Further thoughts on wu wei
taoisti...@my-deja.com
about 5 years ago.
Kind of introduction myself and to the way I can ramble and babble on and on.
--------------------------------------
I have been away for a few days into Guangzhou, China in search of a certain
Taichi master. He was away too. That absence was good as that led me to
reflect further on what I have recently been reading in this list.
There have been many descriptions of 'wu-wei' (the non-action/action with
the Tao). Some have been highly technical. Some felt 'wu wei' to be
'avoidance of decisions'.
They came from people who must have read intensively into the TTC and other
books.
I cannot say that they are wrong, those views are other facets and
viewpoints of other people and may have been very valid to them. I used to
have that opinion (that 'wu wei' is nonaction/avoidance ) in the past. I
have even use those terms recently but they are more in the context of a
direct translation rather than my impression of what 'wu wei' is.
Neither can I say definately that my present impression of 'wu wei' is the
correct view of either.
I will be using some of the experiences I had to try to illuminate 'wu wei'
from a different light. 'Wu wei' as a concept is difficult to gleam from
books alone, used as we are to relying on books and words as a direct source
of knowledge.
I cannot give my defination or application of 'wu wei' on the whole as
within the human sphere of economic/social interations with others and
ourselves at this point.
Instead, I try to start from a smaller application and work up from there.
I ask your indulgence now as it is going to be a long rambling letter. Too
many events were inter-twined with each other with direct bearing(to me at
least) on my understanding of 'wu wei'. Flames are cheerfully solicited to
illuminate my own way in case I have misled myself.
For that, I need to go back to the beginning again and add further to that
thumbnail sketch of myself I have given of myself earlier.
I haven been interested in martial arts. I started out in Taekwando(Korean
Karate) when I was 17 years old(about 27 years ago) and when I was living in
Singapore. I went on to Goju-ryu karate and Shaolin kungfu. I found time
to do judo, boxing, weight lifting,swimming,rugby as well. It was a miracle
to my parents (and a bigger surprise to me) that the minutes of studies I
squeezed in between all those allowed me to pass my examinations.
The end result of that was a heavy-built 210 lb man quite capable and ready
to handle violent confrontations and not readily pushable by anyone.
That was what I thought.
In my early twenty, from my sporadic attempts to read TTC and other books on
Taoism, I came across that Taoist martial arts Taiji chuan. Taiji chuan was
as inexplicable to me as the TTC in that people who trained themselves in
moving very slowly can claimed themselves as martial artists and further
claim that theirs is the 'Ultimate fist'(literal translation of taiji chuan).
As there was this taji dojo near where I trained, I had to drop by to have a
look. I, being more aware of what I have learned rather than what I have
not learned, found it easy to make snide remarks at Taiji slow dance-like
movements.
My first surprise was that the senior Taiji instructor was so calm over my
rather rude remarks. He accepted but turned that challenge to a request
for Taiji practical demonstration. I returned later after his class was over.
The second surprise was the ease he had in stopping a head-on rush I made
and sending me back the same direction I came from without any effort. It
was not like judo where you step aside and 'assist' the momentum of the
other and 'using the strenght of the opponent against himself'.
Eventually, I went into Taiji chuan and into a world where 'the soft
overcomes the hard', 'the slow defeats the fast' and 'wu wei' determines the
response in an encounter. I 'unlearned' all the earlier karate knowledge,
and while unable to penetrate the deeper aspects of taiji, used our well
developed skills in rationalizing to 'comphrehend' taiji instead.
I was unable to discard the lifetime of scientific western perceptions and
engineering background I had. Taiji was then interpreted by me in such a
light, grouped and generalised until it became 'understandable'. Techniques
were classified into vectorial forces and certain groups for
effect/response. 'Energy' should no longer be the static stiffness of
muscles. The whip-like effects from the legs and abdomenal/hips rotations
were equated to the 'chi' talked about. As my 'tui shou'(pushing hands)
encounters with others normally do not have me losing, I thought I won and I
thought Taiji was within my grasp.
My constant reading of the books on Taiji chuan and the TTC had me
interpreting them with the perceptions of my experiences. Rationalizations
fitted those nuggets into compartments in my mind with me feeling
justifiably proud of my 'progress'.
