練習太極拳過程中會不停出現新的體會與感覺，這些感覺其實都是暫時性，都是不真實的，佛家稱之為「妄想」。我們練拳追求進步，要常常持有「覺今是而昨非」的心態。一覺得自已練得有板有眼時更要小心。人一有自滿，人便偏向戀棧在這個境界，不願往前走了。這不單止發生在練習太極拳上，對所有學問的追求，也應採取同一的態度。
New appreciation from experience and sensation will emerge ceaselessly in the process of practicing taijiquan. Actually, these kinds of sensation are temporarily but not reality. This is known as ‘wishing thinking’ in Buddhism. To seek for improvement we always have a thought in mind that “now I have come to realize how wrong I have been all those years”. When we feel that we are well presented, we need to be more careful. It is because when people are self-satisfied, we will reluctant to be away from this state partially and unwilling to move on. This is not only happen on practicing taijiquan, seeking wisdom requires the same attitude.
在練拳最常發生的妄想就是覺得自己放得很鬆。要進步，必須知道在未有壓力下的放鬆感覺都只是妄想，要查找自己放鬆的程度可以與聽勁好的同門推手
，在他的壓迫下儘量放鬆自己，除了自己查找更須請對方告訴你的錯處，這樣才容易找出自己的不足加以改善。在練習過程中當你能夠克服困難，提升了技術，你的眼界亦會同時提高，因為標準提高了，人家練拳時你便能夠看見他們很多的錯處。可是不要忘記，好與壞是在比較下產生的，你覺得他人有很多錯處，老師看你還不是一樣？我老師教拳從來不說我們做得對的地方，只是不停指出我們的錯，這種教學方法實在令人洩氣，但卻迫著我們向前走。拳拳藝越進步自己要找到不足的地方越困難，這些錯處要自己去找也不知找到那一天。沒有明師引路，進步很困難
When we practicing taijiquan, we have a wishful thinking at the most that we feel we can relax very well. If we want to improve, we must know that the feeling of relax not under pressure is just a wishful thinking. In order to check and find out our relax state, we can push hands (a two-person routine exercise in Taiji) with the disciples under same master who is good at Jin listening. Try to relax under the pressure of the disciples during the push hand exercise. Apart from finding out if we can truly relax under pressure, we can also request the training partners to tell us the mistakes. This is an effective way to find out our shortcomings and make improvement. When you can overcome the difficulties you can also improve your awareness by vision. It is because after you have increased your standard, you can find out many mistakes of the others. However, we should remember that good and bad come out under comparison. When you feel that someone has made many mistakes, you are same as him in the presence of the master. My master never said we were doing right at taijiquan lessons. He just kept pointing out our mistakes. This teaching method was somewhat discouraging, however, it forced us to go forward. The more advance state we are in taijiquan, the more difficult in finding our shortcomings. We don’t know when we could identify our own shortcomings if we just practice on our own. If no teacher shows the way, it is
difficult to move on.
Written by Patrick SW Chan
Translated by Shirley Cheng