The Middle Way: Buddha definitely did tai chi...honest.

For a wee paragraph or two, I shall be putting my Buddhist hat on. Apologies to those who couldn't give a monkey's about Buddhism...


It occurred to me that tai chi is the art of following, and of balance. By following, I suppose I mean giving up our superficial intent to harmonise with that of another.
In Buddhism, it seems to me that quite often one must balance, and keep the right tension: for example, between self-regard and regard for others, or between letting our desires have their space, but not letting them run amok. Tai chi I would say is not a method of spiritual cultivation in itself. But it can help at key points in life, at the point where philosophies or systems of cultivation require you to trust yourself, and proceed by feel, by instinct. The Buddha himself said that practice was like keeping the strings of a lute: not too tight, not too slack. Tai chi, through the embodiment of this principle, allows it to be recreated amd imagined in a wide variety of situations, not just martial or physical encounters.
The art of following is perhaps more subtle yet. I posited to the Monkey Army the other night that our movement and its development could be said to describe a circle. We start like ragdolls: whatever the opponent does, we have no choice but to follow, and we lurch and fall from one extreme to the other, from one side to the next.  Then we learn a bit of structure, and perhaps gain a little strength, and we resist, and maybe we start to win a bit here and there. This is the middle stage. Then, however, we relax our ideas about winning. We see that there really is no such thing. So we just follow. If they want to take us there, then there we go. But when we arrive, we still have our balance, and not only that, we are in a better position than them. So they move us again and again we follow, and they end up tying themselves in knots. Following is perhaps an underestimated skill: we are more often taught to be leaders. But as we know from the world's religions, perhaps we could do with better followers, people who have the confidence to give up their own ground but maintain enough poise to turn bad moves into good ones.
The Monkey Army seemed to like this idea.