TAI CHI PHILOSOPHY

Tao Te Ching

The Tao Te Ching is said to have been written about 2500 years ago by a sage called Lao Tzu. There are many stories and legends about him but very little is factually recorded. The following couple of poems act as an introduction to the main ideas - Tao and its relationship to Yin & Yang and life.

Realisation of Tao

The Tao that can be expressed is not the Eternal Tao.
The name that can be defined is not the Eternal name.
The unnameable is the origin of Heaven and Earth.
The nameable creates life and the ten thousand things.
Therefore,
Develop a sense of peace so as to come close to the essence of life.
Develop natural desires so as to appreciate the existence of life.
These two come out from the same source.
But are different in name.
Their identical nature is a mystery.
Mystery within mysteries.
This is the gateway of all essence and existence.

The four eternal models

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and Earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
I do not know its name.
So I call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.
Being great, it flows through everything.
It is forever outgoing.
It is forever far reaching,
Having reached everywhere, it returns.
Therefore.
Tao is great.
Heaven is great.
Earth is great.
Man is also great.
These are the four great powers of the cosmos.
Man follows the earth.
The earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

I Ching

The I-Ching (E-Jing) is one of the oldest books in the world. It began its life as a simple way of getting a yes or no answer to a question.

In about 1150 B.C a king and his son added a section on the right conduct in a situation.

As time passed images were added, as well as degrees of change.

The I-Ching is at its simplest the arrangement of Yin(_ _) and Yang(__) lines in what are called Trigrams. Two of these are combined one on top of the other to make a Hexagram.

Go here for a very useful resource in which the I-Ching is explained for beginners & in detail for the more experienced students..