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How can we find stillness? Wang Xiangzhai (founder of Yiquan) himself said that we cannot be truly still, that we are always moving. True stillness can only be found in movement and true movement can only be born of true stillness. We move to find stillness so that true movement can be manifest.
Moving to find stillness is like making a rubbing of something carved into a rock or wood, you cover the paper with graphite from a pencil so that you can trace what is not there. You use a fullness to reveal an emptiness, and we do the same in Yiquan (or any other zhan zhuang practice…or meditation for that matter). All internal arts purport to do this, the difference is simply in refinement. Wang is commonly quoted saying that a small movement is better than a big one, and no movement is better than a small movement. This is maybe the only significant difference between Yiquan and other arts like Taijiquan and Baguazhang; that the former simply uses smaller more refined movements to discover a more reified kind of stillness than do the latter.
When we use grosser movements such as we do in Taijiquan, we are defining a grosser center. With these movements, our internal scene is much more complex and dynamic. This has its benefits, no-doubt, but it yields a grainier image of our true equilibrium and stillness than zhan zhuang does. When we use smaller movements to discern our still-center, we are using a higher resolution. The average person just walking around has some sense of equilibrium gained from everyday movements and activities. This is like using a rubbing as mentioned above. A trained martial artist has a more refined sense of equilibrium from his or her training. This is like using a microscope, it is more detailed because it is more precise. It is a smaller view. One who practices zhan zhuang has an even higher resolution sense of equilibrium gained from the tiny movements made during his or her ‘stillness’ training. This is like an electron microscope! It is a very precise and focused search for equilibrium. Equilibrium found during zhan zhuang is super-concentrated or truer than what we get from grosser movements. Don’t get me wrong, all styles have something to offer. But zhan zhuang is the mother-practice of them all, because it yields the most fundamental sort of power and equilibrium.
Even Yiquan, with its focus on zhan zhuang, moves around with grosser movements much like the other arts. The only difference, and it’s a big one, is that Yiquan is flowing freely from that true stillness found in zhan zhuang. All the jumping around and punching in all directions that you see Yiquan practitioners doing doesn’t look much different than other arts, but its root is absolutely different. The Yiquan doesn’t move because someone told him to, he moves because that is what has to happen right then in that moment, and for no other reason. Yiquan is an unbridled expression of what we are deep down. No one can really claim to have found the deepest part of who they are, because it just keeps going! The Yiquan practitioner simply listens as deeply as he or she can and acts with fidelity on what he or she finds there. This philosophy is, of course, rooted in Chan and Daoist traditions.
Zhan zhuang is a way of looking as deeply as you can into what you really are. We find not only stillness and peace, but incredible power. With that power, of course, comes incredible responsibility. It is not always easy to act with integrity on what we find in our depths, but we must. Otherwise, we are something unreal; an imagination, a forgery of who we really are.
Gongfu is what martial artists, healers, qigong practitioners, and anyone else learning to do something and do it well is after. Gongfu basically means skill. Everything we do in life refines our gongfu or it doesn’t, it is our choice. In both martial arts and spiritual practice circles, we have the idea of learning by direct transmission. Direct transmission is exactly what its name implies, it is the transmission of ability or skill directly from one person (the master) to another (the student). I have had many teachers in my life who have taught me wonderful things and helped me attain some real skills. However, In all of my martial arts training, I had never really experienced direct transmission until I met Fong Ha.
Now, I’m a bit of a skeptic. I’m open minded, but a skeptic nonetheless. Most of the stories told about this sort of thing are full of a lot of fantastic imagery which usually throws me off (I know it shouldn’t – working on it). What I experienced with Ha Sifu in 2006 when I first met him was something quite amazing. It wasn’t ceremonial or magical, it just was. Fong Ha can wax philosophic all day long with the best of them and his martial arts pedigree is one of the best, but as impressed as I was with all of this, it was his very presence and skill that really did the trick for me. Pushing hands with him and just feeling the sort of power that is cultivated through arts like Taijiquan and Yiquan when done right opened something in my mind that talking and doing forms just can’t get at. Something happened then that I am still getting my mind around. Some deeper part of me responded to the experience of that kind of power, and in an instant I transcended all that I had ever learned about martial arts and about life. It wasn’t an annihilation of my experiences up to that point, it was more of an organization of them. It was like turning on the electromagnet underneath the metal filings. Out of the chaos of the filings comes the order of the magnet. Out of the chaos of theory and sophistication came the order of the simple skill and power I was experiencing. When we can receive transmission like this from a master like Fong Ha, I think it strikes a powerful tuning pitch for all that we are. Suddenly, things make sense and we feel free. I find myself fighting this freedom, even to this day, because it is so contrary to how most people do things. I get caught up in wanting to complicate my practice and forget to stay rooted to the simple skill that I was after in the first place.
