258. Have you read “The Baguazhang Jin of War” yet? — 你讀過《八卦掌戰勁》書了嗎?
So recently I wrote and spoke about how rare the internal martial art of baguazhang (八卦掌) is. And I have even used some rough numbers to support my claim. But, no matter what, it is always amazing how many people do not actually dig deeper into things and would prefer to argue that the martial art is one of the most popular styles out there. I never said that baguazhang was not popular. What I said was, that relative to other styles it is quite small. And as some of you who have been to Asia know, sometimes being small is beautiful. You may not be into small things, but the thing you are chasing is! It is all a matter of perspective. One thing, though, that is a non-negotiable fact about pretty much any martial art is that the higher you climb up your particular metaphorical mountain, the fewer and fewer participants you will find. And you will, like those Saturn V rockets that took astronauts to the moon, leave in stages a lot of your fellow martial artists behind. You can’t bring them to where they are not ready to go. As I study more and more about the Immortal’s Path (仙人道), reading between the lines that seems to be a common feature: Many take it as a physical fact and do pack up their things and disappear. But for others, it simply means letting go of the things that do not serve us, but for which our continued interaction with, will actually hurt us. For example: Debt, as in owing money to other people and organisations. Money isn’t actually a real thing. It is a work of external alchemy. And because it isn’t actually a real tangible thing, the numbers around it can swing wildly (Note: Cash, as in paper money, is a form of IOU underwritten by government to give it legal worth in a given jurisdiction, which basically states that you can exchange the paper money for bits of metal in the form of minted coins). By comparison, qigong (氣功) and jingong (勁功) are results of internal alchemy. A lot of times, the two paths of alchemy intersect each other, so that a person with strong positive qi will also have a positive financial portfolio. I mean, have you ever noticed when a money debt is finally paid off, your own inner qi cultivation gets a boost and that doing baguazhang has more ‘flow’ to it? Now I am aware that some of you will say that money isn’t important (which we all know is a blatant lie if you live amongst other people and partially true if you have gone bush), but there are certain beliefs and faiths that do incur a kind of spiritual debt called sin. This debt called sin, you are usually born into it or it is sold to you as a way to salvation. Paying off this debt is next to impossible because the terms are unknown. And for a lot of people, they don’t even know what the sin was. Now, you may go on about a concept called ‘The Original Sin’ and let us just say that it was a real event. The question you have to ask is: What was your part in the event? If you can answer that question with all sincerity that you were there and did ‘X’, then you, my friend, are enlightened. Unfortunately most of our fellow human beings are not. Their financial debts match their spiritual debts, which in turn match their qi indebtedness. All is one. And so now you may be wondering: Where does this sit with jingong (勁功) and my book “The Baguazhang Jin of War” (八卦掌戰勁)…? Well? If you have read it, then you will kind of know. But if you are still humming and hah-ing on whether to read it, then I will not tell you. The mere fact that the real host of this podcast is going over your head means that you are not there yet.