Never underestimate the wisdom of the ages.
Everything that’s being put in front of us today seems to me to be gloom and doom and pessimism, and those things are contagious. This contagious attitude and mindset is the one thing that everyone needs to guard against, not only during this “uncertain time,” but during all occasions because life itself is a struggle, from the first breath you take, from the day you are born, until the day you die. You find it so hard, yet no one wants to leave. No one wants to die. Life is about living, so live life to the fullest. Live life in the physical, in the here and the now. Energize your mind and body, and be a true human being, flesh, blood, beating heart. You need to stand up and fight the good fight every day; that means mentally as well as physically.
Living is about working, having a task, having a purpose in life. Adhering to or buying into a permissive mindset erodes the foundation of what one’s life should be built upon. The true human condition is to get up every day and have εργασία (productive, constructive work for the free-thinking individual), in contrast to δούλος (slave labor), which is a negative connotation of work where the individual has no choice about their situation or outcome. I hear many people today saying that they don’t know what their purpose is in life. Granted, it is a very difficult thing to acquire a purpose, but this is the stabilizing factor in one’s existence.
This is what we learn on the first day and every day in Kung Fu, stability. We learn the stance, your physical stance, your spiritual stance, your mental stance. What stance have you taken to stabilize, normalize and keep yourself in the proper focus? I see too many people falling into the persona of the victim and allowing themselves to despair. Once you fall into that dark pit of despair, it’s almost impossible to get out because it’s a black hole of emotion without reason and logic that swallows up all light and hope. This is where you don’t want to go. I speak to my class every day (remotely online because I have no other choice), but I speak to them and work with them as fervently and passionately as ever before. I had to apologize the other day for raising my voice so loud and so many times I felt as though I was yelling at them (which I do normally) to wake up and energize themselves and fight every day to stay alive because that is what life is all about. Once you give up or give in to these dark sided emotions, the battle is over.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading of late, coming back to a favorite ancient philosopher of mine. I’ve found great solace, freedom and empowerment in the words of Epictetus. One of these uplifting quotes, if you perceive it the way I do is, “No man is FREE who is not a master of himself.” This type of situation that we’re in at the moment has shackled our freedom, our freedom of thought, our freedom of action, our freedom of speech, our freedom to live the free life with our own passions and happiness in tact because this supposed dark image of death is looming over us. I take solace in the words of this ancient philosopher who, too, must have faced many dire consequences and in a much more hostile environment than we live in today.
This quote also speaks to me as a practitioner of the Chinese martial arts. As I’ve stated many times before, I have gained knowledge of myself, my limitations as well as my strengths and potential, and thereby have become a much more free individual because I endeavor on a daily basis to live. By living daily, fully, as much as possible, as much as I can, I strive to master myself and in this way make myself free. I am free because I can think with my own reason and my own logic and not have to depend on Big Brother to tell me where to go and what to do and how to think and what to eat and what to wear. Freedom gained through mastery of the self is one of the most wonderful, if not the most precious, gift one can give to oneself and no one under the sun, not even god himself, can take it away unless you willingly relinquish it or sacrifice it on the pyre of ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is the invisible shackles that bind people and bring them to a lower state of being and therefor make them into victims. This is where we said, you don’t want to go. The philosophers are there to tell you there’s a pothole in the road, and if they warn you and tell you there’s a pothole in the road; go around it, you should take heed. The knowledge and wisdom of the past can still be applied to today.
“Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind.”
–Epictetus
One must be extremely discriminating about what images one allows to enter into and take seed in one’s mind. I’ve never been much for mass media. I’ve never been much of an avid reader of these wonderful periodicals and newspapers that seem to me to be little more than just a glorified tabloid constantly bombarding and badgering like a henpecking old wife, not letting you catch a breath to use your own intellect to figure things out, which is the most important thing. The mind is the seat of everything. Once one loses their faculties, once one loses control over their own thoughts and decisions, then that individual is done. That’s why we say, “That guy’s lost his mind.” He lost his capability to reason and see things for what they truly are, to be able to calculate and measure the true circumstances of his surroundings, his life and the people around him. So, it is extremely important for us to be discerning and use judgment as to what we see, read and hear on a daily basis. Even though you may think you have an impenetrably thick skin about those things, if you expose yourself to them on a regular basis, they do have a way of permeating into you like wormwood. As we talked about in the previous blog, it’s very important to maintain your daily practice. Built within the Chinese martial arts is its cathartic nature, which, as a bi-product, engages your three states, physical, mental and spiritual. These three states are engaged in such a way as to force you to truly face yourself and look inward and thereby understand yourself better and be able to cleanse and purify yourself through this practice.
It’s very important to remember the human condition. I know I’ve said this many times before. Unfortunately, the human condition for most individuals is to be lazy. When we are content, complacent and relish in the physical pleasures that surround us, we become enslaved to them. The true wise man resists those temptations and rather asserts himself towards labors that will have productive and long-lasting results. This is the case with practicing Kung Fu. It is difficult. It is not initially pleasurable. It does not give you instant gratification. It does not give you comfort, but in truth, when one devotes themselves to the practice, it will bring you solace. It will bring you inner peace and a true understanding of the self. The true practice of Kung Fu, as how life should be lived, is to not seek the good in the external things one can acquire, but rather to seek it within yourself. We have no control over the external. We only have control over our own minds, hearts and bodies. This is, in actuality, more true power, and this should be fostered on a daily basis through your practice and through a proper mental state. Undue worry over something that you cannot control is a waste of productive energy and time. Rather, one should seek to fortify oneself and make oneself stronger from the inside out.
