The Direction of Intention

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Every Saturday morning for the past month I get up early, drive to Capitol Hill, park outside of the studio where my class is held and walk to one of the six coffee houses on the block (this is Seattle). I have coffee and watch the sun rise – or to be more accurate, I watch the dark grey become several shades lighter. And then I go to class and study Tai Chi.

This morning the master talked to us about different kinds of movement, specifically movement that comes from relaxation instead of movement initiated from stress. You’d think that would be an easy thing to do: move from a state of availability and relaxation. It’s not. I challenge you to sit in a chair and relax. Not just pretend relaxation but in-your-body-available-to-the-moment relaxation. Relax your thinking, relax your emotions, and relax your body. Just be present. Watching my classmates attempt to move from a state of relaxation made me wonder if we are capable of complete relaxation even when we sleep. There’s so much to do. I think we carry our grasping and resistance in our bodies. And all of this doing, doing, doing requires force, pushing, manipulation, competition, achieving, racing, struggle, strain, no-pain-no-gain,…right? We have to attempt to relax. We have to go on vacation to relax. Relaxation has become something to do.

And then, a beautiful thing happened that reinforced my belief in power-with-others as true power. Slowly (it is Tai Chi, after all) for a few precious moments the group gave over and our movement became singular, people moving as one body, and I felt it, the surrender to presence and for a breath or two we moved from relaxation. We were stillness in motion. We were powerful together, more powerful than all the pushing and pulling and struggle would ever achieve. We weren’t trying to do anything; we were being. Available and present and singular together. It is a paradox.

The more I meditate on this thing called power, the more convinced I become that the only real power and truth lives in the paradoxes. When I stop trying to make it all make sense, when I stop trying to make it do what I want it to do, when I relax, suspend the story I tell myself and breathe deep, I join Life.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People |