In 1990, I found myself in Taipei working on their mass rapid transit
system. Early morning will have me in their parks doing my taiji excercises
and 'tui shou' with uneven results.
There are masters and Masters but I was yet unable to see or know the
differences until the day I met Masters.
There were two who cannot leave my mind now. One had to walk with a cane
and need to be assisted by us to go up the steps leading to the Sun yat sen
memorial hall. Another was a slim elderly man,so slim that a strong wind
may blow him done, in the Hsingkongyuan(new Taipei park) south of the
Taipei railway station. Their weight was about 80-90 lbs.
When I 'push' against him, it was like trying to 'push' a wraith of smoke.
When he 'pushed' on me, I *moved* back 10-15 feet with him still having a
shy smile on his face.
Seeing is not believing and even if you are *push*, you cannot believe it
either.
Apparently my own 'softness' that I thought I trained was only the softness
I rationalised, I was using muscles but different sets of muscles. The
'chi' I had was self delusion, not to talk about the 'wu wei' that I thought
I knew.
Their explanation to me was the root cause was that I lacked the faith and
all else stemmed from that. There were many other things I learned but not
directly related to this letter.
The 'softness' in one is not just the relaxation of the muscles, it is also
the relaxation in the mind and soul and the discarding of one's ingrained
perception one has to see/perceive of a viewpoint. We are so used to having
a structure in our mind to perceive things/events that we do not see the
same structure, so useful to our worldly perceptions that they blind us to
other possibilities. They can 'listen' to me and know what I want to do
even before I know it myself and nothing to do with their speed. They than
use 'wu wei' to summon and 'explode' their 'chi force' to repel me beyond
explanation in this letter, but only after they 'listened' and 'know' me.
I can only crawl back to the classics of taiji chuan (and the TTC) to
re-read that from a fresh perspective.
What sunk in was that 'wu wei' (action/nonaction within the Tao) is not the
means in itself. It is the end result and the process of 'knowing how to
continue' AFTER the knowing of each situation in its entirelty. The usage
of our normal perceptions, while useful in understanding a situation, MUST
be recognised as imprisoning us in a frame of thought precluding all other
possibilities.
After the immense possibilities unfold themselves with their incalculable
continuations, we will be paralysed as how to continue through 'our rational
and logical deductions'(which is only rational and logical when seen from
one viewpoint). Then and only then we trust in ourselves and let 'wu wei'
guide us in our actions.
This 'wu wei' is based on what we see is only a shadow of something more real.
This is not a 'property' of Taoism. This theme occur and re-occur through
many philosophies in both the East and West and in the New World.
Buddhism has its multi headed/multi eyed Buddhas as its representations of
'knowing' the multiple aspects of one thing. In the West, Plato expounded
that all natural phenomena are merely shadows of the eternal forms
unperceivable by us. He even have his 'Myth of the cave'.
What is really intriguing is the recent contacts made by Indians in the
Columbian mountains to us warning us of the ecological imbalance we 'younger
brothers' are creating. They revealed the training of their elders called
Mamas. The training consist of chosen ones being kept and fed in dark caves
for a period of 7-10 years after they are borned. The outside world were
then described to the trainees by other Mamas. After that long period, they
are then allowed to go out of the caves to see the 'reality' and to see that
'eternal forms', putting in practise the thoughts of Plato.
The ability of Nobel prize winners in arriving at their key concepts, is in
my mind, another demonstration of 'wu wei'. Their flash of insights whether
in dreams or in moments of reflections, normally breaking the norms of the
established thoughts, are their 'discarding of the existing structures' to
see the truth behind the shadows. After that, it is just mere technical
hard work to write and published their papers. But it was the 'wu wei' that
led them to it.
For me, I rather just try to drink when I am thirsty and eat when I am hungry.
Regards
The Idiotic Taoist
Chinese - jin jou yeo jiu
jin jou juoi
literal - now I have the wine
now I will be drunk
in my mind - At this and every instant of time,
live and savour all aspects of happiness and of being alive.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Michael Heim
Thank you.