It is good to learn as many different methods and techniques as you can, but if you can’t put them down and just be what you are, they will burden you. A real master of anything must be able to point directly to the essence of what he does. If he can’t do that, he is not a master. Mastering a thing means being free of it. If your art imprisons you, you cannot master it. When a student has the sort of direct transmission that I experienced, it can open your eyes and in an instant take you further than a million years of learning forms and talking about theory. There is a truth to all things that cannot be put into words. It cannot be put into form of any kind, because it is the mother of all forms. Only experience can get you there. By experience, I don’t mean the length of time you spend doing something. Thirty years of doing something wrong doesn’t make you a master. One second of doing it right can bring you real wisdom and skill if it takes you to the essence of the practice and you are willing to go.
What happened with me in that simple little gathering of people years ago changed me forever and opened the door to stronger gongfu than I ever thought I’d have. I simultaneously wish I had more time to spend with Ha Sifu and wonder what more he could possibly pass on to me. Ha Sifu has students all over the world. He has been meeting some of them in the park for decades. And yet, he is the most modest and unassuming master of his ilk that I have ever known. There is the old saying that when the student is ready the master appears. Maybe everyone’s experiences with Ha Sifu are different. I know people who attended some of the same seminars I did who did not have the same experience I did. I think when the time is right, the Spirit flows. The time was right for me in 2006 and something flowed that I was not expecting. My experiences with Ha Sifu continue to fuel my own evolution as a martial artist, as a healer, and as a human being. As Sifu says, “The end of technique is skill, the end of skill is spirituality.” I hope that everyone out there can find a teacher who provides for them this sort of experience – don’t stop until you do.
Can we ever really be totally still? I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone can know. It has been my experience that I continue to find ever deeper levels of stillness. I look back over the years of meditation and self-cultivation and see patterns of deep stillness giving way to deeper ones. I can feel like I’m really on my game, so to speak, and suddenly tap into a big ball of stress and discord. I don’t suddenly feel the stress and discord per se; I just realize that it is there, and that it has always been there. To me, this emphasizes the need for constant vigilance and awareness of one’s own inner state. Our practice can become so rote that it loses its questioning and probing qualities. We can fall into the doldrums of practice and quit forging ourselves. If we quit exploring and discovering what lies within us, we can stall out. The parts of us that are out of sync and doing us harm can reorganize and do even more damage. The road we take to healing can lead to our end if we take it half-assed.
In my experience, the biggest influence that distracts me from the Way is that of wanting to ‘use’ what I’ve gained in my practice to ‘do’ something. We let go of the big no-brainer things like our pettier emotions and simple distractions and gain some clarity. If we then turn around and replace all those things we let go of with the new distractions of our new-found awareness, we have jumped out of the pan into the fire!
The practice of the Effortless Way in whatever form it takes (Zen, Daoism, meditation, Yiquan, Taijiquan, etc.) is the same in the end as it is in the beginning and the middle – effortless! I forget that, and I’m sure you do to. But even in the forgetting we move toward the way of things don’t we? If we know we have forgotten, we create the opportunity to remember and to be.
Staying whole is a big part of Daoist philosophy. When we are divided against ourselves, we fail to maximize the experience of what we are. When we are divided, we fight against ourselves. We fight against our urges, our thoughts, our feelings, as well as against those of others. This is too much struggle, too much fighting. When we are of one mind, and are in a focused state, we are integrated. This means that the totality of our being is unified in its expression of our own natural state. When we are divided, we are disintegrated.
Many people struggle with thoughts and urges that they have come to deem wrong or immoral. Many of these thoughts and urges are perfectly natural. People fight themselves over thoughts of sexual attraction to other people, wanting to be rich, wanting to be poor, wanting to help, desiring delicious food, etc. All of these are perfectly natural thoughts. Many of them are tied to deep genetic hard-wiring, while others are tied to psychological conditioning. Regardless of where they come from or whether they are good or bad, fighting yourself over them is not the Way.
