THE EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN FROM A GREAT MASTER
Pushing Mountains
Question
How extraordinary (or rare) is it to meet, learn and benefit from a master who can genuinely transmit a skill that brings all the benefits (like we receive) in the 18 Lohan Hands?
Also, how extraordinary is it to meet, learn and benefit from a great living master like Bodhidharma?
Finally, how extraordinary is it to meet, learn and benefit from such a great living teacher as the Buddha himself?
Sifu Mark Blohm
Answer
While mediocre or even bogus teachers are plentiful, nowadays it is very rare to meet, learn and benefit from a master who can genuinely transmit a skill that brings all the benefits (like we receive) in the 18 Lohan Hands.
How would we define a genuine master? The minimum qualification is that he is able to help students obtain the benefits from the art he is teaching. If he is teaching the 18 Lohan Hands, he is able to give students the benefits the 18 Lohan Hands are meant to give, which are overcoming illness, and having good health, vitality and longevity.
Unfortunately, such teachers today are rare. Not only many teachers teaching the 18 Lohan Hands do not have this minimum qualification, they themselves are often sick and weak.
As a random estimation, out of a hundred teachers, only one can give these benefits of the 18 Lohan Hands.
Masters having this minimum qualification means that that genuine masters exist in the world, though they are rare. Whether students can get the benefits depend on three further factors, namely whether they can meet, whether they can learn, and whether they can benefit from a genuine master.
Even when a genuine master exists, students may not meet him. Even when they meet him, they may not learn from him. Even when they learn from him, they may not benefit from his teaching. Considering these progressive factors, it is reasonable to say that the chance of meeting, learning and benefiting from a genuine master is one in a thousand.
As you have rightly said, students in our school get all the benefits the 18 Lohan Hands are meant to give. I believe that the total number of our students, though large by itself, is less than a thousandth of the total number of people in the world who practice the 18 Lohan Hands. Hence, the estimation that opportunity to meet, learn and benefit from a master who can genuinely transmit a skill that brings all the benefits of the 18 Lohan Hands is one out of a thousand, is reasonable. It is, therefore, extraordinary.
Why is it that even when a genuine master exists, students may still not meet, learn and benefit from him? The reasons come from both the master and the students. A genuine masters is usually not keen to teach. Even when he teaches, he is very selective about his students.
On the other hand, not many people have heard of the 18 Lohan Hands. Those who have heard of the art may not know of its wonderful benefits. They mistakenly think the 18 Lohan Hands are like any other gentle physical exercise. In short, they do not have the good karma to meet a genuine master.
Even if they have the good karma to meet a genuine master, they may not have the good karma to learn from him. In free talks I used to give in my early years of teaching, for example, some people were convinced of the benefits of the 18 Lohan Hands, otherwise they would not have taken the trouble to speak to me after the talk telling me how wonderful the talk was. Yet they gave excuses not to attend the course.
Even when they have the good karma to learn from a genuine master, they may still not benefit from his teaching. The success rate in our school is exceptional. In most other schools, even when the master is genuine, the success rate is low. Out of a hundred students, only about 10 would get the benefits of the art after many years of dedicated practice.
The opportunity to meet, learn and benefit from a great living master like Bodhidharma is even more extraordinary. There is a big gap between a genuine master who can produce the benefits of the art he is teaching after many years of practice, and a living master like Bodhidharma who can produce unbelievable benefits in a short time, sometimes even immediately. The opportunity is easily one in a hundred thousand.
The opportunity to meet, learn and benefit from a great living teacher like the Buddha is most extraordinary. It is an underestimation to say that the opportunity is one in a million. In reality, for most people it is not even once in many lifetimes.
Lifting the Sky
The questions and answers are reproduced from the thread 18 Lohan Hands: 10 Questions to Grandmaster Wong in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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