One question: Did your first trainers in Tai Chi place you in
a "standing like a tree" (stake) position and make you stand and
breathe for long periods? Or was your earlier training through mental
understanding and restricted to movements, forms, and ways to
neutralize and counter?
I'm wondering if your first taiji training gave you practical ways
for breaking open the habits of normal ego perception.
MH
Leigh MacKay
wrote:
> A posting made a few years back when I was working in Hongkong at that
> (snipped..._
>
> in my mind - At this and every instant of time,
> live and savour all aspects of happiness and of being alive.
Thank you for relating your most interesting experience.
Leigh
--
Leigh MacKay (y chromosome)--leigh...@home.com
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
On the rolling banks of the Fraser River
and the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean.
Derek Lin
If it's possible, I would like to request permission to put it in
Taoism.net. Left in the newsgroup, the article will eventually vanish;
it can be much more permanent if we post it on the web site.
This account reminds me of my own experience 15 years ago, when I
lived in Calgary, Canada. I met an elderly Chinese gentleman when my
family went to a picnic at a park.
He was small (even at 5'8" I towered over him) but obviously enjoyed
good health. He spoke of his study of Qi Gong and then invited me to
punch his stomach as hard as possible. I refused, of course. I weighed
185 pounds, probably a good fifty pound over him, and I was athletic,
with a muscular v-shape torso and decent upper body strength. A punch
from me would not be the same as one from his skinny teenage grandson.
I couldn't possibly take the chance of hurting this old man, who was
really quite likeable.
He kept insisting and assuring me that he would be alright; I
eventually relented just so we could move on to a different topic.
He got into his stance. I pulled back and then gave him a hard punch
that, I was positive would double a typical guy over, gasping for air.
But against him it had no discernible impact. It wasn't that he had
washboard abs; quite the opposite. He had a bit of a paunch, and it
didn't feel rock-hard when I struck him. It felt sort of like a bag of
sand: pliant, yet resistant. At the moment of impact, I felt his
stomach absorbing the force of my blow and reflecting it back
immediately, HURTING MY FIST.
I have no explanation for this in terms of physics. If you think in
the scientific mode, with kinetic energy, momentum, force vector,
etc., there can be no way that this small-size individual can remain
standing, absorbing a punch like that with such ease. By rights I
should have knocked him way back or lifted him off his feet, but I'm
telling you, that's simply not what happened.
- Derek
e-mail: dlin at lapfcu dot org
davidgj...@my-deja.com
You may find a discussion in rec.martial-arts.moderated of direct
relevance here, though the direction they were taking in the first few
posts was quite contrary to what you have desscribed. See thread:
Martial art or Martial way ?
In article <8pitic$hi9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
taoisti...@my-deja.com wrote:
> A posting made a few years back when I was working in Hongkong
at that time
> about 5 years ago.
>
--
The Big Bang signalled the end of the Universe
taoisti...@my-deja.com
No, they did not make me ' stand like a tree'.
I am lucky as the Masters I have met and shown me glimpse into their world
have been martial artists. They demonstrated and showed me and others what
tajijichuan is. Taijichuan without the martial arts is make-believe
taijichuan. There is no way you can truely understand 'song yeow chuo kuan'
(loosen waist seated trunk) in taijichuan and the alignments vital to it
unless you are using it, or shown to use it in martial sense.
There have been other auxillary exercises like baktuanchin ' 8 pieces of
brocade', They have been what I would term as dynamic movements coupled with
mental visualising of chi movements.
Depending on where you want taijichuan to lead you to, I do not think that
static exercises is going to do lasting good at best and may hold you back at
worse. When you have someone coming at you, holding at one form may not be
the best option.
It is not just the form and doing it correctly that matters. The forms as
taught in many classes that I watched are at best, snapshots of that
particular time and that particular pose. The transition of the forms, from
one alignment to the other, is almost totally forgotten as they hurried from
one form to another.
I suspect that if the class is big, making the students do static exercise
may be easier on the instructor. In my case, it was almost on a one-to-one.
I hesitate to talk about neutralising and counters. From your tone, I take
it that you came , as with most people, from the hard ma school.
