From Stillness to Compassion

On the “Strings of the Tao”, Bruce seems to map out a progression of stillness to compassion using cryptic Taoist phrases to capture the phases. Roughly, I think this is it.

* Stillness movement. Movement stillness.
* Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.
* Balance
* Tai chi space
* Stability and chaos
* Compassion

I’ve been posting about some of these lately. For example, I posted how you can interpret the mountain palm change as stillness and movement creating emptiness or the tai chi space. Here I want to comment on how they all appear to be related.

So, stillness movement – movement stillness can be looked at as a simple yin/yang pair. It is much easier to find the balance between a stable point and its contrasting movement than it is to find the yin/yang pair of form and emptiness.

If you see them as yin/yang pairs, then the next phase, balance, make more sense. As you understand each and balance their yin aspect and yang aspect better you begin to see how balancing them actually creates emptiness. You also see how form includes movement and then how balance includes both of the phrases. Balance refers to balancing any yin/yang pair to create (or give birth to) the tai chi space. The balance has to be almost perfectly matched. It is subtle. It creates emptiness. And the emptiness is real. It isn’t some idea in your head or a thought.

The yin and yangs balance each other and create the space in the center of the I Ching symbol. All of the axial pairs (heaven and earth, wind and thunder, fire and water, mountain and lake) in the symbol are exact opposites. On one level it doesn’t matter what they represent. The important point is that they are opposites that when balanced create the tai chi space or emptiness in the center of the symbol.

When you find the tai chi space, you’ll also find how yin and yang can flip to their opposites smoothly and without inertia. The emptiness in the center acts like a stabilizing force. The strange thing is you can make the switch while maintaining the space and even increase it. You can increase the contrasting yin and yang and thus increase the space. More importantly, the space remains present even when the change from yang to yin and yin to yang happens no matter how fast the change occurs.

Ultimately you create a lot of personal power. This seems to be the basis of using it for Bagua as a martial art. To progress further you need to start to understand chaos.

Stability and chaos are just another pair of yin and yangs. You could look at the axial pair of heaven and earth as representing any yang and yin. The axial pair of wind and thunder as representing stillness and movement. The axial pair of fire and water as representing form and emptiness. And finally, mountain and lake as stability and chaos.

Mountain is stillness. Stillness is stability. It is also the body of individuality. It is everything that you identify as you. In contrast there is everything else. Chaos is everything else. When you create any movement or form, the universe balances it. It has to. That’s the way it all works both at the micro and macro levels.

Think if stability as what you control. When you create something (a movement, a form) you have a sense of control. You feel in control, but what you may not be aware of is that the universe is perfectly balancing everything you are doing. Chaos is the universe acting on you whether you like it or not. To find the balance between these two is the great stillness. If you have the genuine interest in finding and maintaining that balance, you’ll begin creating true compassion.

If you just use the ability to create emptiness to create personal power, you’ll never find the ultimate goal. You’ll never find true balance and you’ll never find compassion.