The Dark Side of The Tao

Light and Dark, thanks to films like Star Wars, it's powerful imagery. In most spirituality too, we're encouraged to favour the light, to utterly exclude the darkness. It this a good thing? Im not so sure that it is.

It's nessecary to understand that the darkness isn't evil harmful or negative, but it can have it's benefits, it's share of the beauty. We have to remember that the darkness and the light are complimentary, two sides of the same coin. To deny one of them only gives it more power, eventually balance will be restored, and the worse the denial the more devastating the swing back to balance will be.

Taijiquan has a lot to teach us here, it can be practised for health reasons and it makes a good calming meditative technique, not a replacement for sitting meditation though. But within the form are the seeds of a potentially deadly martial art, and in order to practise Taijiquan properly you need both the light and the darkness. I really think there's a lesson in that.