As with many things in life, the way out is through. We can’t un-feel our feelings anymore than we can un-think our thoughts or un-act our actions. Once they are here, we have to accept them. The key to staying centered is in realizing that these thoughts, feelings, and actions are not all we are. They are a part of us, but they are not all of us. If we focus on them – either fighting them or indulging them – they will rule us. Trying to deny that you are sexually attracted to people other than your partner will lead to cheating. Denying yourself tasty food will lead to eating disorders. Pretending you don’t feel anger will lead you to an outburst that you cannot control. If we are sitting in a dark room staring at a candle, it seems like the candle is all there is. If we sit there staring at it wishing it weren’t so bright, it seems even brighter and has us totally mesmerized. However, if we just turn the light on, we see that there is more than that little candle. The way we ‘turn the light on’ in our minds is to realize that we have a lot more room in our minds than we think. We have a lot of thoughts other than sexual urges when we see an attractive person. We have thoughts other than binging on burgers when we see a food commercial on television. It is in identifying more with the whole of us and less with the parts of us that we find freedom and the Way.
I have never found authority. I’ve heard about it, but I have never seen it. People claim to have authority. They claim to derive their authority from the government, from their bank account, from the color of their skin, from the end of a barrel, the edge of a knife, or even from God. It is, in the end, an empty claim. No one has authority over me or you. We are sovereign. The only power another person can have over you is the power you give to them. Power given is power that can be taken. Power that can be taken is not power, it is an agreement between two parties. A cop can convince me to pull over with flashing lights because of an agreement between us. Without that consensual arrangement, I don’t have to pull over. Now, the decision to evade a police officer will certainly incur some hefty consequences, but I am free to do what I want.
Authority doesn’t really exist does it? In our country, we say that the power to govern is derived from the governed. This is the way it always is. If someone puts a gun to my head and commands me to confess to something I didn’t do, I don’t have to do it. It is my choice, not theirs. I cannot be made to do anything. I can be influenced, convinced, or deceived into doing something, but I can’t be made to do it. I might choose to confess rather than eat a bullet – it’s up to me. When I heed the warnings of a meteorologist, I confer upon them a certain kind of power – I enter into the agreement mentioned above. If that meteorologist proves to be inaccurate, I revoke the power of influence.
We are all currently in many agreements of this sort with people, institutions, and ourselves. These agreements need frequent audits. Any such agreements that do not have to do with your direct experience of your own immediate reality should be terminated. Meditation is the best way to conduct such an audit. There should be a rule in your internal kingdom that all influences are subject to periodic review. Meditation is the cancellation of all influential arrangements. In meditation, the need for these influences diminishes and you will let them go quite naturally. Having let them all go, it is much easier to know which ones should be reinstated. I have been meditating for 20 years now, and I still come across these contracts I have with forces inside me and outside me. The more I let go of, the freer I am – freer to think for myself.
I have never had a problem with authority, because I haven’t found any. I don’t know anyone who can tell me more about being me than me. Why would you let someone shape or mold you? They didn’t create you. This doesn’t mean we can’t learn from others, of course we can. It just means that, if we are going to listen to anything anyone has to say, we will do so from a position of inner trust and strength. We can take the advice of others and consider what they have to say, but we don’t let it bypass our own intuition and reason.
I suggest you take some time and consider this concept of authority. To what people or institutions have you given authority to influence you? Why do you give it? How does it serve you?
How can you “do nothing and achieve everything”? At first, this might seem like some kind of fortune cookie wisdom that hippies pass around with a bong. It may be that, but that’s not all it is. This saying is the key to not only understanding Zen and Daoist philosophies, but to living them. And the “living them” part is the part in which I have always been interested. I can wax philosophical all day long. I have read some of the cool books, and I know lots of cool words and phrases – so what!? Anybody with a fifth grade education can do that – hell, I could probably get a parrot to do that. Repeating neat phrases and correcting people’s pronunciation of foreign words does not a master make!
Daoism has the concept of De (德). De (pronounced “duh”) is a particular focus of power and efficacy in overall field of experience (Dao 道). The degree to which something or someone is focused, concentrated, and efficacious is the degree to which they have attained “enlightenment” or “convergence with the Dao.” That has less to do with talking and more to do with being. But being what? Being what you already are without adding anything to it is what effortless means. This doesn’t look any particular way from the outside, and we can’t make any fixed rules such as, “enlightened people are non-violent” or “if you were one with the Dao, you would see things as I do.” No. None of that works. Only you know what you are. Only you can be you. When we meditate or practice the arts of effortlessness (Yiquan, qigong, Taijiquan, etc.), we are just being what we are and nothing else. That is important. The more we can do that, the less we are adding on. The less we are adding on, the closer we are to the Dao.
