Ayse's Daffodil Flowers And T'ai Chi Ch'uan
We met Ayşe in 1994. In those years, while trying to continue my engineering life, on the other hand, I took my mother, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and turned into a man who shuttled between Capa, Cerrahpaşa and Okmeydanı hospitals. Every day on my way back to my little house on the Yoğurtçu Park street in Kadıköy, I would pass by the small flower shop on the same street with the sign "Ayşem Çiçekçiler". That day, in the evening when the shop was closed, while I was passing by, I saw that potted flowers were left in front of the showcase. I stopped, looked and commented that “they probably put them outside with the thought that they can't sell them anymore, so anyone can buy them” and I took a few flower pots and went home. I even called out to a couple walking in front of me and suggested that they come and get it with the same perception. Pots in my lap, my mother greeted me.
While she was taking the pots from my hand, I told her the source of the pots, she. “Okay son, you stole these flowers!” she said.
"Oh mom, you know, in Germany, people do things like this, they take things they won't use to the streets on certain days, so that those who need it can buy it!" Even though I said that, the wolf came to my mind, "what if my mother is right".
The next evening, I passed a little earlier than the flower shop. There are still a few pots standing there. I went inside and asked the shopkeeper across from me the price of the flowers standing outside. She said a little price, hesitating a little. I took it out, extended the money for the flower pots I bought. “Choose and get!” said. “I already chose and bought!” I said. He was surprised, “What? When?”, confused…” I said “Last night” and explained my perception, what I had done, my mother warning me. We laughed with laughter, we met…
Ayşe and I later became friends. In those difficult days, when I was at work, he came to our house, which was close to me, and spent time with my mother and took care of her. She drank tea... We lost my mother after two and a half instructive years, during which we experienced the ordeal of a sunken medical system and the deepest human conditions on the other hand. As I write this article, on the night of the year that we transitioned from 1996 to 1997, just before his death, the tiny, half-meter-long Himalayan cedar we planted with my sister and mother, reached the fourth floor, swaying in the wind, if I reached out, I would touch its branch. It's nice to plant trees...
T'AI CHI and T'AI CHI CH'UAN:
T'ai Chi is a synonym for Tao. So a synonym, another nomenclature. T'ai Chi Ch'uan, on the other hand, as a practice, is a way of understanding TAO-T'ai Chi. Of course, since the article proceeds with the assumption of certain conceptual data on the reader's side, “What is TAO?” Explanations to the question will not be included in these lines. My students have repeatedly heard different definitions for T'ai Chi Ch'uan from me. Health protective system, martial art, a way of developing a communication skill, etc. It would not be an exaggeration if I say dozens of dimensions-definitions. The source of this article is the content of the evening class we held on Thursday, December 15 last week. If we take into account the burdens we have to carry, the injuries we have experienced in our relationships, the pain we have suffered, and the existence of the country, the world, and our children, the anxiety it creates in us does something to us. If I put it simply; I say sick! That evening, one of our bandmates made it very clear that he couldn't connect with the instructions I tried to give by watching the band. "Sir, I can't manage to be here tonight, I'm aware, I'll do as much as I do, don't get too attached to me, don't try to fix it!" he meant something. He expressed his situation very sincerely. This state of our friend gave us the opportunity to live together with the awareness of what we are dealing with instead of correcting the movement. The speech I gave there is actually the main theme of this article. The word was spoken for a small group of T'ai Chi in that small venue. All of a sudden, he thought that it would be good to write down the awareness story that took place there, and that it would be useful for others to record it, and said, "Guys, we talked about this, so get a written record!" I said.
Our topic was “now”. Our friend had come to T'ai Chi class, but he wasn't there, he wasn't now. He was clearly saying that. In fact, he was not alone in this situation. I say this by including myself. I don't know if anyone can live in the present, constantly in the moment. The definition of “Buddha” may perhaps correspond to such a person. When I say what I know, what I know, I shared that I lived in my life practice, not just as a book, and now I am doing the same:
Healing power of now:
Here is another definition:
Our T'ai, Chi practices are one of the most effective ways to be in the present. That's why we come together and work on T'ai Chi. Nowadays, perhaps this dimension interests me the most. This is the instruction given to us in many “personal development” programs—my environment knows I don't like this description. “Be in the moment, live in the now!” It's just... it's done! It's like we have a button to be in the moment, we will press it, we will be in the moment. As a practice, T'ai Chi Ch'uan, or to put it more generally, T'ai Chi practices makes us experience the moment naturally, and we get the healing power from it. Every moment we live is almost gone. Let your eyes follow a plane flying by leaving a trail in the sky. That plane, always now! The white trace it leaves behind is our past. In that trace, we have pain, wounds and traumas as well as joys and good experiences. Our past is always tied to the present. Being in the present does not mean breaking away from our past. As of this moment, we can look at our past as a database of our own. Being in the moment doesn't mean forgetting the past. This does not happen even if we wanted to. Everything is there, in the archive! A new event experienced acts as a trigger and causes the past pain to be transferred to the main. In other words, unless we manage to confront the past, our problems, our pain, our trauma, we are pulling them into the present. The past finds itself in the present. I think this is very common! Being in the present brings the person into their own body first. It reveals your uniqueness. He explains that this uniqueness needs external ties. The nourishment of your being can only be in the moment. The increased brain frequency with anxiety, fear, and insecurity decreases as much as we manage to be in the moment. Earlier, I spoke to my students about the Schumann resonance frequency and the psychologically related variability of brain frequency. Let me mention it here, it will arouse some curiosity. If we cannot feed on the present, we cannot look at our past calmly, we cannot use it as a database. The wound is constantly bleeding, it hurts. Life is wasted! Words of regret are produced.
