Chi
Kung Culture Society of TAIPEI
Taiwan’s Olympic Gold medalists have returned to Taiwan. Both of them have already attained the ultimate goal in their sport, and they have earned masters degrees, too. So, what’s next for them?
Physical training in a sport and living one’s life seem to be two different directions in life. The skills which these medalists have developed are not the same type of gung fu skills which the ancients developed throughout their entire lives. These medalists have ordinary aims in their life.
The gung fu which the ancients developed is different from the skills which modern gung fu or martial arts enthusiasts develop. The demonstrations or performances in the Olympics are just a physical expression. There is no inner substance or real gung fu demonstrated by any of the athletes in the Olympics. Viewers didn’t see anyone levitate or fly or otherwise defy the laws of gravity, which is how real gung fu would be demonstrated.
Taekwando requires just the use of your body and mind. It does not require mastery of any gung fu theory or manipulation of different dimensions. Other Asian martial arts like judo, karate and aikido require some knowledge of gung fu theory, so specialists in judo, karate and aikido are taught to use more dimensions to face situations. For example, they are taught that using force is not always the best method in every situation. In comparison, a specialist in taekwando just uses his or her body and mind. So we can see that winning a medal in taekwando does not indicate the athlete has achieved any special level in his or her practice.
One can raise his or her life level through the type of aims he or she has. If your goal is winning a medal, that is your end point. If, however, your aim is to use physical and mental training to perfect your body and mind, then you will see other dimensions in life. This will make your guang (light/aura) brighter than others and you will become less stubborn as a result. In this way your life level can change. Gung fu is the continual metaphysical training of the body and mind to fulfill the aim of perfecting the body. This allows you to enter the dimension where heaven, earth and man are united.
A gung fu master seeks the tao, and does not seek the techniques to get the tao. When your practice is not smooth, it indicates that you are not relaxed because you have rigidities and blockages.
We can apply these ideas to some famous movie stars in gung fu films. The most famous of them was Bruce Lee who used movies and television programs to introduce gung fu to the West. Through his practice and research he learned much about physical coordination in the human body and later published his research. Nevertheless, Bruce Lee could not coordinate his mind with his body. He had a number of American actors as students, including Steve McQueen and James Coburn. Steve McQueen was interested in the physical practice, but not in learning about the tao. James Coburn was interested in both the physical practice and the tao and as a result his performances were quite good because he could put the tao into his life.
Currently one of the most popular gung fu actors is Jet Li. From his performance in the movie “Hero” Jet Li is currently very hot, but Bruce Lee was much more popular than Jet Li. Bruce’s practice was limited because he could not coordinate his mind and body enough. Jet’s practice is limited because he has not found the inner enlightenment of gung fu so he cannot apply it to his life. Because of this, Jet Li’s career has been slow to emerge in the West.
However, even though Bruce failed to combine both his mind and body through chi, he was able to see the tao in his kung fu and apply his kung fu’s tao into his life, work and movies. This made him totally different from any other of those who followed him in promoting Chinese kung fu and kung fu movies and engendered a big change to his own life as well as other’s.
An example of someone who combined the tao in his life is Jesus. He turned the Old Testament of the Bible into real life. He made everything related to life. This is the way to help you transform yourself.
Gung fu is the highest form of any religion because you can use it as a tool to set you free. When you are united with all things, you are totally calm, see no enemy (have no antagonistic feelings) so you have no enemy. Then you find you are free with no pressure and you can relax.