Complete Freedom: Forging a Daoist Warrior

 Complete Freedom: Forging a Daoist Warrior

By Shifu Andrew Miles

Emotions hold the body.  They create tension.  They are chemical processes designed to meet the needs of the human body.  We are not our bodies and we are not our emotions.  Emotions can be used to help direct and fuel the body, but past emotions can hold areas of tension in the body that keep us from operating smoothly in the present.  Think of the body as a vehicle.  If it is Summer and you still have chains on your tires, you will be doing damage to your car.  The brakes should be applied sometimes but driving with the emergency brake on will cause you to lose gas mileage.  In the same way our past emotions interfere with our intention and goal setting.

I have used the word intention but I am referring to yi 意。  This is a kind of relaxed intention associated with alpha brain waves.  She xiang 设想 is closer to the word intention.  It has to do with bringing dreams to fruition.  Yi leads qi.  Qi is directed through planning and the qi becomes manifest in the end result.

When we fall down, we feel hurt.  Is it the injury then caused by gravity or from fear?  The change has happened, but we lose the ability to adapt due to emotions.  The seven emotions pull the seven major joints out of alignment.  Over time the effects of emotions may limit my life causing one to suffer pain, injury, emotional frustration and cost a fortune over the course of one's life.

In a Chinese parable it is written that a man who is drunk can fall off of carriage and not get injured.  Wine, rather than fear flows through his veins.  How much safer are we if we rid our bodies of fear and store wisdom instead?

Wine can protect a man who falls from a carriage.  How much more can wisdom protect us?

How do we rid our bodies of the seven emotions to find true alignment with the seven stars (joints)? 

The struggle is between heaven and Earth.  When the body rules the spirit, the spirit is harmed, when the spirit rules the body, the body is well ordered.  Emotions are from the Earth and not eternal, when they interfere with our vision and spirit we must return them to their origin. 

 Inner Meditation:  1.  Imagine the floor as a grid of light.  The entire plane comes up through your feet bringing the emotions up and out of your body, your hands raise up and the emotions come out the lao gong point on the hands and out the bai hui point.  They continue upward and taken in a basket by two 金刚 (jin gang) or golden heavenly messengers who bring it to heaven, slice it with a sword of light and let the emotions fall to earth where they become spiders, worms and other creatures of the Earth. 

Jin Gang or Chinese angel depicted riding a tiger.  Armoured in gold, they serve the king of heaven as messengers.  The angel is represented as a general riding a tiger.  The general represents the liver and the eternal soul.  The tiger represents the animal nature.  The general must ride the tiger.

Inner Meditation: 2.  Imagine that sparkling coming is falling from heaven.  First it washes down the Shaoyang meridians, then after 5 minutes it washes down the yang ming and finally down the taiyang meridians.

After these purging meditations the body should be free of obstruction and begin the naturally warm up.

Ritual of Heaven:  The student is lead to mountain precipice and made to stand somewhere dangerous.  They relax and let their body lean and collapse in different ways trusting the seven stars of the body to naturally keep them from plummeting to their death.  In cities, the roof of a building works just as well.

Done properly, it should resemble the collapsing giraffe toy.

Just don't let anyone get the wrong idea.

Ritual of Earth:  The student is then brought into a cave to meditate.  The meridians should be open and filled with heavenly light.  The heavenly light is brought into the subconscious.  Spiders and worms will actually crawl on them, but they should remain aloof.  The body already belongs to worms.  It is dirt.  The spirit already belongs to heaven.  Life is a temporary meeting of the two. 

Sometimes even kung fu masters have to sit in time out.

Exercise 1.  Fall down while holding your breath.  It hurts

Exercise 2.  Fall down while exhaling.  It doesn't hurt.

After you get used to this so that is feels gentle and soft.

Exercise 3.  Fall onto a place that looks dangerous, such as onto stairs or into a corner.  Then do the same exercise blindfolded.

Exercise 4.  Get into your most uncomfortable position on stairs or in a corner and have your training partner choke you with their hands.  Using breath, allow your body to fluidly come out of the awkward position into a position of safety.  Gradually increase the intention of the attacker so that they can experience fear as an illusion which hinders them and train the body to not overreact.

If they are breathing, relaxed and moving is is nearly impossible to strangle someone this way, still countless people have died from this due to their own fear and tension.

Exercise 5.  Stand blindfolded and get beaten up using breathing and relaxation to absorb the strikes.  Flow around the attacker using breath.  The strikes are points of impact no different from falling onto the ground.

Ritual of Mankind:  The student is blindfolded and brought to what they think is the cliff and made to repeat the first ritual.  During that time the master should push them. They will think they are going to plunge to their death.  You can accurately assess their fear of death by seeing how hard or softly they hit the ground. Those who transcend death can become average human beings who can see through illusions and easily attain their goals.

Time to die!  Psych!  Lolz.