smallTalk 2025

Talk#1 with Patrick

Taiji is an all-encompassing system which includes meditation. There is a direct connection between taiji and meditation. All the high-level teachers I knew practised meditation as part of their taiji system. Master Ni says 3 types of taiji – corresponding to Deep Body, Deep Emotional, Deep Mental – but these are not 3 different styles, they are 3 levels of training.

The 5-loosenings, taiji-form, tuishou, and sitting meditation on the Physical-Etheric, Deep Emotional, and Deep Mental levels – all are part of taiji. It is similar in this regard to Raja Yoga – hatha yoga for the physical body, kundalini yoga for the Physical-Etheric energy, bhakti yoga for the Deep Emotional, and Jnana yoga for the Deep Mental.

Each of the 3 levels has 3 sublevels. The first level can be divided into internal movements, internal forces, internal energising, activation and connection. It uses the body. The next 2 levels are beyond the body but can be trained simultaneously with the first level up to a point.

The process is similar for the Deep Emotional and the Deep Mental levels, which are just as complex or even more so than the Physical-Etheric. Intention works on all those levels – producing energising, then activation, then connection, followed in succession by the forces, the internal movements, then the external changes. The stages beyond that, the 4th energy level and beyond, are perhaps only alluded too but never written down explicitly.

In normal life the intention, energising, activation and connection on each of the 3 levels happens largely unconsciously, but it does exist and it precedes all subsequent changes on those levels. Nothing happens without that step. How the first intention is created is less clear.

Mouniji said there is only one power in the universe – will. But will or intention first requires a supply of energy and a level of awareness before you can train intention on that level.

Practically speaking when your awareness is centred on a certain level, you have a background awareness of the level below, and some light sense of the level above. The level below is somewhat natural, as for sight – where you almost can’t ‘not see’ if your eyes are open. The level above can be enhanced by an effort of will, or directed intention, which strengthens the connection into that higher level, a little beyond what is naturally available without any effort.

In the taiji form listen through the whole body while maintaining a background awareness of those around you in the room. If concentrated in the deep body sensations you will have a light connection into the Deep Emotional, because the Physical-Etheric and the Deep Emotional spheres touch.

The same process of extending the intention into the partner in the tuishou is used in the later levels of the meditation to connect and tune into that higher level. So specifically, you can raise you level of awareness into the Deep Emotional for a short time with a strong intention, which over time will begin to become natural. When you extend your intention into the level above your present level it will raise your vibration towards the level above. You will be gradually tuned into the level above.

Disconnecting from the level below and tuning into the level above work together. As you increase your connection into the level above your connection to the level below will move further into the background.

Q&A

Q: To connect to Deep Emotional and Deep Mental you use the light, which is emotional?
P: In the body you can move the awareness through a sequence of deep body sensations to generate intention. On the levels beyond the body you can’t use that. So you use a light, but the moving awareness is not in itself intention. The moving sensations or moving light create an intention behind the process. By the time you reach the Deep Mental you should understand what is that intention behind the moving awareness, then use that directly.

Q: In tuishou we connect into the person, which is physical-etheric, but we sometimes also spread the mind around the person as well, which would connect to the Deep Emotional?
P: When you connect into one level, automatically we include a little of the level below and a little of that above. But probably the sphere around the person is more Etheric than Deep Emotional – depending on the level of your mind at that time.

Q: But you can sense an emotional component?
P: The etheric also has an emotional component and its more likely that which is mainly being experienced, but it might include something truly from the Deep Emotional as well.

The physical and etheric are part of the same level but our brain converts the lower 3 layers of the etheric into a solid concept, which we then perceive as physical, but not the higher 4. An etheric being would experience those 4 deeper layers of the etheric also as relatively solid.

We all do live over the 3 main levels. From whatever level you stabilise yourself on you will experience a little of the level above and some of the level below.

You can use intention to enhance the connection into the level above. It is next to impossible to connect higher than that unless the connection is through an intelligent being on the next level – for example your guide.

Q: In the physical the intention energises the nervous system which activates the muscle fibres, then the light tension arising in the system produces connection. Is it just as clear on the levels above?
P: It must be. If you use a line of light to connect to someone, we push out a light to connect, surround with light is to energise. Send out a simple thought or feeling begins the interaction or activation. Then the forces of change begin.

Q: So the forces of interaction could alter the outer relationship between the 2 people?
P: Yes, but don’t try to produce that outer change – modify the internal connection and pressures, then allow whatever external changes to appear.

Note with Master Huang’s classes we approximately never trained free pushing between the students. We did with him because then the students learnt from what flowed through from any connections made.

In the meditation when you connect with those above you, if they allow the connection your level will automatically be raised. That will cost them something, so they won’t allow it if they feel you haven’t earned it. To those above be much more passive to what those above might give out, be receptive. When sending light to an equal, aim to refine the connection. To those below like your children you may add a small positive suggestion for change.

If your connection is rough, in the form or tuishou, the forces will be rough. When you connect in the meditation it is similar. If your intention is too rough higher beings wont allow the connection, the frequency difference is too great.

Prayer is intention to connect. Trying to get something (preying) is low quality connection. Worshipping or adoration is not a high quality connection either. No higher being asks to be worshipped. Respect, gratitude, humility are qualities of a high level connection.

Q: How do we attune on a high level?
P: On one level, when people sit quietly together, heart beats and pulsating energy systems begin to synchronise. On another level when you extend intention or aspire to a higher level, then listen quietly, a natural resonance takes place which temporarily raises your level. It will inevitably fall back again later but not as far as it was before.

Q: How do we know in the meditation if we are using a real intention?
P: On the 1st 3 breaths, let body respond more than it is for most. The deactivation is the objective signal of the mind shutting down. If you don’t activate more on the in-breath you won’t have the clear signal of gradual deactivation available in response to the out-breath and closing down of the mind. If the intention is not producing a clear body response of activation then your intention will likely be only imagination. Next, on the 3 breaths for microcosmic orbit, ensure the similar response still happens but localised around the spine. After that, on 3 breaths while lifting light to middle dantian ensure a similar, more subtle, response in perineum, lower abdomen and diaphragm. As you go deeper you leave those sensory responses behind. Then the quality of intention from those early moments will continue though into the more subtle levels.