22/12/2025
Cheng Man-ch'ing used one word often: "Gradually".
Patience and Tai Chi.
If you persevere in practicing the principles, achievement will come. You can't force it; you can't make it happen. "Gradually, gradually". You must be patient.
In the other hand, mastery or progress doesn't rain down like manna on a lazy student. Arduous effort is required.
An apparent paradox. "Don't force" yet "Put in great effort."
In Tai Chi we learn non-action, the action that is not action. Non-action is not really a great mystery.
Everyone has experienced it to a greater or lesser degree: those times when we have struggled to create some, only to have it recede from us, until we give up. Then, if we are lucky, we tap into some inner core of wisdom that allows us to take a deep breath and relax, and what seems to flow to us, or through us, like a gift from heaven, or more exactly, AS a gift from heaven.
We must be patient, we must wait; but wait correctly, through the creative process of Non-Action.
We make ourselves accessible - to the flow of chi in our bodies and the current of the Tao in our lives.
As for the Tao in our lives, we have to learn to stop interfering with its flow.
Take writing for example.
Inspiration, the muse, is another way of describing the energy of Tao.
You can't force it to come, but if a writer can let go of all the fears and fantasies that darken the creative present, learn how to get out of his own way, he finds that he is like a channel for that core of truth in the deepest part of his being.
Learning how to relax and let go is hard work, requiring perseverance and faith.
"Gradually, gradually."
There Are No Secrets- Wolfe Lowenthal
