beings: general #545

The essential material I work with in the traditional Chinese movement methods I practice and teach is basically just a couple of concepts—at least a pretty limited number of concepts. (1) At first sight, it might appear simplistic. It is not really complicated, and you can learn about and get to know these concepts in a comparatively short period of time. However, and this is significant, the simplicity of these concepts gains complexity through their profoundness and continual practice. As soon as you start to work with these essential concepts, you are basically on an open-ended path.

Of course, it is helpful to know a few (movement) forms and to be acquainted with differing formal approaches—as I started with the Wing Chun forms and then learned some others. This helps to formulate questions and offers different angles for answers. You need education in the basics, and you need guidance. But where does this guidance come from?

You need a teacher, or teachers, but we do not only learn from our fellow human beings. We also do not only learn from (what we generally call) other beings—animals, plants, … We can learn from rocks, mountains, streams, clouds, … We can learn from being itself. We can learn from the beating of our hearts. We can learn from our breathing, our digestion, … We should not be fixated on human beings, particularly not a very narrow understanding of human beings and their position.

We are so much more than a general body and a general mind. We are something inside of something larger as the kidneys are part of our bodies. We often exclude so much and are not inclusive enough. Seen like this, the „I“ appears as a strange idea, an illusion and distortion. When practicing (a traditional Chinese bodymind method), you experience that it makes sense to let go of an exclusive, and moreover narrow (human) self. (2) When practicing, you feel that, energetically, it makes sense to play one’s role in the larger units one is part of like a liver in a body. (3) When practicing, you experience that it completely makes sense to connect. (4) We are conglomerates within conglomerates within conglomerates within … Being, we are all beings.

When you practice a traditional Chinese movement method and you focus on dissolving (5) and connecting (6) in your daily practice, why would you rely on the ignorant arrogance of a narrow „I“? Why would we subordinate conglomerates to autocratic egos? The practice of a traditional Chinese bodymind method is fascinating and relevant. It takes us on meaningful and nourishing paths.

Notes:
(1) https://tao-moves.com/wing-chun_nei-kung/concepts/
(2) 損之又損, reducing/dissolving, Lao-tzu, chapter 48
(3) 自然, being such by itself, 無為, non-action—many quotes in the Lao-tzu
(4) 通, term regarding the flow of Ch’i in the movement traditions
(5) 損、散
(6) 抱一, Lao-tzu, chapter 22