Esoteric Arts

To start at the beginning; we all have bodies. Most of our day revolves around activities related to the concept we might have that “I am the body”. Here we are on a par with all animal life with our needs for physical survival (food and drink, shelter, physical safety and the chance to reproduce).

As we become adept at all this we just raise the stakes. Our food can include well cooked meals or fancy restaraunts, our habitation can grow from hovels to student lodgings to an expensive home with a large mortgage. All of which requires money so most people need to acquire this; indeed spend a considerable portion of their lives doing just this so they can satisfy the needs coming from the “I am a body” identity.

Even when we raise our awareness from”I am a body” to “I have a body” these activities will remain.

If you made a list of how much you do each day precisely because you have a body you will see how body consciousness dominates your life.

So we start exercise programmes, eat properly so we can maintain the good functioning of our body and sleep well etc. We have to make time in our busy life for this. For we have learned, perhaps at our cost, that if the body is not well maintained suffering comes.

If you examine exactly how many of your woes start precisely because you have a body and bodily needs you will find it a long list. I wish I could start a bodiless society for then there would be so much time for other things! Can you imagine angels getting together and moaning over aging joints, sore throats and intestinal discomfort! Not to mention talk of the clothes that no longer fit them because of weight gain, or which are now out of style.

Somewhere down the line you might come across the concept that within the body are energies that most people don;t know how to develop or cultivate. You read about chakras, kundalini, chi, internal energies that can be accumulated, balanced and circulated. You hear talk of a body of light, of the Soul.

This expands the concept of exactly what sort of body I am or have.

When you discover that behind the eyes there is a physical world of internal energy, inner rooms in your own body just waiting to be explored then physical life takes on a new dimension and becomes considerably more interesting. You can begin to FEEL your soul embrace you in a warm cuddle of great love. You can see/feel how you move internal energy, how inside your body and behind your eyes a world of light sparkles and glows;

not only inside, but outside too if the vision opens to that.

To live like that is to begin to explore subtler aspects of physical life. It is fascinating and even sensually pleasant.

The human nervous system is designed for Bliss.

In my School I teach how to raise energies, especially from heart to head which causes a rush of ecstacy. Good health results from balancing internal energy. Personal power and serenity comes from accumulating energy. A chaotic, stressed energy flow inside will manifest in the outer very soon.

You can call this exploring and experiencing God manifest in the world. God immanent. You discover that there is such a great Mystery and you don;t know much of It.

To die, to drop your body before before you do this is such a shame. It is to have lived a physical life in its most banal form.

Priotorise your life if you want to do more with your time than wipe off the crumbs from your kitchen table.

We live in a sea of energy. It is up to us to learn how to swim in it.

You can also in your meditation come to point where all is silent, everything about you has dropped away and you feel ‘nothing matters;. This is like saying ‘there is no matter.;

It is an emptiness that seems so very full and so very fulfilling; a feeling that there is nothing to be done. All of your life vanishes into a vast point of unutterable contentment. This can be considered as God Transcendent. It is the Ultimate refuge from the world and you allow yourself to soak in It, to saturate yourSelf with Its balm.

When you feel this you no longer feel “I am a body” or I have a body”; even “I am” is too much for that implies duality. It is “I” or “Am” and nothing more.

Coming back to your body and your world and its cares you will have been given a wonderful balancing, the sense that despite all the turbulence “All is Well” or “Nothing matters.”

If one practices something for a long time one often becomes a master of it. My Tai Chi teacher was called master Moy. Whatever the discipline, it starts with some faltering steps, great uncertainty loaded with lots of enthusiastic hope. With each step facility grows and the unfamiliar becomes comfortable. In Tai Chi it is difficult to remember the choreography. Moreover there seems little reason for any of it and the external movements are imposed coercively on the student;s body. However, gradually, as the student;s focus increases and with regularity of practice what was once an imposition becomes natural, what was clumsy becomes graceful.

As I like to tell my students what was before an external movement has, by dint of repeated practice, gone within and effected changes inside. The movements now come from within and get expressed externally. What was once mechanically imposed both in choregraphy and timing now flows with a rhythm that is determined by the poetry of internal energy.

I think all art is learned in this way. Step by step you master all the keys. Day by day you gain greater control, greater knowledge of the art and you glide into mastery. Your mastery is gained by accumulating experience, by learning something new. At first it seems like almost every day something new is learned. As you become rich in experience some of the new things take longer to learn. You might work on just one aspect for several months before the teacher suggests something new.