When we are just ourselves, we can accomplish feats in our lives that could not be accomplished any other way. These accomplishments very often feel as though they happen through us, rather than because of us. That is effortlessness. When we have no choice but to take the action we are taking, we are effortless. This lack of choice is not a restriction imposed on us from the outside. It is just that effortless action is right on the line between voluntary and involuntary. We can’t really tell the difference. Our instincts have this quality to them. We can’t really see from whence they arise, but we know they are true. Very often our rational mind understands our instincts and we act on them. A lion roaring at me engenders fear. My rational mind understands why I feel fear. My action (running like hell) satisfies the whole of me. This satisfaction is the hallmark of effortlessness. When we take action or non-action that is truly effortless, we are comfortable. We are comfortable physically and psychically. Effortless action engenders no internal struggle. It fans no flames of internal rebellion. Effortlessness has a peaceful effect on us. Our actions may not seem peaceful (running like hell from a lion screaming), but they are. We are ok with our actions when they are effortless, regardless of what those actions may be. We don’t have to seek effortlessness. It is what is here when we stop stirring the pot.
So, stop. Be still and move.
The everyday world around us is the most amazing thing. People tend to look to the mysterious side of life for the answers. We look to the heavens, we buy tarot cards, we see psychics, etc. All of this is fine and dandy, but the real answers are all around us. If we will just take the time to listen, we will find that we are soaking in the answers to our greatest questions.
The minds of the East have always looked toward nature for the answers. They didn’t do it in the faux environmentalist fad that words like “nature” and “environment” have come to connote. Rather, they did it with genuine deference to the power of the world around us. The power of our world is often overlooked because we take it for granted. If you look at any mundane aspect of the world around you, you will be amazed at the miracle that it is. Take our seasons as an example. The perfect dance between our sun and our planet provide the delicate balance required for life to exist and thrive. How about our own bodies? It is amazing to me that any of us work right. We are so complex. The fact that any of us are healthy is a miracle. Life is teaming all around us. The rules governing us and our world are on full display in every speck of our world. We don’t need the mysterious to guide us. Sometimes, looking to the mysteries is helpful, but the mundane is what sustains us.
Meditation is the practice of returning to the mundane. Now, some people get all crazy with visualizations and magical thinking, but that is not the kind of meditation I’m talking about. When you are sitting there visualizing all sorts of magical things, you are doing something. Zen teaches us to stop doing things. I practice Zen meditation – just sitting. My teacher, Fong Ha, is a true master of the mundane! He has the power of a master without the ego that usually comes with it. His power is true because he doesn’t “possess” it, he is it. He is his own power and understanding, and it is him. It is not something that someone gave to him – it just is. When we just sit still and be what we are, without adding to it all the things we wish we were or trying to not be any of the things we wish we weren’t, we can sense the world around us, including our own bodies, much more directly. When we do this, we get all the “answers” we need. Watching yourself breathe will teach you more than any teacher.
TRY IT!
The concepts of effortlessness and activism might seem contradictory at first glance. If they do, look deeper. When we talk about the “effortless” way, we aren’t talking about not doing anything. When we talk about not “doing” anything, we aren’t talking about inaction. Effortlessness does not mean inaction. Effortlessness means without effort. By “effort” we mean struggling or contesting. When you are trying to move some stubborn piece of furniture by grunting, cussing, and sweating, you are struggling and making an effort to do something. When you are able to just move the furniture without fighting with it and yourself, you are acting in an effortless way.
When it comes to activism, it seems that the very idea from the start is one of contest and of struggle. It doesn’t have to be. The effortless way is one of inner peace, not necessarily outer peace. Effortlessness finds us when we just do something. When something is in us and finds unadulterated expression in the world, we are effortless. The effort we don’t want is an internal effort of struggle that happens when we are divided inside. When we are not divided, we can just be what we are. That is the foundation of Yiquan. Being what you are just happens. You don’t have to grapple with it or struggle in any way; you just do it. Activism is usually carried out by people wanting to change something. That fact is irrelevant to the question of effortlessness. What is relevant is the motivation to take action. Are you doing it because you are swept up in propaganda for some particular cause, or are you doing it naturally because it is in you to do so? We don’t have to look far for examples of the former. I know plenty of otherwise intelligent people who got all caught up in Obama’s candidacy. They thought things were going to change. Why did they think that? They thought that because the guy needing their support said it. And here we are with Obama not only continuing Bush’s regime, but expanding unconstitutional federal power; we are worse off in every way. The shine wears off and people start to realize what they have done. People can polish anything to get you to buy it. Living the effortless way is a natural defense against this. Effortlessness means just being what you are. It allows you to see behind the masks that people wear. It allows you accept the truth of our reality in real time. What some dude on tv has to say is utterly irrelevant. All that matters is what is in you, what is natural, and what comes first.
