Mind-Body Awareness Practices:
T’ai-Chi Ch’uan and Shamatha-Vipashyana Meditation
Mind-body awareness practices provide us with a method to bring our awareness to the present moment. Upon request, I may teach t’ai-chi ch’uan and/or shamatha-vipashyana meditation to clients as part of our therapeutic process.
T’ai-Chi Ch’uan
I have been practicing t’ai-chi ch’uan regularly since 1998. T’ai-chi ch’uan is an internal martial art practiced with relaxed and fluid movements. It is not about building hard external strength. It is rather a soft, gentle art that strengthens the internal organs and tissues, including connective tissues such as the sinews. Therefore, with practice, one develops internal strength, which can lead to health and longevity.
The principals of t’ai-chi ch’uan cultivate and promote balance within the mind and body. Balance is not a fixed state, but rather a process. If it were a fixed state, it would be hard and rigid. But t’ai-chi ch’uan is soft, flexible, mobile, and alive in the present moment. Therefore, a t’ai-chi ch’uan practitioner is always finding balance based on what is happening in the present moment.
Studying t’ai-chi ch’uan has greatly benefited my life in a multitude of ways in regards to my work, my family, and my relationship with myself. It has allowed me to develop a softer, gentler, and more accepting attitude toward myself. This compassionate presence is one that is available for me to provide to others, whether it be my family and friends or my workplace relationships and clients.
In using t’ai-chi ch’uan in my therapeutic approach while working with clients, I generally use the following philosophical aspects of t’ai-chi ch’uan: I use the concept of listening, yielding, and following so that I am more able to meet my clients where they are at any given moment. This allows clients to foster change from within in a gentle way, as opposed to me aggressively trying to force my clients to change to meet my expectations. I use the t’ai-chi ch’uan principle of relaxation to help my clients develop self-acceptance, which includes the acceptance of thoughts and emotions. When we get caught in the negativity of thoughts and emotions, whether consciously or unconsciously, the negativity tends to manifest as tension in the mind and body. In order to relax and let go of this tension, we first need to develop a gentle awareness of the tension. And when we can begin to allow the tension to dissolve with the awareness that t’ai-chi ch’uan promotes, we can develop an attitude of acceptance and compassion toward ourselves. This can be very powerful in working with addictions and mental health diagnoses, both of which have roots in self-aggression. T’ai-chi ch’uan can help diffuse this attitude of self-aggression into a presence of softness and kindness toward self and others.
Shamatha-Vipashyana Meditation
Though I no longer regularly practice shamatha-vipashyana meditation, as I am dedicating my time and practice to t’ai-chi ch’uan, I have extensively studied and practiced the sitting meditation for many years, including course work and participating in many meditation retreats, some of them lasting up to one month.
Shamatha-vipashyana meditation is a Tibetan sitting meditation that can be translated as calmly abiding-insight. It is a way of being present with the body, breath, and mind, and it can lead to cultivating self-awareness and compassion toward self and others. It involves taking a particular sitting posture while continually bringing our awareness to our breath, body, and the space around us. It is using the breath and body as a reference point that allows us to continually come back to the present moment when we find ourselves lost in a discursive thought process or drawn out storyline or daydream full of emotions. Through this process, we learn to be present with ourselves in any given state of mind, thus allowing ourselves to develop a sense of gentleness and compassion toward ourselves, which can be extended to others.