It all takes focus and effort. You learn by making aware effort.

However as I always tell beginners Tai Chi is never learned without effort nor is it learned with effort. There is a great paradox in this.

A great conumdrum viz. does enlightenment come because you become a Master or does it become because you surrender? I have heard enlightenment endlessy debated. What is enlightenment and who is enlightened? Personally I have never found this too interesting and I like to leave the “what is it?” in the realm of Mystery and who is enlightened is mere gossip. A little like children prattling actually.

The paradox comes because the imagined state of enlightenment is one where the ego has been subsumed into something greater.

Take Tai Chi.The movements of Tai Chi become poetry when you no longer do them. They seem to do you, which is probably why the Chinese call it playing Tai Chi or maybe it should be considered being played.

All that effort and all that control has to reach a point when you STOP and let it happen. There is something of grace in all this, for it seems miraculous. Ego implies effort. There is an “I” that does the move better and better.

The word master if you are gender sensitive implies masculine and indeed the path of mastery could be considered a masculine approach. It requires muscles and effort. I started to wonder what the feminine equivalent of master would be. Mistress? To say she is a real Mistress doesn;t seem to have the right ring. But what about Mster (like in the Feminist Ms)? So you would have Masters and Msters. That started me thinking of Mastery and Mstery and that ultimately Truth is such a Mystery.

When we start an art like Tai Chi we have such definite ideas, so many rules and yet as we grow we find an absence of much of this. It becomes less goal orientated, partakes more of freedom, dwells more in the realms of feeling, becomes more accepting of what is and what is happening, in the Here and the Now. This strikes me as a feminine approach. You are not trying to grab Mastery or Enlightenment but allowing something larger to suffuse Itself into you, allowing the wondrous poetry and sensual pleasure of submitting to an inflow of Grace and Joy.

Then with a big smile I saw Mastery become Mstery as the masculine and femine become balanced.

I read a book on Zen archery and in it the Sensei said that people who see archery as hitting the bullseye often miss the point. Indeed he said that there is nothing more ugly than to see some archers hit the bulls eye time after time, because what they miss is the letting go of themselves in the experience. They might hit the centre of the target but they miss their centre. Not living from your centre is ugly. The beauty comes from being in this centre. In this centre you are in the centre of the Universe, indeed you hardly exist and what exists in and through you is the Power and the Glory.

So if you come across a Master who is not also a Mster run away!

When people start in my School they are generally motivated by self interest. Often there is something about themselves they wish to change or improve; a bad back, or other health concerns, lack of emotional strength, exploring a gentle martial art or just to get some exercise. I had one group of three women who wanted to get out of the house of an evening and regarded it as a women;s night out, rather like going to watch a male stripper together, but more wholesome, though maybe less fun!

Some come because they have long wanted to meditate or have tried meditation and not succeeded and feel that now is the time to give it another go. Some want to explore esotericism. Some mistake it for eroticism and hope for sensual windows to open. (Joke!) Some, as a friend commented, have got on the wrong bus and give it up immediately.

We are generally best motivated by self interest. The School promises it can teach certain things, offers certain advantages and people are attracted by this to the extent they will pay for one month and give it a try. There is an exchange of energy, cash from them and a class from me.

For a while I have been thinking of making it obligatory to commit to try out, and perhaps pay, for three months when someone starts. What I teach is not immediately comprehended and it would be wiser to take the time to discover hidden aspects.

I say on my website that my School is not for the casual. Not many people who come would class themselves as casual. It is a question of perspective, theirs or mine! also a question of degree.

I find that a lot of my time gets spent trying to maintain their interest, to keep the enthusiasm at a level that makes the classes worthwhile for them and me. A lot of this is like being an entertainer trying to get the audience to come again. I get students who find it impossible to be regular, come late or leave early; students who fit it in like all other social engagements i.e. when convenient. Some students don;t practice between their weekly classes. To all these I say the longest journey begins with the first step and that as long as they keep taking one step after another they will make progress. I say that practicing once a week is better than nothing but to remember it is right next to nothing!

Self interest is what gets us up in the morning and the degree of our self motivation and passion determines how much juice we extract from the mango. Each step a student takes should increase their passion for learning. Once you get a feel for the delight of the spiritual life It won;t let you go, not easily at any rate. Once a student has overcome lethargy, apathy or the discomfort of bad health or irregular habits then there is only one real obstacle, the ego.