Being effortless doesn’t mean sticking your head in the sand. It implies quite the opposite. Those of us believing in the bullshit of others are the ones with their heads in the sand. Being effortless means acknowledging the natural order of our being. We feel our own Qi first. We know intuitively what action to take. When we listen to that, we can seek out the proper information, people, events, etc., that resonate with that inner knowing. We still learn and pay attention to other people, of course. But what comes first and foremost is our intuition.
Your intuition may very well lead you to take some sort of action. That action might not be peaceful. It might be difficult, angry, or even violent. There are no rules to this, you are what you are – be that. If you put rules on it and say, “oh, I can’t be violent” then you aren’t being what you are, you’re being what you think about what you are. If you say that going to the capital and bullhorning someone is not very Zenlike, I’d say ok. I’m not trying to be Zenlike. If I were, I wouldn’t be very Zenlike! The point is to be yourself, not some ideal.
If you wake up and must take an action, take it. Don’t divide yourself. Just be.
The phrase “stress management” gets more popular by the month it seems. I guess between the economy tanking and the normal hassles of modern life, people just aren’t handling things too well. I am interested in the similarities between what we say about stress management and the traditional sense of Daoist or Zen enlightenment. The two are nearly synonymous to an extent. Enlightenment, of course, goes much farther than most people take stress management, but they share the same root.
In both stress management and enlightenment we find the need to stay centered and not get carried off by our emotions. Emotions are good when they are responses to reality. They are not good when they are responses to what we think about reality. Our emotions are stirred up by what our minds tell us. Our minds take in all the information from our senses and create thoughts based on that input. Those thoughts then stimulate our bodies. When that happens, we feel an “emotion.” Emotions are us feeling our minds in our bodies. We need the mind to be a transparent operator between our bodies and the world around us. We need for our minds to feed us accurate information. With accurate information, our bodies can respond appropriately. When our minds second-guess reality, or make up their own reality, our emotions are stirred up by false information.
Our minds are capable of creating amazing stories; this is wonderful for entertainment and education (mmm….Star Wars….), but not for everyday life. For our everyday lives, we need to be responding to reality. Our minds can create stories that stir up our anger, fear, joy, sadness….and all the other emotions. When we think we might lose our jobs, we stir up fear. When we think someone might be cheating us, we stir up anger. The key word here is “might.” None of these things “are” happening…they “might” happen – huge difference. No matter how eminent an even seems, it is not happening until it happens. This doesn’t mean we should stick our heads in the sand until something actually happens to us; it means that we don’t need to be swayed by the emotions generated by our predictions of the future.
We can know that something might happen, and consider our options as well as the likely consequences without letting the emotions stirred up by that process influence our thinking or our actions. We have to know which emotions to listen to and which to ignore. If I sit down and imagine a horrible event in my future, I will stir up fear. If I then act on this fear, I’m taking action based on fantasy; not reality. I have to be able to say to myself, “This is only one of infinite possibilities.” I can take action based on what I think is likely to happen without involving the emotions. If I feel my tire go flat my mind will naturally calculate that I might crash. Slowing down and pulling over would be actions taken based on reality (i.e. the tire going flat). If, on the other hand, I had a wreck ten years ago but still freak out every time I get behind the wheel and drive neurotically out of fear, then I’m taking action based on fantasy rather than reality.
I find that this differentiation between our direct experience of reality and what we are thinking about that experience to be the single biggest key to both stress management and enlightenment in my own life and the lives of my patients. The best way to get better at making this distinction is meditation. With a strong meditation practice you come to better understand the relationship between you and your mind. Your mind is something that you are doing. You can find the contrast needed to make the distinction by simply not “doing” anything. When you stop the doing of the mind, you can experience reality directly.
My suggestion is to meditate your ass off; if you don’t want to do that, at least play with this idea. Pay attention to how you are reacting and what you are reacting to with the next thing that happens to you today.
The Effortless Way 