Of Mind And Movement
Thoughts on the Practice of Tai Chi, Mindfulness and Meditation
This is my first attempt at writing and self-publishing books, alongside Meta-Production. There is a print edition available on Amazon, and an eBook edition available from the Kindle Store. As a first attempt, I decided to avoid the complexity of marketing more widely, such as also publishing with Ingram Spark, and the hassle of acquiring and using my own ISBN's. Perhaps in future I'll take on the additional tasks of doing so, but it would have presented in impediment to just getting these books out.
I came to the idea of writing this book after the experience of, time and time again, trying to explain my understanding and experience of these three, Taiji, Mindfulness, and Meditation (which to save typing I'll abbreviate to TMM). In explaining my understanding and experience, I aim to explain how it differs from what the average bystander sees, thinks, or has heard. In addition, as we all seek to understand new things in terms of what we already know, I have formed my own ideas based on a preexisting background in mathematics, computing, science and modern technology. I freely use concepts that were undreamed of in the days that arts such as TMM were originally developed. As such, the ideas presented in the books represent my own understanding and practice, rather than some standard point of view. As I say in the introduction: I am no master, and I may be completely wrong. If I were to wait until I was completely certain of my understanding on these topics, this book would never see the light of day. Thus I present my thoughts and understanding as is, as they are (or were) at the time the books were written. If, as, and when my views, thoughts, and understanding change in time, I would hope to explain how and why things have changed. But that is a matter for the future.
If you watch someone practising Tai Chi, all you see is someone slowly moving and waving their arms. What are they trying to do? What is the point of the practice?
Likewise, if you watch someone meditating, all you most likely see is someone sitting still, possibly on a cushion in a quiet room with a candle and a stick of incense burning, possibly moving small beads with their fingers for some reason. What are they doing? What are they trying to do? And what are Tai Chi, Mindfulness and Meditation really all about?
The purpose of this book is to summarise my insights and learning from the last 20 years of practising Tai Chi, Mindfulness and Meditation; how I see things from the perspective of someone doing these; and especially the things that a casual observer will not see.
Where To Buy
AI
No AI of any kind was used in the production of the content of the book. The book was written in \(\LaTeX\), a language I learned back when I was doing my Ph.D. studies in mathematics. I did use Gemini's help in writing the \(\LaTeX\) preamble (stuff like setting up page formatting and finding the right packages to use for various tasks) along with a answering a few questions like the usual order of frontmatter sections. The background image for this wiki was generated by Gemini.
Errata
Post submission, a few typos slipped the net. Writing the manuscript in \(\LaTeX\) does come with some issues since there is no built-in spelling or grammar checker. Anyway, the few errors that have come to light are listed here in the errata.