OVERVIEW OF QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SERIES
January to June 2005

January February March April May June

January

January 2005 (Part 1)

No-Shadow Kick

Two tell-tale marks of genuine traditional kungfu are traditional force training methods like zhan zhuang (stance training) and hard chi kung, and combat application using the kungfu patterns they practice. If you find students of a school using typical Western methods like rope-skipping and weight training, and free sparring using Kickboxing, it is most unlikely the school teaches genuine traditional kungfu

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January 2005 (Part 2)

One-Finger Shooting Zen

This point is not generally realized. Most conventional doctors today interested in traditional Chinese medicine, only seek to borrow suitable therapeutic techniques from traditional Chinese medicine, such as what herbs, acupuncture points or chi kung exercises may be useful to overcome what disorders. They do not usually appreciate that major break-throughs in conventional medicine can be made by overcoming their philosophical limitation in viewing disease.

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January 2005 (Part 3)

Meditation

At the highest level, the level of the spiritually awakened, the cosmos has no purpose! But the reason for this realization is different from that of the ordinary people (see above). The cosmos is an illusion, a creation of mind. It exists because of our ignorance. Our purpose, when we are ready, is to cast off the ignorance, to break down this illusion, to liberate the personal mind to attain Universal Mind, called variously by different peoples as God's Kingdom, the Great Void or Enlightenment.

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February

February 2005(Part 1)

Breaking Brick

In genuine, traditional kungfu training, we cultivate not just our body but also our energy and mind. From our perspective, in external strength training you not only ignore your energy and mind but also abuse your body. You constantly push your organs and systems to do work beyond what they are meant for. Moreover you divert energy that is supposed to maintain life processes to be locked up as muscles. And your organs, which already have less energy, have to do more work due to your increased mass.

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February 2005 (Part 2)

Sparring

What you attained at the course was a very high level satori, or spiritual awakening. You were awakened to the cosmic fact that at a very high spiritual level, there are no forms, no emotions, no thoughts and no souls! It is just the Great Void, just Emptiness. In Western terms, it is just God.

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February 2005 (Part 3)

Lifting the Sky

Actually there is no boundary in a ball of energy, just as there is no boundary in a sub-atomic particle. But the concentration of qi around a point (such as the qi-hai point at your abdomen) is such that we conceptualize it as a ball. If the accumulation of qi is substantial, like in the case of an internal art master, others can see a small drum at his abdomen.

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March

March 2005 (Part 1)

Flower Set

Where is the Kingdom of God? Jesus answers clearly in the Bible, “The Kingdom of God is in your heart.” An excellent way to have a glimpse of God's Kingdom is to stand upright, be totally relaxed, close your eyes gently, and smile from your heart. As your heart opens, feel the presence of Jesus with you, and let the Grace of God flow over you. Conclude the session by giving a blessing to whoever you wish.

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March 2005(Part 2)

Shaolin mural

A kungfu set is the crystallization of the patterns, techniques, tactics, strategies, energy management, mind training and other aspects of its kungfu style. If a set has been passed down to us, it has passed the test of time in its usefulness, otherwise it would have been eliminated along the way.

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March 2005(Part 3)

Combat Application

Immortal Li was very significant in the founding of Shaolin Wahnam. At one time while studying in my sifu's house which also served as a temple, I was in financial difficulty and was contemplating to leave my job as a school teacher to enter business. I asked Immortal Li for advice and guidance. In his typical poetic way he replied, “You have a jade in your house, wherefore search outside?”

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April

April 2005 (Part 1)

Burning of Shaolin Temple

In kungfu circles, when one talks about the burning of the Shaolin Temple by the Qing Army, it was the southern Shaolin Temple in Fujian, and not the northern Shaolin Temple at Henan. Many people may not be aware of this fact. They are also not aware that the burning of the northern Shaolin Temple had nothing to do with kungfu. Traditional kungfu was no longer practiced there for a long time. During the Republican period after the Qing Dynasty had fallen, the northern Shaolin Temple was occupied by a warlord, and a rival warlord attacked and burnt it.

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April 2005 (Part 2)

Combat Application

I would find it hard to understand how one could still say that a certain martial art contributes to health, combat efficiency and spiritual cultivation when their practitioners routinely and intentionally hurt one another in their practice, which shows that they will not be healthy, have poor self defence and harm their spirit.

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April 2005(Part 3)

Taijiquan

If what you practice is genuine, traditional Tai Chi Chuan, you are already practicing chi kung. Hence, there is no need to practice other chi kung exercises. But if what you practice is just external Tai Chi forms, it is good to practice chi kung

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May

May 2005 (Part 1)

internal force in breaking bricks

When a qigong practitioner looks at that part of his body located about two or three inches below his naval, he sees it as his "dan tian". But if you do not know qigong paradigm, when you look at the similar part of your body, you do not see it as your "dan tian". So, what do you call that? You just call it that part of your body located two or three inches below your naval.

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May 2005 (Part 2)

Chi Flow

Yours was an example of attaining the mind level in combat, where you became extremely calm, relaxed and focused. As a result your reactions, both mentally and physically, were extremely fast and precise. So, even if your opponents were physically bigger and stronger than you, and their techniques might be more sophisticated, your fast and precise movements easily defeat them.

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May 2005 (Part 3)

Shaolin Kungfu sparring

You may be happy to know that you are now cleansing away "dirt" (or "sin" in Christian terms) in a few months what it would normally take most people many lifetimes to do. In Buddhist terms, it is erasing bad karma. One has to be perfectly pure, i.e.without even a spec of dirt, before he can return to God. Even if he may not be ready, or even interested, to return to God yet, being purified spiritually certainly has many benefits even in our phenomenal world.

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June

June 2005 (Part 1)

Kungfu sparring

In our school, students learn how to enter into a meditative state of mind — also called Zen or a chi kung state of mind -- right at the beginning, irrespective of whether they learn Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung, Shaolin Kungfu or Wahnam Taijiquan from us. There are many levels in a chi kung state of mind, but the most basic is that the practitioner is relaxed and focused at the same time. Being focused means attaining a one-pointed mind.

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June 2005 (Part 2)

Chi flow

If all other things were equal -- which is almost always not true -- stance training accumulates your internal force at your dan tian, One Finger Shooting Zen makes your internal force fluid, and Flicking Fingers consolidates it all over your body. In other words, stance training makes you solid, One Finger Shooting Zen makes you versatile, and Flicking Fingers makes you powerful.

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June 2005 (Part 3)

Standing Zen

As long as you practice genuine chi kung, even if it is of a low level, you will develop spiritually, because genuine chi kung cultivates the physical body, the energy and the spirit. In low level chi kung, the benefit of spiritual development may be too little to be easily noticeable, whereas in high level chi kung the spiritual experience can be very powerful.

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