I do not know how to say it. I was quilty of that myself for such a long
time. You got to drop and forget the counters,responses and reflexes the
way we learned in karate or other hard ma. One of my Masters nearly gave up
with me and was about to throw me out before it dawned on me that at the
subconcious level, I was still doing shaolin and not progressing at all.
Sorry I got to end here. I can write a lot more, but this is not the forum
and the place for such discussions.
Iphikrates
here. <grin>
Although things certainly are looser now, you are probably right that
details of Taijiquan techniques are not relevant here.
Actually, the whole origins of Taijiquan is murky and so is its role as
a "taoist style" Some claim that it is derived from Shaolin styles and
some argue that it and the whole internal/external Shaolin/Wudang
Chinese/imported arguement is rooted in the politics of the Qing and the
Ming Loyalists. One source I found even said that it was started by Lao
Tzu!
By the way, how is the campaign against Deng Ming-Tao going? Where you
able to document anything else? Your Bloefeld citation of the
"Chronicles of Tao" I found very convincing. The Kwan Saihung books
however were well done, because they managed to hoodwink some of my
teachers.
Which, however, raises an interesting issue. Even if he appropriated
others' concepts and the story of "The Wandering Taoist" is not really
factual as occuring to a discrete individual, does it have value as a
story? That is, does it represent actual Taoist practices?
Regretably, I no longer have time for the Taijiquan mailing list, and I
have a sneaking suspicion that the time I would take for reading/writing
to that list would be better served by getting off my ass and actually
doing the form <grin>.
Regards
RoadToad
Sensing subtle movements in ones environment,
(one can avoid things while they are small)
If one has no choice but defence,
having no animosity towards the opponent,
having no interest in the affair,
natural forces take over.
Tao is incredibly powerful,
(because it does nothing)
(Easy yet difficult to understand)
Not opinionated, not expecting,
non-believing, serenity,
humility that does not know itself,
unconditional being.
Like an empty cup.
Derek Lin
>never know what the truth is even when we are stumbling all over it.
Many thanks for your gracious permission.
>I remember another Master at Taipei Kuofuchinianguan
>(country-father-memorial-hall , or Sun Yat Sen Memorial hall) at the southern
>part who relished in letting his students punch him in the belly. He was
>huge, maybe 240 lbs and about 6' with a big paunch. His mass alone can stop
>any punches. What intrigued me was that after the others punched him, and if
>he was in a jovial mood, they did not seem able to withdraw their fists from
>his belly. When he was serious, they got 'bounced' away fast.
I've spent quite a bit of time in Taiwan 20 years ago and again 5
years ago, so the Taipei locales you describe (Dr. Sun Memorial, the
rapid transit system, the New Park) all bring back vivid memories.
- Derek
Yieby
I tend to smile when purpose & reason is discussed whit a knowledgeable
attitude about tai chi. Keep in mind that purpose & reasons for methods have a
tendancy to evolve and perhaps even don't exist. For some the whole purpose of
doing the tai chi or various chi gung ( 8 pieces of brocade) forms could be a
direct attainment of a centering of tao or even a method of alievating
constipation? It could even have no purpose.
taoisti...@my-deja.com
>Wow. This is a great post by Taoistic Idiot!
>
>If it's possible, I would like to request permission to put it in
>Taoism.net. Left in the newsgroup, the article will eventually vanish;
>it can be much more permanent if we post it on the web site.
It is kind of strange to reflect now that after I posted that a few days ago,
I was thinking whether to cancel it. My guesses were wild (not that it got
much better now) and those stuff may bloody guide people away from the Path
adding more words to the tangle of words already on wuwei when the lesser the
words the better.
Then I thought that was an old posting and thought how nicely irritating it
will be to the old-timers that it appears again.
If you like, you can use that elsewhere to mislead others so we all will
never know what the truth is even when we are stumbling all over it.
>
Do not even try to explain it. It does not make any sense and really the
best is to fall back on the old terms rather than use new terms because they
sound 'more scientific' while adding nothing to the understanding. It seems
to be a penchant for people to insist on hanging things on a framework which
they think will work as well now as it worked in the past happily fitting
round pegs into square holes.
