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The
Harmonious Dragon Tai Chi School and Tao Center was founded in 1982 in
order to teach the Taoist philosophy of the Tao Te Ching, and the meditative,
spiritual-physical discipline of Tai Chi. Tai Chi has three aspects: spiritual
development, good health, and self-defense. The spiritual and self-defense
aspects are being lost as people seek to make Tai Chi an Olympic sport.
Our school holds to the traditional way and teaches all three aspects.
We put special emphasis on the inner, spiritual meaning of Tai Chi. Tai
Chi is the uniting of the spiritual (the soul) with the physical (the
body). Before beginning the movements, the student must sink into the
Wu Chi, the Universal Soul that exists within all things. When Wu Chi
is reached, Tai Chi can begin. Tai Chi occurs when the soul moves the
body. Many people come to Tai Chi believing that the movements are Tai
Chi, but the movements are merely techniques to aid the process of uniting
the spiritual with the physical. It is this process that is Tai Chi. This
means that Tai Chi can be practiced every second of one's life; in cooking,
dancing, self-defense, chopping wood, etc. By binding the spiritual to
all things, the student becomes one with all things, and lives in the
sacred universe of Mother Tao.
With the teaching of the spiritual aspect of Tai Chi, the school works
toward two things:
1. To halt the destruction of Nature by helping the student to see that
Nature is a sacred Oneness. Lao Tzu says, «The universe is sacred.»
Only when humans see that Nature is alive and full of soul, will we cease
our destruction of it.
2. To halt the transformation of the ancient, spiritual journey of Tai
Chi into a Chinese health gymnastic and sport.
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