Awareness is the center of the self and is a doorway to a deeper reality.   It is the foundational state of the arts of Yoga, Meditation, Mindfulness and my own practice of Tai Chi. I believe it is a subtle power that is changing the World.

As I prepare to write this I bring awareness to myself and notice my mind making a ‘big deal’ out of it, a difficulty. This awareness enables me to reset so I envision a natural and easy process.

In our changing World we have passed from the Dark Ages, then Renaissance to the Age of Reason – The Enlightenment.  Now we have Science, Technology, Information and Globalisation, but what happened to Enlightenment? How do we move in that direction? With awareness!

So what is awareness? It is knowing existence whilst existing, doing something (or nothing) whilst seeing yourself doing it,  like a mirror within reality,  a ‘blackbox recorder’ at the moment of recording. To practice awareness is to become the witness of your life – to bring perspective.  The point of awareness is still and unmoving whilst all of you and all around you may be chaotic.  With awareness we see how we behave, we notice that in relationships and events we get lost in our opinion and return to ‘unconsciousness’.  Awareness is ‘the now’. Thinking is the past or future.

We can use awareness to move in the direction we want to go, for our life, in relationships, with nature and society.  To cultivate the universal virtues of; balance, centeredness, creativity, love and harmony we start with awareness.

Understanding awareness gains little, its power is in practice. Tai Chi starts with body awareness as sensation, experiencing breathing, the feeling of pulse and the sensation of each body part both distinct and as a whole. Once physical awareness is stable we notice the emotions and the mind.  By continually practicing self-awareness we see more deeply who we are and we develop our health.  We can expand our awareness into the space around us, listening to people, nature and the rhythms of change.  There is no end to the application of awareness to the experience of life and the journey to enlightenment.

As a long serving instructor in Golden Flower Tai Chi I work under the guidance of the Master of the School – San Gee Tam and his wife, Chief Instructor, Annukka.  The material that they have developed inspires me to make my classes fun and full of possibility for self development.