I remember another Master at Taipei Kuofuchinianguan
(country-father-memorial-hall , or Sun Yat Sen Memorial hall) at the southern
part who relished in letting his students punch him in the belly. He was
huge, maybe 240 lbs and about 6' with a big paunch. His mass alone can stop
any punches. What intrigued me was that after the others punched him, and if
he was in a jovial mood, they did not seem able to withdraw their fists from
his belly. When he was serious, they got 'bounced' away fast.
I was tempted to have a go at his belly but I was already with another Master
at the Western part at that time.
The Idiotic Taoist
taoisti...@my-deja.com
>Welcome back. I see you missed the discussions on what *is* allowed
>here. <grin>
>
Shucks! Since I kind of stop wandering about for now, I thought I pop back
into this bamboo grove to see if there are any enlightened sages to grovel at
their feet. Always good to make dem sages feel more sagey to get more
profound babbling from them. Much more fun although a lot less gainful for
me as I should spend more time in trying to learn enough korean to get by.
>Although things certainly are looser now, you are probably right that
>details of Taijiquan techniques are not relevant here.
>
>Actually, the whole origins of Taijiquan is murky and so is its role as
>a "taoist style" Some claim that it is derived from Shaolin styles and
>some argue that it and the whole internal/external Shaolin/Wudang
>Chinese/imported arguement is rooted in the politics of the Qing and the
>Ming Loyalists. One source I found even said that it was started by Lao
>Tzu!
>
You start your letter ranting at me about not following guidelines and you
went to babble on more words (ok, almost more) on taijichuan than I did.
You recalled my views on that. I will not go into the details at this stage
though I am happy to search through my earlier letters to repost again.
In one of my travels in 98, I was in Kumming Yunnan with some time to spare.
I decided to drop by one of the oldest temple there, founded in 1200 AD.
While browsing around there smelling the roses, I came across a big tablet,
about 2 feet wide and 6 feet tall embedded into the side of a grotto. I was
startled to see that it commemorate some visit by San Feng Chu Shi. I have
jpgs of that and the temple and wandering how to put that up on the web (
remember I am the idiot and taoism is not the only stuff I am idiotic about).
It took me some time before I recognised that as Chang San Feng as we seldom
see his honorifics. Chu - ancestrial, Shi - teacher. Either someone a few
centuries ago decide to play a joke on us now, or there was another guy that
time calling himself San Feng and who was a highly respected teacher or that
guy Chang San Feng did lived.
>By the way, how is the campaign against Deng Ming-Tao going? Where you
>able to document anything else? Your Bloefeld citation of the
>"Chronicles of Tao" I found very convincing. The Kwan Saihung books
>however were well done, because they managed to hoodwink some of my
>teachers.
A bit difficult to document other stuff Deng Ming Tao plagiarised from as I
do not read the pulp fiction rubbish that he also lifted ideas from. It was
Deng's bad luck that I was re-reading Blofeld just a couple of weeks before
my wife bought me Deng's rubbish. That was so fresh in my mind when I came
across those portions in Deng's book that he attributed to Kwan. Just
because they managed to hoodwink some of your teachers does not make those
stuff to be well done. I am sorry that your teachers have been so ready to
be taken in by Deng's stuff.
>
>Which, however, raises an interesting issue. Even if he appropriated
>others' concepts and the story of "The Wandering Taoist" is not really
>factual as occuring to a discrete individual, does it have value as a
>story? That is, does it represent actual Taoist practices?
>
You have to ask yourself where did Deng's plagiarising end and where the pulp
fiction books that he copied from begin. Even worse, as we know that Deng is
a fraud, where in the book did he write his own thoughts that he tried to
palm off as some esoteric Taoism.
Can we, and should we , use such a scoundrel as any guide to anything? I
cannot even accept the time of the day from Deng without double checking my
own watch.
The Idiot on the Path
>Regretably, I no longer have time for the Taijiquan mailing list, and I
>have a sneaking suspicion that the time I would take for reading/writing
>to that list would be better served by getting off my ass and actually
>doing the form <grin>.
>
>Regards