A T'ai Chi Masters' Guiding Principles for Living

Anyone who begins the study of Taijiquan, Qigong, Chinese martial arts, or other Asian martial arts will quickly be introduced to rules for proper behavior, ethical principles, lifestyle and heath recommendations, social duties and responsibilities, and spiritual ideas from the East.  The main influences and doctrines come from Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, and pragmatic secular thinking.  

There are many books and articles on this subject.  For example, Zen in the Martial Arts (1982),  The Bodhisattva Warriors (1994),  Cultivating the Civil and Mastering the Martial (2016),  The Protector Ethic: Morality, Virtue and Ethics in the Martial Way (2018), and many others.  

Please refer to my hypertext notebook on this topic of the martial artist and ethical guidelines.  

You will find many examples of ethical, moral, and behavioral rules and recommendations in nearly all books on Taijiquan.  The mind, body, and spirit are all three trained in martial arts, and especially in internal martial arts.  

Here are some daily guiding principles from Gordon Muir in his book: Yang Style Traditional Long Form T'ai Chi Ch'uan; As Taught by Master T. T. Liang.  By Gordon Muir.  Berkeley, California, Blue Snake Books, 2008, 225 pages.

 "To accomplish T'ai Chi physically and technically is relatively easy, but to accomplish it mentally is much more difficult.  From my more that thirty years' experience of learning and practicing T'ai Chi, I have formulated ten theorems for my daily guiding principles to help me know how to deal with people and myself:

1.  Nobody can be perfect.  Take what is good and discard what is bad.

2.  If I believe entirely in books, better not to read books; if I rely entirely on teachers, better not to have teachers.

3.  To remove a mountain is easy, but to change a man's character is more difficult.

4.  If there is anything wrong with me, I don't blame others, I only blame myself.

5.  If I want to live longer, I must learn and practice T'ai Chi, and accomplish it both physically and mentally.  To accomplish it mentally is much more difficult.

6.  I must learn how to yield, to be tactful, not to be aggressive; to lose (small loss, small gain; great loss, great gain), not to take advantage of others; to give (the more you give the more you have.)

7.  Make one thousand friends, but don't make one enemy.

8.  One must practice what he preaches.  Otherwise it is empty talk or a bounced check.

9.  To conceal the faults of others and praise their good points is the best policy.  

10.  Life begins at seventy.  Everything is beautiful!  Health is a matter of the utmost importance and all the rest is secondary.  Now I must find out how to enjoy excellent health in my whole life and discover the way to immortality."   

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons.  Compiled by Michael Garofalo.

Also, you might enjoy reading:  Master of the Three Ways: Reflections of a Chinese Sage on Living a Satisfying Life  By Hung Ying-ming.  Translated by William Scott Wilson.  Foreword by Red Pine.  Boston, Shambhala, 2012.  Notes, Bibliography, 196 pages.  VSCL.