You must “attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do,” said Epictetus. You have to hold true to your beliefs no matter what the situation, no matter what people say, and no matter what is going on around you. In this way of being true to yourself, you gain your own self power. Kung Fu training puts you through a lot of tests and a lot of trials. It pushes everyone’s buttons. It touches your id and your ego in ways that you may never have perceived before and forces you to look inward unto yourself and discover your true self. The trials and tribulations that you face in your training and on a daily basis will introduce you to your strengths and potential. The individual must remain resolute and steadfast, unwavering in his conviction, and slowly, over time, as you work hard, you will build something that will endure for your entire life. This thing, this skill that you will learn and build over time through the practice of Kung Fu will lead you to your ultimate and true potential. This is not just good advice for martial art training, but also for how to live a productive and therefor happy life. Life is not meant to be sitting on the and binge watching your shows while you stand on queue at the minimart to get your Doritos and white bread to make PB&J in your pajamas. That’s not even good for me on a snow day, and life is not a snow day.
“First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do.”
–Epictetus
That’s life, and that’s how your Kung Fu training should be. When you start training, you’re planting a seed, and when that seed is planted, it has to be nurtured, looked after, watered and tended to regularly. Your life, like your Kung Fu, needs to be exercised daily. You can’t put your life on pause. There is no pause button for Kung Fu or life, at least from my point of view. I practice Kung Fu every day, every hour of every day. You may say, well, that’s impossible, you can’t practice 24/7. But I say no, I do it every day, because I practice Kung Fu not only in the physical realm but in the mental state. Anything and everything you do should encompass and embody Kung Fu. What you do is what you are. Kung Fu in this instance is linked with the Daoist concept of knowing “the way” to do things, the proper time to do things, how things should be executed by understanding the nature of things. When you understand the nature of things, you have a better understanding of the nature of yourself. Therefor, even though it looks like you’re doing nothing, everything gets done. Another individual may be running all over the place trying to do every single thing, and nothing gets done. A study of your own nature as an individual and as a human being is the true study of Kung Fu.
“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I will answer, there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
– Epictetus
In other words, you have to work for what you want. You can’t have things handed to you, and if you have things handed to you then you owe somebody for them. Who wants to owe someone? Who wants to owe anything to anyone? When you owe, you are no longer free. When you work for something, anything, for the smallest thing or the biggest thing, the skill that you want to attain, that work produced the freedom that you have. You put your energy towards that endeavor, and it can never be taken away. Because you worked for it, it’s yours. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take a lot of effort. Hey, that sounds like Kung Fu to me… time and effort. But once you work for this skill or any other, it’s yours. Your name is engraved on it according to the amount of work you invested.
“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”
–Epictetus
That’s a theme that needs to be constantly running in the background like background music. It has to be constantly running through your mind when you practice, because if you take yourself too seriously, you leave no margin for error. No margin for error, i.e. looking foolish or being thought stupid, never allows you to stretch yourself and experiment and learn the breadth and width of your abilities because you’re held to this narrow, confined way of thinking. So, an open mind, a mind that is constantly being utilized, a mind that is constantly being educated and seeking the truth, is the mind that a true practitioner of Kung Fu and a true human being that wishes to live an enriched and full life should seek to have. The sated, satisfied mind acquires no knowledge. But as we said before, the mind is something that needs to be constantly exercised.
“Other people’s views and troubles can be contagious. Don’t sabotage yourself by unwittingly adopting negative, unproductive attitudes through your associations with others.”
–Epictetus
We need to be careful. We think that other things are contagious or contagion or viral, but in actuality man’s thoughts are more viral than the most deadly diseases because those things dig deep into the back of our minds and seed themselves there unless you’re vigilant regularly to understand that you need to seek the truth for yourself rather than rely on someone else’s perceived notions of what truly is to guide you. I need to see, feel and hear for myself to know. You may say I’m a “doubting Thomas,” but I think it’s much more pragmatic to understand for yourself what truly is, what truly works, what truly is right, than to fanatically listen to or believe hearsay and gossip. This is true for martial art training and in life.
This is what we’re talking about today. We’re talking about the two feet that we stand on. That’s our stance that we talked about earlier. Our stance is that we train Kung Fu because we aim to live an enriched, empowered, happy life, and because we want this life of empowerment and knowledge, we have to train our martial arts. We are always testing and striving to learn what is more true on a daily basis. These two legs that we stand upon slowly allow us to walk, run, jump and eventually fly because that is the true potential of the art and of man — to be able to uplift himself and make every step and endeavor towards understanding himself and the world around him. If you’re better, then everything around you will be better, but in order for you to be better, you first have to fix your head. When your head is on straight and you see things clearly, you understand what’s going on because you’ve educated yourself towards those ends. Then, nothing can move you, and that’s the gift that you give yourself through your training. This is why you have to train every day. Train your body and train your brain. I can remember having a conversation with my teacher, Grandmaster Tak Wah Eng, about the “price” of priceless knowledge. For me, the training that I’ve received from him is priceless, so it’s impossible to put a value on it. Once you put a value on the knowledge, freedom and power that you get by training Kung Fu, by living the true life, by living the free life, once you put a price on that, you cheapen it. You dull its luster and malign it. There is no price for freedom and knowledge. They are priceless. That’s why you have to get out there and live your life.
“Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to…this challenge, this deed. Quit evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to REALLY LIVE.”
–Epictetus