Hallo, I am Bin Song. I am Ru scholar, therapist and college professor. This audio is written and recorded by me to introduce you to the practice of Tai Chi and Eight-Brocade Exercise in light of the philosophy and practice of Ru Meditation.

I once described the spirit of Ru meditation as Meditation in Motion, which aims to extend the state of energy equilibrium across both static and moving forms of meditation. For doing this, I explained that breathing practice is a foundation. On the basis of this, we can start to practice meditation in its static forms such as sleeping, cross-legged quiet-sitting, quiet-sitting on a chair, and standing. After this, we add three moving forms of Ru meditation into our list: walking meditation, eight-brocade exercise, and Tai Chi (or Taiji in pinyin) martial arts.

Eight-Brocade Exercise and Tai Chi martial arts should be counted as two most popular physical exercises that were created in ancient China and are still practiced by people all over the world. They are on the must-do list in many Qi Gong clubs, and through internet, you can also find abundant instructions in both video and word forms. I include links under the video to help you find these instructions; in Maryland and the greater Washington D.C area, I would also like to find friends to teach and practice these moving forms of meditation together. Nevertheless, I would not include a point-to-point instruction on how to do these two moving forms of Ru meditation here.

However, since we are talking about Ru meditation, it would be interesting to discuss the meaning of these practices to the tradition of Ruism. Using short videos (which are embedded in the above youtube video, starts from around 10:00 ), I will also demonstrate shortly how I do these moving forms of meditation in person.

First, I need to remind you that there are three major spiritual traditions in ancient China, Ruism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and in reality, all these three traditions played a significant role in originating, documenting, and spreading varying forms of physical exercises and martial arts.

For instance, focusing on the Ruist side, I will tell you that the first person who gave the name “eight-brocade exercise” and documented its practice is called Hong Mai (1123-1202 C.E) in Southern Song dynasty. Mr. Hong Mai grew up in a Ruist family, participated in civil examination, got the highest degree, and appointed as a scholar-official for varying governmental posts. Therefore, we can discern the deep Ruist background of Hong Mai’s scholarship. Another great example is Chen Wang-ting (1600-1680), the founder of the Chen-Style Tai Chi martial arts. He passed both the martial and civilian branches of civil examination, and his practice and scholarship on Tai Chi was versed deeply in the spirit of Ruist metaphysics and ethics. On top of these two examples, let’s remember that martial arts is a very important component of civil examination, and for examinees that finally succeeded to be appointed as a military official in the army, they can be seen as the martial side of the Ru tradition, vis-à-vis the civilian side of Ruism which people today may be mostly familiar with. But some greatest Ru scholars, such as Wang Yang-ming and Zeng Guofan, were also great military leaders. And for the sake of indicating loyalty, wisdom, and courage, all Ruist virtues, to their own country and people, and for the sake of self-cultivation, physical exercises and varying martials arts are very much integral to the life of those Ruist military officials.

In a word, what I tried to convey through these examples is that Ruism, Buddhism and Daoism, seen from their own philosophies and histories, are three self-organizing, yet mutually interacting comprehensive systems. A person can broadly learn all these three traditions, form their own philosophical views, and practice martial arts with these views. Or, a person can be a very staunch advocate devoted solely to one of these three traditions, and then, embed the practice of martials arts in it. For me, I understand Ruism as a tradition of liberal arts, and advocate a version of “anchored pluralism.” In other words, I take Ruism, its philosophy, history, and practice, as a major anchor of my personal life, but simultaneously, I also try to learn broadly from other Eastern and Western, scientific and humanistic traditions, so as to enrich my own life, and enrich the Ru tradition that I am advocating.

Therefore, in the following, I will mainly show how I understand and practice these two moving forms of meditation in a Ruist manner.

