Tai Chi is a "mind/body" discipline, and if you want to do things like push hands then you have to learn to get emotions under control. Someone was shot on my street on New Year's day and I heard the anger in my own voice as I talked to the police.
So how about ANGER? For push hands, for life one needs to learn that thinking about anger and being angry are 2 different things. To paraphrase the neuroscientist Sam Harris “The half-life of negative emotions is incredibly short If you’re not continually thinking about all the reasons you should be anxious (or angry, etc.), the emotion dissipates very quickly. If you are still "ANGRY" after the "half-life" then what you are doing is merely thinking of reasons why you should be angry. and you need to ask yourself are you angry or only thinking about anger" Sam Harris
That's why even anger is called "Tao". If you don't understand why the Tao is to be found even in your anger, the sky, the trees, even in a turd, ...well that is why it is the Tao, it would not be the Tao if it was not so, but it does not absolve you from "emptying your boat" (for example, realizing that you are merely thinking you are angry when you are not really angry).
If a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,
And yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty.
He would not be shouting, and not angry.
If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout at him to steer clear.
If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,
And yet again, and begin cursing.
And all because there is somebody in the boat.
Yet if the boat were empty.
He would not be shouting, and not angry.
If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you
The way of Chuang Tzu, translated by Thomas Merton.
" Chuang Tzu also continually reminds his readers that what is important is not his words, but what lies behind them. “Words are like the waves acted on by the wind.” Absorb their substance, then discard them.
And so it is with the Sage; his is not abstract wisdom, but the concrete reality of day-to-day life lived moment by moment. Fully human. Foolishness, pettiness, and anger are part of the character, as they are part of all of us. The essence is naturalness. Frowning when disturbed, laughing when happy, sleeping when tired. The Tao is there, and here, in all of this - in the sky, in the trees, in this blade of grass, even in this turd."
Lui, H. H.; Horwitz, Tem; Kimmelman, Susan. Tai Chi Chuan: The Technique of Power (Chinese Taoist Texts) . Cloud Hands Press. Kindle Edition.
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