On one;s spiritual path one starts to clear out dross or impurities that prevent clarity of perception, awareness and real balance. This house cleaning can make you feel worse. For a start you really see the dirt and, often, that doesn;t make you feel better. The ego can be really resistant to change. No matter how often I tell a student that somewhere down the line they will get an ego challenge from the teachings, when it comes they often up and quit. Something happens they don;t like, something I say or do perhaps. At this stage it is easier to give up than continue. Continuing takes real grit; the casual don;t have this. Being around Master Moy for the long haul took determination and grit. He made sure his long term students worked on their egos. It was never enjoyable but always worthwhile.

If one maintains regular practice and regular contact with the teacher a lot of growth happens by osmosis. A good teacher spreads their energy, embraces their students with their aura, which is one reason that students feel the better for a class. If they are doing ‘housecleaning; then contact with the teacher keeps the pot on the boil; which is to say maintains the level of discomfort!

As growth happens then one also wants to help. This is where self interest, which got the student there to start with, takes a side turn. They discover that personal growth is inevitably wrapped up with attitudes to other people and their growth. The “Me” packing now expands to include “Us”.

Even your own personal self growth is seen as valuable for the larger context. As you become more self aware, more expanded in your consciousness, more balanced in your energies, more serene, tolerant and loving then you spread those qualities around you consciously or unconsciously.

I am one of those people who foresee the world heading to greater conflict, greater tension and greater payback from the environment. One would like to think there is plan in all this that out of catastrophe will come a new age and a new earth for those that survive. That is uncertain. What is certain that the more people there are who are established in their Power and their Peace, who have forged links with the Larger Other, who felt embraced by their Souls, not as a concept but as a sensuous living reality the greater the chance the planet will make it through.

Our initial self interest in taking a class can bring us to that, a transformed world. That makes each step, each smidgeon of interest worthwhile.

One will see statements like this in much Taoist writing and on Taoist chat forums. It is generally speaking useless advice as far as how to live one’s life. I remember well on a cold drizzly morning when the TM group I led was trying futilely to save a large and carefully constructed cardboard Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome that had collapsed from rain. It was going to be part of our exhibition at some New Age festival in Cape Town.As a replacement we had ordered a large tent. There was some panic amongst those assembling and those preserving. The festival was starting. Someone was energetically, perhaps feverishly hammering in stakes. A Hippie walked by and sweetly commented,”Go with the flow.” That’s the sort of thing I mean. When you are trying to pay off a mortgage or raise bail or get a good seat in a film, concert or a bus, when the roads are iced and you are in a hurry, when you’ve lost your glasses, when your child has gone missing, when you’ve sliced your finger you won’t think of “there is only Tao.” Nor will you appreciate been told this.

But it is good knowledge for good times and it is in the good times you should explore it because life spirals, and things can abruptly become chaotic. Once you get the hang of it it just takes a focussed breath and you are there.

There are schools based on Shankara’s Advaita philosophy. Non dualism. Ramana Maharishi. (I visited his ashram in Tiruvannamalai in ’69). His practice of asking,”Who am I.” Nisargadatta’s (“I am That” is a marvellous, miraculous book) advice to meditate on “I am not the body.”

People walk around muttering,”this is all illusion.” Say that to your bleeding finger or the bailiff! People write little articles on that for chat forums. It is almost common knowledge in certain circles. Probably the person a student told me about who had learned Tai Chi in 3 months believes it.

Nevertheless it is true, even if the proponents may seem flakey.

It is the old problem of claiming knowledge prematurely, knowing Tai Chi after 3 months. That sort of thing.

Kashmir Shaivism teaches Monism. A sort of Glorified Advaita. There is only One. All is Shiva’s dance. Or more accurately The Dance is Shakti, and Shiva Is. It is the Tantric approach, the Toltec approach.

My approach, and what I teach in my classes.

I say,”don’t say you are not the body”. That is fake and artificial. Book learning.

Go into your body and discover who you really are. This is Taoist internal alchemy

It is not a weekend workshop endeavour. It is a lifetime commitment.