What I like the eight-brocade exercise the most is its coordination of breathing with body movements. For instance, this first move is called “ Two Hands Carry the Heavens while Regulating the Three Stoves,” (两手托天理三焦) and “Three stoves” means the three major parts of our inner organs from our heart to our lower abdomen. When doing this move, our hands start from crossing each other while rising. At this moment, we inhale. When we top our hands above our heads, we look upward, and reach the limit of inhale. Then, we look forward while holding the breath for a short moment. After that, our two hands fall down from the two sides of our body; during this process, we slowly exhale until a short pause to back to our commencing posture. Look, the principle of doing this exercise is almost exactly the same as our other practices of Ru meditation. For instance, In the breathing practice, the first stage is to use a series of numbers, or a mantra to help our attention focus upon our breath. In the walking meditation, we match our steps to our breathing, and contemplate varying parts of our body’s movement while walking. Here, in the eight-brocade exercise, we coordinate our breath with our body movements which are designed to exercise varying parts of our body, and during the process, our attention needs to follow each detail of the body movements while feeling our person united as a whole with the environment. See how consistent the practice of Ru meditation is. Because of this consistency, one of my most favorite moving practices of Ru meditation is actually to combine breathing, walking and the eight-brocade exercise. So I will take a deep breath, walk for some steps, and then, do a move of the eight-brocade exercise. How wonderful the feeling is after this!

Another point I particularly like this eight-brocade exercise is that each of its movement has a title, and combined all together, these titles read as a poem, and the spirit of this poem represents very well the holistic well-being that Ru meditation aims for. For instance, the seventh title reads as “clench your fist, show angry eyes, and then, increase your vital energies and strength” (攒拳怒目增气力). According to Ruist ethics, no emotion is essentially bad, and it all depends upon whether you can have the appropriate emotion in the right measure and at the right situation, including the one of Anger. For instance, Zhu Xi once said that “Anger caused by one’s hardened temper should not exist. Anger caused by one’s moral sense should not vanish.” (《朱子语类》) Therefore, when facing obvious social injustice, our social engagement needs to be supported by a deeply non-relativistic moral sense of right and wrong. In this sense, the practice of eight-brocade exercise, especially in this seventh move, can nurture our rooted moral feelings, and prepare us for substantial social engagement while nurturing an undisrupted inner state of tranquility and self-contentedness.

Good, let’s move on to the practice of Tai Chi (or Taiji in pinyin) martial arts. What I demonstrate in the video is part of the yang-style 24 move of Tai Chi martial arts, which is also one most popular for beginning practitioners of Tai Chi. Regarding the practice of Meditation in Motion in a Ruist manner by a human individual, nothing is more exemplary than Tai Chi martial arts.

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Firstly, the harmonious unity of heart-mind, air, body and environment, which I mentioned as a goal of Ru meditation, is vividly embodied by this practice. You need to match your attention to your breath, and then, your breath to the details of each move, and furthermore, feel your intimate and solid position between heaven and earth in a very holistic worldview. In particular, similar to the eight-brocade exercise, each move of Tai Chi has a name, and by pondering the name and its embodied move, we can furthermore appreciate the connection between us and the human civilization continuous to the nature. For instance, one move is called “a white crane spreads the wing”, and another move is called “hands embrace a Zither”. How beautiful these moves are!

Secondly, each detail of each move, and their mutual connection, is all about the subtle and smooth interaction between Yin and Yang aspects of the cosmic and human vital-energies, and thus, captures the spirit of dynamic harmony and meditation in motion very well. For instance, for the starting posture, you inhale, rise your hands, that is yang; but your palms need to face inwards, and this is yin. When your hands rise to the limit, you exhale and move the hands down, which is yin. But simultaneously, you palms need to face outwards, which is another form of Yang. Also, there are many circular or half-circular movements, representing the holistic commitment in this practice. Some move is solid, like standing solidly or closing your hands, while some is thought of as vacuous such as making the hand position like holding a ball. You see, these are a number of minor movements to embody the subtle interaction between yin and yang, which is a careful unfolding of the process of dynamic harmonization.

Thirdly, despite all these subtleties and varieties, all movements actually pivot upon our lower abdomen and its related belly and back. This part of our body is like the “ultimate pole”, the original meaning of Tai Chi, around which all our movements are pivoting. Impressively, this is a distinctively Ruist idea. First, the term of Tai Chi is from the Ruist Classic of Change, and it is used to describe the ultimate creative power of the entire universe; second, one central purpose of Ru meditation is to extend the state of energy equilibrium, or the one of centrality, to both static and moving forms of human activities. That means, despite changes and vicissitudes, our life is always centered upon a principle, and the principle is simple, consistent, and adaptable to change. You see? This is another great example of Ru wisdom.

Great! I hope you can find your own ways to practice these moving forms of meditation, and take care!

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