survives through softness.”
This summer has been an exercise in investing in loss for me. I have had to relax with decisions that are difficult, and keep faith in the path I have chosen. I know that the flexibility to choose difficulty, to forego the easy for the hard may not show any reward right now, but I do know it is the RIGHT thing to do.
This was extremely apparent in the after the death of a family member, my sister, two weeks ago. She had chosen to not be in communication with me for over 20 years and I had many ambiguous feelings when I did get in touch with her and discovered she needed assistance, being confined to a nursing home, and bedridden. The hurt in me wanted to bring hardness to the situation. She wasn’t there for me and deliberately stayed out of communication.
But…
I didn’t know what was going on those 20 years, and she had losses of her own. Her husband died and perhaps speeded her entry into the nursing home. She was lonely. Her daughter lived far away. Her son was incarcerated. I elected softness, compassion.
I helped her with small things; a cell phone, the bureacracy of the Arizona Long Term Care system. I’m not sorry, and those brief months where we talked were a reward for me. She was in pain the whole time, and her death was sudden. I am grateful for the opportunity to connect, and I'm glad she is no longer suffering.
This concept is one more way the study and teaching of t’ai chi enhances my life. If I am nimble, if I am flexible, I can survive the tough times. Rigid thoughts, unwillingness to change when necessary, that’s when the storms of life can break us.
We all know that the teeth are rigid and the tongue is soft. As he states, “the teeth and tongue occasionally have disagreements, and the tongue must invest in loss, but in the end of the teeth will crumble from hardness, while the tongue survives through softness.”
This summer has been an exercise in investing in loss for me. I have had to relax with decisions that are difficult, and keep faith in the path I have chosen. I know that the flexibility to choose difficulty, to forego the easy for the hard may not show any reward right now, but I do know it is the RIGHT thing to do.
This was extremely apparent in the after the death of a family member, my sister, two weeks ago. She had chosen to not be in communication with me for over 20 years and I had many ambiguous feelings when I did get in touch with her and discovered she needed assistance, being confined to a nursing home, and bedridden. The hurt in me wanted to bring hardness to the situation. She wasn’t there for me and deliberately stayed out of communication.
But…
I didn’t know what was going on those 20 years, and she had losses of her own. Her husband died and perhaps speeded her entry into the nursing home. She was lonely. Her daughter lived far away. Her son was incarcerated. I elected softness, compassion.
I helped her with small things; a cell phone, the bureacracy of the Arizona Long Term Care system. I’m not sorry, and those brief months where we talked were a reward for me. She was in pain the whole time, and her death was sudden. I am grateful for the opportunity to connect, and I'm glad she is no longer suffering.
This concept is one more way the study and teaching of t’ai chi enhances my life. If I am nimble, if I am flexible, I can survive the tough times. Rigid thoughts, unwillingness to change when necessary, that’s when the storms of life can break us.
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