What makes TJQ so hard to master?

[Kevin Wallbridge]

RM, accolade? I'm just stating where I'm coming from. Nothing in what you have posted has given me any reason to believe you are a professional in the field of Chinese medicine. You haven't said so, at least I'm sharing how I know what I know.

Again, just because the Shenming is easily observed in the eyes does not mean that is the only place Shen is observed. You state "if you want to take the pulse, one goes to the radial artery." Again, this is an easy place to feel the pulse, but to state that it is the only place the pulse can be taken is to miss something fundamental about the thinking that underlies Chinese medicine. I often take a carotid pulse as well for comparison.

What I object to is your method of exluding information. I didn't jump in here to show everyone what great knowledge of Shen I have. However, I do have some specialized knowledge, with a first class pedigree (I say this not to impress, it just happens to be), particularly in the field of Chinese physical culture. You chose to state what the Chinese perspective on observation of the Shen is in such a way that any alternative would be personally agressive.

(Believe it or not, this really is an attempt to be on topic)

Reductionist thinking that says "the acceptance of Thesis A excludes the validity of Thesis B" is very Western thinking. Science, much like the Christian philosophy at its roots, does not allow for alternative viewpoints (non-science = heresy). It usually has to be one or another. Classical Chinese thought tended more to inclusion. Thesis A is true, and so is Thesis B," even when they seem to be contradictory. Its all about context.

Here is a question, which is more Yang, boiling water or boiling lead? Boiling water steams freely and boils away quickly, so it may seem more Yang. Boiling lead boils much hotter and is more transformed from its room temperature state as a solid, and in this way it may be seen as more Yang. So the real question is "in terms of what?"

When we consider manifestations of Shen we also have to consider "in terms of what?"

I truely believe that it is this fundamental difference in the approaches to information that cause so much confusion with the learning process of Taiji.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Kevin Wallbridge
Reductionist thinking that says "the acceptance of Thesis A excludes the validity of Thesis B" is very Western thinking. Science, much like the Christian philosophy at its roots, does not allow for alternative viewpoints (non-science = heresy). It usually has to be one or another.

It's unrelated to your thesis, but you're a little off here.

What you're describing is neither reduction nor exclusion (elimination), but reified/concretized thinking. Reified thinking is best characterized as being unable to characterize one thing with conflicting attributes, or two things with the same attribute. However, it's utterly independant from western and/or scientific and/or Christian thinking.

Reductionism is "a view that asserts that entities of a given kind are... combinations of entities of a simpler or more basic kind." This is quite different than what you described. It is also as home in the East as in the West.

Elimination is another thing again, though related. It follows the reductionist view, but adds that things which can be reduced to a simpler kind do not themselves have real existance.

Western science is most certainly not eliminativist, nor is it predominantly reductionist, but rather tends to follow a third view: that of Fodor's special sciences. And by any means, good western science is certainly not based on reified thought.

Next; would could you mean by "the Christian philosophy at [science's] roots"? Most people place the western movement's roots among Greek philosophy, which was assuredly not Christian. If you mean modern science's roots in rationalism and empiricism, it's unclear how one would characterize these movements as subsets of Christianity. At most, we can say that western Christianity evolved in the same milieu as modern science; however it certainly wasn't it's roots. If anything, the Church had emphasized a Platonic worldview prior to these movements, while the roots of science are in it's domination by the Aristotlean view.

Finally, regarding: "Science, much like the Christian philosophy at its roots, does not allow for alternative viewpoints (non-science = heresy)." You must mean "science does not allow non-science to be science," and similarly for Christianity. Are you implying there's something wrong with that?

[Tiger_Beach]

The most difficult part of mastering Taiji IMO:

1. recognize you need a good teacher, not any teacher but a teacher truly knows the art.

2. extremely hard to find such a teacher. Many people travel a long way to seek such a teacher.

Once you have a teacher who himself/herself masters the taiji AND is willing to teach you, the rest is easy --- just hard training.

A good teacher will guide you through your journey. He will make it easy by not leading you to wrong directions.

50 % of slow and poor Taoiji learning and training result from poor instructions. The other half comes from poor learning and lack of hard practice.