The Listening Body: When Feeling Becomes Knowing

There is a kind of knowing that does not come from thought.

It begins as liberation,

A quiet wait behind the skin,

Like the air before rain,

The pause before speech,

And the still point before a Tai Chi movement.

If you listen to the body without interrupting it,

You begin to sense an intelligence moving on its own.

You notice that your breath adjusts by itself.

You feel your weight shift into balance without you giving any command.

This is the same intelligence that guides Tai Chi.

Movement is born not from will,

But from awareness finding its own path.

In Tai Chi,

Awareness and the body answer each other.

There is a subtle dialogue that never ends.

When awareness listens,

The body softens.

When the body releases,

Awareness expands.

Out of this mutual listening,

Movement arises naturally,

A rhythm where motion and stillness become one.

Just like in the quiet rhythm of Tai Chi,

Motion carries stillness and stillness gives birth to motion.

Sometimes awareness initiates and movement takes shape.

Sometimes the form leads and awareness follows.

Our body understands harmony long before the mind can explain it.

When awareness and movement merge,

Form and emptiness become one gesture.

In that union,

We enter a state of being.

Effortless,

Whole,

Alive.

Let your attention rest in this ongoing exchange between attention and sensation,

Between breath and ground,

As well as inner rhythm and outer form.

Sensation is not distraction,

It is guidance.

Each small pulse of warmth,

Each subtle wave of ease or resistance is life whispering.

It is this way as you feel it.

In Tai Chi,

Sometimes in a simple turn or pause,

You can feel all being vibrate through the flash.

And in that instant,

Your body speaks clearly.

You are not something inside the body.

The body is inside pure awareness.