'Live life to the full'
This is a catchphrase widely used for both spiritual teaching and commercial gimmicks alike. But I've been experiencing a different kind of 'living the life to the full'.
I'm a late middle-aged housewife living a reclusive life with moderate means. Much as I like the idea/ideal of living a 'full life' splashing out on all the trendy goodies of life - big car, posh house, luxurious spa retreat, expensive holidays, extensive therapeutic treatments of this kind or that, I'm stuck with two school-aged kids, two cats and a partner who spends a lot of time working hard to earn the keep for the whole family (bless him!).
My enjoyment of life comes mainly from my Tai Chi practice. During and after a good training session (a couple of hours every morning), I feel immense fullness and aliveness, feeling the Chi (life force) causing through all the energy pathways around the body right through to the finger tips, saturating every single cell of the body with vitality, sensitivity and freshness. With each cell pulsating and breathing, the while body feels light and transparent merging with the surroundings as if everything is in you - the trees, birds, blue sky, drifting clouds - and you are everything. Such sensation of 'being fully alive' doesn't arise only during or after Tai Chi sessions; it may come while I'm sitting or reading or even typing away at the computer like I'm doing now. It is not induced by any special technique like 'deep breathing' or mental gymnastics of visualization. Nothing of the kind. If you strive for gathering the Chi from here or there like many Tai Chi and Chi Kung teachers in the west teach, you'll never come to this natural state of aliveness because you are actually hindering the natural Chi flow inside with thought; and thought, being a product of the mind structure, is always limiting and straining in its very nature and all it does is diminishing the sensivity of the human living organism. This transparent feeling can only happy when the mind is quiet and passive. To live life to the full in this sense means to become fully alive to your body while die to your structured mind. To rush around with activities of the world or to engage in highly philosophical, metaphysical, academic pursuits do not make one's life full. They all serve to take one away from his own
body which is a highly-evolved, highly sensitive living organism capable of enjoying a lot more of living, just being alive than the average adult has ever felt. Real joy doesn't come from external stimuli - food, drink, sex, luxury, console games, T.V. shows and movies - all the material comforts produced by civilization. Real joy is simple, direct, living, independent and yet more innate, indwelling and powerful. It comes without you inviting it. A little wild flower in the wild is an expression of joy of life just as much as a prize-winning rose show-cased at the Chelsea flower show.
I think by the time a person reaches 30, he's lost about half of the sensitivity and sense of joy in the body compared to a young child. Such a loss accumulates with age until it reaches the limit at the time of death. I really don't understand why people still find death a fact so hard to swallow. When one has lost 90+ percent of 'aliveness', sensitivity and hence joy of having a body, living becomes a painful struggle. If one is tormented by chronic pain and illness as well as old age, life becomes a living hell. One needs not wait till after physical death to experience hell. Even if there was hell where the dead folks go, it cannot possibly be worse. But I don't believe that we are all doomed to go in such a sad way. If one does take care and consciously nurture the life force in the body, one can maintain the aliveness to the maximum. It is possible for one to die disease-and-pain-free, consciously and with grace. That's why the Taoists (not the religious ones but true practicing alchemists) made the bold claim, 'My life lies within my own hands, not in that of Heaven'. They are the true masters of the art of 'living the life to the full'.
I'm a late middle-aged housewife living a reclusive life with moderate means. Much as I like the idea/ideal of living a 'full life' splashing out on all the trendy goodies of life - big car, posh house, luxurious spa retreat, expensive holidays, extensive therapeutic treatments of this kind or that, I'm stuck with two school-aged kids, two cats and a partner who spends a lot of time working hard to earn the keep for the whole family (bless him!).
My enjoyment of life comes mainly from my Tai Chi practice. During and after a good training session (a couple of hours every morning), I feel immense fullness and aliveness, feeling the Chi (life force) causing through all the energy pathways around the body right through to the finger tips, saturating every single cell of the body with vitality, sensitivity and freshness. With each cell pulsating and breathing, the while body feels light and transparent merging with the surroundings as if everything is in you - the trees, birds, blue sky, drifting clouds - and you are everything. Such sensation of 'being fully alive' doesn't arise only during or after Tai Chi sessions; it may come while I'm sitting or reading or even typing away at the computer like I'm doing now. It is not induced by any special technique like 'deep breathing' or mental gymnastics of visualization. Nothing of the kind. If you strive for gathering the Chi from here or there like many Tai Chi and Chi Kung teachers in the west teach, you'll never come to this natural state of aliveness because you are actually hindering the natural Chi flow inside with thought; and thought, being a product of the mind structure, is always limiting and straining in its very nature and all it does is diminishing the sensivity of the human living organism. This transparent feeling can only happy when the mind is quiet and passive. To live life to the full in this sense means to become fully alive to your body while die to your structured mind. To rush around with activities of the world or to engage in highly philosophical, metaphysical, academic pursuits do not make one's life full. They all serve to take one away from his own
body which is a highly-evolved, highly sensitive living organism capable of enjoying a lot more of living, just being alive than the average adult has ever felt. Real joy doesn't come from external stimuli - food, drink, sex, luxury, console games, T.V. shows and movies - all the material comforts produced by civilization. Real joy is simple, direct, living, independent and yet more innate, indwelling and powerful. It comes without you inviting it. A little wild flower in the wild is an expression of joy of life just as much as a prize-winning rose show-cased at the Chelsea flower show. I think by the time a person reaches 30, he's lost about half of the sensitivity and sense of joy in the body compared to a young child. Such a loss accumulates with age until it reaches the limit at the time of death. I really don't understand why people still find death a fact so hard to swallow. When one has lost 90+ percent of 'aliveness', sensitivity and hence joy of having a body, living becomes a painful struggle. If one is tormented by chronic pain and illness as well as old age, life becomes a living hell. One needs not wait till after physical death to experience hell. Even if there was hell where the dead folks go, it cannot possibly be worse. But I don't believe that we are all doomed to go in such a sad way. If one does take care and consciously nurture the life force in the body, one can maintain the aliveness to the maximum. It is possible for one to die disease-and-pain-free, consciously and with grace. That's why the Taoists (not the religious ones but true practicing alchemists) made the bold claim, 'My life lies within my own hands, not in that of Heaven'. They are the true masters of the art of 'living the life to the full'.
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