I have just finished Bob Dylan’s “Chronicles”. Like all artists I know or have read about he studied his art. He practised. Probably still does. He did his homework and paid his dues. None of it fell into his lap no matter how great his genius. Bob Marley wouldn’t allow laughter at rehearsals. (Dollar Brand told me to keep quiet or get out when I laughed at something humorous he said while his jazz group were rehearsing.) Not everyone is musical or talented in drawing or writing poetry. The world is full of well meaning mediocrity.

We all have bodies. We all have nervous systems. We all have an inner energy grid. This can be our instrument. We can make of our awareness, our meridians a work of art. How wonderful a work of art depends only on your focus and your passion, the time you put in. You can be a wannabe or you can really become that.

You will discover your internal energy. You will feel how it moves, how it spirals, circulates. You will discover a miraculous thing, by going in you start to feel what is without.

You will have seen photos of our Milky Way galaxy, how the energy moves in a graceful spiral. It is simply beautiful. A few delicate spirals contains billions of stars, and contains us, here on earth, in our own homes, pondering it all. The energy passes through them all and it is clear that it is one system. Seen from a large enough perspective it can be perceived as one system, a unity.

Is any of this relevant? You betcha!

It has been my experience that when the inner energy becomes expanded, balanced, harmonious, luminous, flowing, spiralling (none of these words carelessly chosen) when your energy grid has been purified, when the lights have popped on inside, so you will feel a connection with the lights out there. It is as though the body becomes the earth, becomes part of that great Milky Way Spiral. Something extraordinary happens then. The energy makes me feel so cleansed, so empty that nothing else exists. It is hard to say “I”, to feel “I”. There is only the dancing, the joy.

As you evolve you discover that your own energy is linked to a life force. David Suzuki says,” We are our environment” in that whatever we put out into it we eventually take back into our bodies. It is as though there is one energy on our planet that expresses itself as life here, changing and spiralling. It will go on whether humans survive their own follies or not.

In one sense our growth depends on how we utilise our own energy. Nothing happens without energy. If you want to evolve you need more than energy you need POWER. Power is focussed energy, not a profligate energy that is scattered and wasted, but an energy that is accumulated, cultivated, refined and directed towards a goal.

As you grow you begin to prioritise your desires so instead of fluttering in all directions you try to fly specifically.

As you do this you discover that instead of you toiling with great effort up a slope the path is often graced by the goal lifting you up for a few paces. You get drawn up.

What I am saying is is this. We live in a sea of energy. For a while it seems like we grow by imbibing that energy; what is without is taken within.But sometimes it seems more as if that energy is filling us. As I have repeatedly told my students, “When you enter the Mystery, the Mystery enters you.” Then what seemed without is now living within.

This is what Kundalini achieves.

We have bodies that are ‘wired; for Bliss. We have an energy grid (meridians and channels, nadis) already in place. However the grid has blocks and the energy that flows along it is not at maximum. Our task is to clean up the energy lines. You can call it scouring the system. Purification. Our task is to open up to the energy in the Universe. This is done by what we eat, drink and breathe. Not just that, but how we do them too; with what attitude, with what feeling. How we sit, how we stand, and how we move.

Just recognising that you are an internal energy system is a big step in the right direction. It means you need to feel within. What is within is going to spill out. As I like to quote,” What you think, you will say; what you say, you will do and what you do, you will become.” You lay out your future in this way and when it arrives at your door you can;t blame anyone for the wailing and weeping!

When you start feeling you are an internal energy system you can start cooperating with it. You practise Right intent.

1) Harmonise your body posture

2) Harmonise your breathing

3) Harmonise your mind.

This is the essence of Tai Chi and what I teach.

It is fundamental tenet of mine that there is a Force in life that wants us to evolve. It isn;t trying to make the path unnecessarily hard, to arbitrarily throw obstacles in our way. As you start to feel a harmony within you start to harmonise with this Force. There is an energy that knows better than your small self what you need. At times this energy takes over and gives you a jolt in the right direction. This is Kundalini. Kundalini is that Power which makes the crooked straight, which goes before you to prepare a place, which sweeps through your system. When it is active go along for the ride!

It has been my experience that many of the bliss experiences are purification of the system. As Kundalini cleanses you can feel pleasure, even sensual. Your breathing follows a pattern of its own. Your body can move. You can make sounds. It is like that energy that dog has when it shakes itself dry. A spontaneous cleansing. (The sort of thing our planet is beginning to do, as we seem incapable to doing it ourselves. The earth will shake and we will wonder,; why is this happening?;)

In Tantric terms Kundalini is the Shakti power. It is the Goddess and she wants to unite with Her Lord Shiva in your head. She desires Him. She can become impatient to join with Him. All her movements are to get there; to rise up your spine in a gush of Ecstacy, Light and Power and shimmer in your head.

