The house will be filled with tai chi players tomorrow and Sunday. I’m pretty darn excited about it.

Laura, up in Whitehorse, posted the following, and I think it is fitting to share here. I share it in salute of all the players who have ever touched in here at the Bowen Island Tai Chi House.

People have been gathering at this house for a long time to play and learn. Really great and special people.

It is very possible that this weekend will be the last one at this location.

So, with humility — I salute.

……
Deng Ming-Dao
Taiji Meditation 46
Wouldn’t it wonderful if you were praised for being beautiful? If people flocked to you until the glow of your presence was surrounded by adoring shadows? Wouldn’t it be great if after all these years of practice, your Taiji was lauded as equal to the great masters themselves? After all, you are continually promised that if you would just keep practicing and working on every detail, you’ll be graceful, ethereal, spiritual. No less an authority than Yang Chengfu said: “A learner can improve his skill if he keeps on practicing; someday he will become an expert.”

Instead, you are plain. You look in the mirror and cringe. Your legs shake when you rise up to kick. Your knees and back hurt. You’re so tired from the day that you yawn during the set. The young student who’s been learning only a few years becomes the teacher’s favorite, goes to the tournament and wins the top trophy, while you are left holding the door open for the new hero to stride into the sunlight.

Tell me: is that why you’ve been practicing? So you could be someone you aren’t? Oh, yes, I agree with you. I, too, am sick of celebrities who are impossibly beautiful, rich, healthy, and successful, breathlessly whispering, “Just believe in yourself and all things will come to you.” I, too, am sick of fairy tales where the ugly person is chosen by the beautiful and compassionate royal lover. It doesn’t happen. I’ve turned away from such promises, and so should you. Why?

Because all things have already come. Yes, they have. You have the ideal to practice Taiji. That is already the treasure. You have the discipline to practice each day. That is already beautiful. You know how to channel your energy, you have insight into your life. You move with a lithe ease that people decades younger no longer possess. You breathe, you wake, you have joy. Maybe it’s private. All the better: no one will take it away from you.

Shall I talk about Laozi’s uncarved block? Confucius’s lectures on what constitutes the virtues of a superior person? The masters have already talked themselves sick trying to point the way. You can silence all the sages and beat the handsome hero right now if you simply keep the most powerful gift of Taiji: humility.