This speaks my mind:

"I'm not concerned with giving the right answers, because truth is not a solution. I'm not interested in pointing to an unbounded freedom that saves you from the rough and tumble of the human experience. I see that spirituality is a myth created by the mind that seeks salvation. I see that freedom is an illusion because this life is inescapable. I see that acceptance is the only answer.
I no longer care whether the world is an illusion or whether it is real. Whether God exists or does not. Whether I reincarnate or come to a full stop when this body dies. I no longer care about being spiritual or being enlightened. I care only that I live as the open hand in the midst of that which offends me. That I surrender my self-righteousness when it rears its tight fist. That I meet you in tenderness without needing to take care of you or please you.
I am no longer scared by dark feelings, because nothing is dark when it is fully allowed. Sadness, regret, doubt and despair ... all these are children of the One Life, and all are welcome here. Each one of them comes home to my heart and kisses me gently before it is gone. Nothing is denied and nothing stays."
Amoda Maa, 2018

Source

I am going to offer a Summer Series for Taiji training.  Much like the Winter Qigong Series, except we will be focusing on the fundamentals of Taiji-Gongfu.  This series will happen as either pop-up gatherings or specific workshops.  The training will be free for outdoor events, donations accepted when we are training in some indoor facility.  The first training will be Saturday, June 9, 10:00--12:00 at Festival Park in High Point, NC.  Future dates and locations will be announced shortly.

The focus of this training is Taiji-Gongfu fundamentals, also known as eating bitter.  I am not doing commercial workshops because this is not commercial-type training.  This series will work on digging deep into the fundamentals of Taiji practice, regardless of style or school.  To really develop body awareness and proper energy utilization, fundamentals practice is crucial.  However, most commercial classes and workshops don't focus on these because they aren't a part of Pop-Tai Chi Culture.  That being said, this training is appropriate for all practitioners at all skill levels.

We will  be looking at such topics as Silk Reeling; Zhan Zhuang Standing Pole; Wudang Shan Cornerstone Gongfu; Taiji Chin Na; Dao Yin training; and Push Hands.  As noted above, this training is not style-specific.  In fact, it is appropriate for all martial artists as the goal of the training is universal.  My intention is to offer at least one opportunity per month between June and September, maybe more.  I will be sending out invites @ email and Facebook Events.  This will be good.

Following is an excellent essay by Joan Tollifson entitled "The End of The World and What Remains".  This should give us all pause:
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I open the window and the smell of blossoms wafts in. A friend calls, someone whose intelligence and sensitivity I greatly respect, someone who follows climate science very closely. She tells me that she thinks the human species has perhaps ten years left, twenty at most, and that what’s coming soon is a rapid escalation in both the intensity and the geographic spread of what is already happening in many parts of the world: catastrophic weather events, floods, droughts, water shortages, climate refugees streaming across borders, conflicts, wars, violence, extremism of all kinds, a collapse of basic law and order. According to my friend, even if everyone in the whole world woke up tomorrow and did everything possible to reduce our carbon footprint and our methane output, the science shows that it’s already too late. We’re past the point of no return.
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The bulk of this is not new information to me, although the time-lines my friend offers are shorter than those I’ve previously heard. And if climate change doesn’t get us first, some kind of nuclear war or catastrophe seems increasingly inevitable. This doomsday scenario has been in the air for as long as I can remember, but suddenly, with this conversation, the apparently looming reality of this devastation captures my attention. It’s scary to imagine living through this collapse and the horrors of it, witnessing it, feeling it, experiencing it. It will involve great pain and suffering. It’s scary at my age to imagine being an old person, older than I am now, increasingly incapacitated and vulnerable, in the midst of this kind of collapse.

Over the next few days and nights after this conversation, I notice that vague feelings of depression and fear are passing through repeatedly like waves on the ocean. I feel heavy, weighted down. I lie awake in bed one night staring into the darkness.