Energy loops back on Itself. She, Shakti, who is creation returns to the Silent One. There is completion in that Joy.

Kundalini will completely seduce you. She is a jealous lover though. You have to give her your All. You know when you are with someone but they know you are elsewhere. You even look over their shoulders. This will get you nowhere. You know how rejected you feel when this happens to you. There are no half measures with Kundalini. Oh yes you can do it that way. Just as I can have students who regard what I teach as a hobby, something to do once a week, when they are not busy with something else.

Each step is still a step in the right direction. No effort is wasted. Nevertheless to find the All you must give your all. When you do that,

the All comes to you.

Here on earth we live duality.

We live it either badly, or well; or may be, for many of us, with mediocrity, if we are honest. Most of the time, the world with its insistent clamour commands our attention. When we need a break from that we work on our pleasures, or our escape routes. In between we try meditation, massage and spiritual pursuits. We pick up how to books, to find balance, to find soul mates, we practise techniques.

There is an important commercial niche catering for these needs, these compulsions, this huge absence that fills our days with its nervous energy, running and ruining our lives. The “happy” majority has no time for any of this. Material needs in a needy, or greedy, material world form their daily diet.

It is a tough world for the sensitive, the caring, the empathetic folk who listen to the news and burst into tears. It is a tough world in which to get our spiritual teeth.

It can be done.

We can feel balance, if not all of the time, then a lot of the time. First we need to make the time to work on the communication lines; the lines to our own souls. This is like learning a new language; like learning a new language while all we mostly hear is the babble of the old, old crappy words that come back like the sorry echoes of our own repetitive screams. It isn;t easy and it requires persistence; but when you have heard the world;s (your) noise long enough you decide to say, ”enough!”

Don;t wait too long. Time might run out for you. As I wrote in my book, “Stalking Personal Power and Peace” don;t wait till you are dead to find out who you are.

One of the things mystics can teach us is that truth is a paradox. It often includes two extremes.

Maharishi taught me that the Infinite is both bigger than the biggest and is also smaller than the smallest. At both ends of the scale lies the infinite.

When in my practices I become smaller, smaller, smallest then suddenly I become nothing. When I do this, this Nothing is the All. When Nothing else exists but “I”, this pure and simple “I”; actually let me rephrase that, when nothing else exists but this unqualified “I” I have expanded to All.

This afternoon as I began my Chi Kung exercises my tongue touching my upper palate, which connects the two main meridians, started to vibrate. I become alive inside. As I become alive inside, my body hums. I also disappear. All that is left is the Now. The Tao. David has vanished, like a falling ripe fruit.

Time is gliding by. Moment by moment our lives move into their personal mystery. We move from place to place. But if can attend to where we are, listen to the Silence between thoughts, feel the Gap between breaths then we come to the Here and the Tao.

In my Tai Chi classes I encourage my students to feel that moment between each extreme, at the end of a stretch, at the end of an out breath, at the bottom of a ‘sinking; at the completion of an inhale; in these moments the Eternal can be glimpsed. As this happens more and more the energy system gets soaked in that experience. It is very fulfilling, very complete; it is difficult to move away from it, like saying goodbye to a lover, or your mother or, what the heck, your Self.

You see your life like a tiger stalking its prey. Or the other way round. Life stalking you like a tiger; going round and round you waiting for that moment, that instant of Divine forgetting, when in a momentous Unknowing you let go all you are not, forget it so utterly, so totally and you are embraced by those arms you have sought from the very beginning of time. And oh! the joy of the now.

This is a simple technique I use and teach that is very effective. It is simple and magical. One great advantage is that each person can play around with it and explore its possibilities on their own and in their own way. There are no lists of rules, no sequence of moves to be remembered, no correct procedures; just start the process and let it develop, as it does. Follow along, like following a stream, innocently, curiously, in wonderment.

If you can, accept the concept, that each person was created by God, or the Universe, or Tao. As the Bible states, God formed clay and “breathed into it”. We have inside us, like a memory, that Pulse of Breath; our Original Breath, just as you might have read of our Original Face or our Original Mind. This is what we were, before….