“I couldn't see what life gave me, now I'm an old woman with nothing left to find worth living!”
These are the words I heard from a very old friend of mine recently.
In order to benefit from the healing power of the present, I am sure that I will also mention the suggestions that you come across from different channels:
Mindful breathing, mindful walking:
We've talked about it many times over the years. In the continuous production of our soul (we call it chi), our act of breathing is the most important, but we do not know that we are breathing. Even those of us who move, travel, produce-consume on this planet on their two feet, do not know the value of being able to move without pain, pain and without the need for any instrument. However, ask those who have lost this ability completely or relatively! What a great awareness he lives! Being able to breathe and walk with awareness is a free way to bring us to ourselves. You know you're breathing in, you're exhaling. You take a step, you know that you are stepping on the ground that gives you a thousand and one blessings. You realize this world that fed those before you and will continue to feed those after you. You meet in your body. “Hey! You stand there! Let me see, who are you? You can unleash the strength, calmness, and the ability to analyze, which is fed by them. That's exactly what we do at our T'ai Chi meetings. First of all, mindful breathing, mindful stepping.
However, over time this gets richer:
Mindful touch, mindful vision, mindful word, mindful life…
T'ai Chi practices are the practices that can make us live the present most effectively as a tool and lead us to a mindful life. Once we understand awareness and its ways, we can practice right there, now. By establishing a new contact with what is, with what is there, with what we do not see. Very competent and respected people have already written books on this subject. Of course, I recommend you to reach them, their books.
But I can give you an example now.
Here, now it's Ayşe's daffodils:
In the lesson in question, after making sentences as above based on the state of our group friend, I said, let's do an application. Ayşe had come that day with a basket full of daffodils collected from nature. At the beginning of the lesson, I placed it in the corner of our study room and explained the source of these flowers and the reason why they were here.
Ayşe was born and raised in the village of Tarakçı, in the Ayancık district of Sinop. His master father built his own houses and many old wooden Black Sea houses in the region. You know, one of the masters who creates miracles with his cut. I recognized him! Years later, Ayşe built a small prefabricated house right in front of her father's hearth. The old house cannot be repaired. He spends a few months of the year there now. This is good for him when he gets bored with Istanbul. He also has a cousin like himself. She stays permanently in nature. They collect chestnuts from the forest, and daffodils from nature. Just like last year, I said that this year too, let's take advantage of Ayşe and her cousin's daffodils. Quiet-rich, contributing to our T'ai Chi work with its scent and elegant visuals...
Bought a bunch, thinking of the soil that produces this elegant flower, its cousin who harvests them in harsh winter conditions. his earthly needs. The trouble of sending it to Istanbul. I thought about Ayşe, the whole process of reaching me-us.
It is no longer possible for me to become estranged from this bunch of daffodils that I hold in my hand!
A T'ai Chi comrade stands in front of me. I see myself, I see him. I am aware of it. I am aware of his uniqueness. With respect, I sniff this beautiful fragrance, which I will smell, if I can notice it in a short time of the year, which is extraordinary. The smell permeates me, it almost enters my whole body. I relax, I present it to my comrade standing in front of me. He is doing the same. And a bunch of daffodils are circulating in the whole group. As a group, we experience a level of collective awareness.
Ayşe's daffodil flowers join and support the T'ai Chi awareness journey we have already made after a conversation with a friend of ours, as all grace and fragrance.
You can enrich awareness activities without having to wait for special time and tools!
In the morning, preschool, while making breakfast for your child. Hugging her at the door before she leaves can turn into a short hug meditation. Now, you are there! Your child is there! You are in good health! This brief moment will heal all your past hurts.
When you meet your friend in this hustle and bustle of life, sitting opposite each other and drinking tea and coffee!
Not by swallowing tea or coffee obese. By valuing your togetherness and togetherness. Without making tea or coffee an obese habit, without taking it for granted. Making relationships an obese habit is the biggest danger to that relationship.
When I went to my Kobayashi teachers' house, a few more people were there before the boarding study. We would travel with their vehicle to the place of work. Dear Toyo (We lost 21 April 2016!) offered us green tea. Someone had finished the tea very quickly. As the second bowl was being filled, Toyo called mischievously: “How do you drink tea like that! It was like an elephant drinking with its trunk!”
We laughed…
Understanding and knowing what, why and how we do it changes the way.
T'ai chi Ch'uan is definitely a way of awareness.
Photo:SE, Bernried, Lake Starnberger(Germany)
When we take what we know from outside, sincere people, we can experience another dimension of awareness. Moreover, we allow what we do not know to reach us. During the T'ai Chi Ch'uan meeting on December 7-11, 2016, I diversified the awareness activities I mentioned to you on the shore of Stanberger Lake, by contacting several centuries-old trees, watching wild geese, swans and ducks, on the one hand, I translated Thich Nhat Hahn's “Turkish” I was fed by reading his book, which was translated as “One mouth, two ears” A Zen priest proves to us that he has zen simplicity, his ability to touch reality and express his meaning without slurring.
It is not like a novel, of course, but a book that can be kept in our hands as a bedside book and read many times. I highly recommend…
So studying more T'ai Chi will be good for all of us! To be here and now, to establish a healthier contact with our past, to walk into the future…
With love.
Suha Ertekin
23.12.2016, Yoğurtçu/Kadıköy
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