So we settle on this concept of "Ultimate Reality", otherwise know as Dharmakaya, or Brahman, or  God, or Tao, or Buddha-mind, or whatever.  Then we endow it with mystical qualities, make it ambiguous and basically impossible to grasp.  Well, of course it is.  But then again, it is amongst us.  We live and breathe and die in and as Ultimate Reality.

Further, we do our Qigong and Yoga trying to summon Kundalini and Primordial Energy.  But we are these energies.  Hunyuan is creative, and we and everything else in creation are in a constant state of flux, change, creation.  The flowers in the yard that weren't there yesterday are prime examples of Primordial Energy in your midst.

Maybe what we really want is experience, bliss, that buzz that comes after 45 mins of Taiji.  Well, there's nothing wrong with that.  But let's call it what it is.  It's an infusion of Qi, a jolt of energy, a bath of bliss.  Sure it is Ultimate Reality, Primordial Energy, but so is everything else including the sore toe and the jitters after too much coffee.

There is much to be said for practice, whatever that may mean to the individual.  But it is in our interest to notice the divinity that surrounds us when we aren't practicing.  As far as that goes, we don't need to practice to realize the divinity.  But let's be honest, it certainly helps and feels good in the process.

I'm not one to say that practice and training are unnecessary.  What I am saying is, look around, wake up now.  What are we practicing, what are we training for if not to live this moment to the fullest?

The proverbial story line of searching and eventually finding what was lost in one's own backyard is likely as old as human story-telling itself.  Yet, we see it played out again and again and most of us are guilty of it, especially if we are searchers of any kind.  Admittedly, it is a kind of catch-22.  The nudge to look beyond what is present and has been presented is a calling.  It is your higher-self indicating that there is more than meets the eye, that perhaps all that you have been lead to believe doesn't quite add up, which means that something else likely does.

So the searcher, the pilgrim, wants more out of life, isn't satisfied with being static and stale.  This is a good thing.  So we look.  We ask questions, try new things, read, ask more questions, study/train with those we think have this elusive knowledge, read some more, and continue searching.  However, as the story goes, what we are looking for is already present.  Jesus variously told His followers that the Kingdom was 'at hand', 'among you', and 'within you'.  They were looking for a divine manifestation to deliver them, to restore their kingdom.  Though many missed the message (and still do), He simply told them that they (we) each are the divine manifestation and that the real kingdom is within each person, and so at hand.

Again, it is a catch-22.  Dissatisfaction is the beginning of wisdom.  The only way to true and lasting peace is to follow the urge.  And at the same time, the peace that is sought is the very essence of the one who searches.  At some point we realize that peace/wisdom/truth is within and thus among us, and as such is at hand this very moment.  The key to optimizing the search and avoiding samsara is to remember why we started in the first place.  Attachment to the process, the teaching, reading, yoga, dissatisfied wandering, is just more of the same.  In the end it's a different brand of suffering.  At some point we may find that Truth, while available to all, is individual and unique.  To make the search worthwhile we must abide in the moon and not the finger.  At which point we might say, "I could have just done this to begin with".  Yeah, but not really.

"The primary obstacle to spiritual awakening is the flawed perception of one's essence of being.  Instead of thinking and acting as a mere physical creature, decisively think and act as the immortal, spiritual being you are.  Don't allow yourself to be limited by an illusional sense of self or by modified states of mind and consciousness.  Instead of wasting time and effort endeavoring to overcome nonuseful habits of thinking and behaving, discard them.  Concentrate your attention and actions on matters which enhance your life."
Roy Eugene Davis, Absolute Knowledge that Liberates Consciousness pp 52.
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"Wisdom is not the accumulation of knowledge and experience, wisdom is not acquired from books, from ceremonies, or by compulsion. Wisdom comes into being only when there is freedom of the mind, and a still mind will find the timeless, which is the immeasurable come into being. That state is not a state of experience; it is not a state to be remembered. What you remember, you will repeat, and the immeasurable is not repeatable, it cannot be cultivated. The mind must be moved to receive it afresh each time, and a mind that accumulates knowledge, virtue, is incapable of receiving the eternal."
~ J. Krishnamurti.