If you like think of it as the proverbial twinkle in your parents eyes just before they conceived you. That pulse of joy that brought you into existence.

I like to imagine my Original Face as that of a child with a smile on it. It is an easy image for anyone I think, a young face with a smile. While this is not using the inner child concept of New Age psychology, there is value in imagining that happy young energy inside. The original breath inside us is a young child, innocent and open.

Taoist practices try to get us in touch with our own energy. Once one can accept the concept of our own inner energy one can start to feel it. Once you start to feel it you are in a position to cultivate it. This is the aim of the inner smile practice.

The practice:

Shut your eyes and feel your lips. Immediately you should feel the energy on the lips. Now bring them into a slight smile. I think it is impossible to do this and not feel some happy feeling at the same time. A student of my School of Esoteric Arts, a biologist, speculates that as the muscles move into a smile then the wiring of our emotions is such that we feel good; that it is hard to put the lips into a smile and not feel happy.

This good feeling, this sense of a happy energy inside is the basis of all that follows.

Life on earth is sun based. We get the gravitational effect of the moon on the tides etc but our main energy source is the sun. We are energetically linked to the sun. It shines its energy on us and we grow with it. Without it we will become extinct. It is central to our existence.

When I shut my eyes for this practice I like to imagine a big ball of golden energy like the sun just above my head and beaming into my face. I turn the corners of my lips into a slight smile. I breathe into that smile, feeling good. I feel that golden ball of energy. I feel warm on my face. After some breaths I put that stretching smiling energy across my forehead. With each in breath I stretch it across, across each lobe of the brain; with each out breath relax and just feel the energy there. Then I put it so it stretches across my eyes, into the corner of each eyelid. I find this very relaxing.

In this way I move down the body, with each breath feeling that energy of the sun melting me inside, smiling across me.

Spots that can be included are across the throat, from the heart across the chest, across the belly in front and then across the back at belly button level, Ming Men (this links into the belt chi or kidney meridian); from the spine in middle of the shoulders to the shoulders. There is a gate on the spine there where energy gets stuck.

Each inbreath a smile then relax and feel.

If you ever lose focus go back to the lips and feel a smile there.

Across inner organs, pelvis, groin, across knees, across soles of feet, across toes, hands.

You can do it just as you like, for as long as you like

I tell my students to love their body. When you smile at your body it is like a boss coming into a place of work and letting the employees know they are appreciated. When you scowl at yourself you are like an intimidating dominating boss making the workers tense. Your organs will function better if they feel appreciated and loved.

Some people go around with an inner scowl and life confirms it. They see all that is wrong and it makes them feel worse. They seek for what is wrong. They are the critics of life. They have the eyes and nose for that, inner scowl at the ready. Some go around with an inner smile. When things go wrong they make them better.

Inside us we have all sorts of different and competing energies. A smile is like saying,

” OK. It is all OK” like a fond mother who watches her children and friends play. We are doing the best we can, so give your self a smile.

You can beam inside a smile to someone in need of it, someone ill, someone unhappy, to someone with whom you have a problem maybe.

Then end the practice with an inside thank you.

I use it when I practice my moving forms. This is not as easy as sitting with a smile, for, by habit, as one focuses carefully or when tries to remember the sequence one loses a smile. I have students who purse their lips or grimace as they concentrate. When one is trying to concentrate on inner sensations, internal movement one can lose the smile and go blank with concentration.

It is not an external grin. We often grin when we are trying to project something or manipulate somebody. Radiant flashes of teeth.

It is a smile that bubbles up from inside, something essential inside, of contentment. Like when a baby sees someone who loves it. A smile that says,”Here I am”,”Here you are”, “Here we are and isn;t it grand?” The sort of smile you hope God has when She sees you doing your best.

You can imagine a very accomplished martial artist who is challenged by someone he knows he can easily beat. He can smile, a smile of total confidence, of knowing his power, a smile of nothing to prove, nothing to do, just sure of it all.

In my forms I often try to maintain that smiling energy and in each move have it flow there. As I extend the smiling energy flows along the arm, the muscles stay relaxed and I imagine the smile extending beyond the fist, beyond the palm, into the world. When I stand up the smile spirals up inside and reaches above my head, stretching into “heaven”. When I sink it goes down into the earth.

So much of our life is spent trying to accomplish something, to get somewhere. The inner smile recognizes that where we are is All,

and All is Good.