REALIZATIONS ON BEING HEALTHY AND HAPPY AND HAVING A MEANINGFUL LIFE

Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit

Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit in Austria

Question

You have talked about the realisations you had regarding your Kung Fu & Chi Kung practice when you translated the Treatise of Zhang San Feng. Could you say something about any realisations you had about living a healthy, happy and meaningful life? Did it change the way you approached anything in your everyday life or help you to crystallise anything that had already been working well?

How, if at all, did the Treatise affect the way you taught or practiced Chi Kung or Kung Fu?

You are teaching Five Dan Tien Training for the first time. What skills will someone practising this art gain, what holistic effects will the practice have and what aspects of life can these skills be used to enhance?

How have the experiences of "Taiji originates from Wuji" and "experiencing Cosmic and Phenomenal reality at the same time" affected the way you look at other people and the world around you. What would you say has been the most practically useful outcome of these experiences.

Sifu Barry Smale, Shaolin Wahnam UK

Answer

My realizations about living a healthy, happy and meaningful life may be a surprise to many people, but they lead to my being healthy, happy and meaningful.

The first realization is to let others, including those close to you, to lead their own life. If you don’t follow or accept this realization, it will lead to you becoming less healthy, less happy and less meaningful even thought it may not make you sick, sad or meaningless.

A good example is our having benefited much from our practice in our school that we want to share our practice with those we love. You may, for example, want your wife (or husband) and children to practice our Shaolin Wahnam arts. If they do not want to, then let them live their life the way they want. It is their life, and we have no right to dictate to them to live their life the way we want.

This realization has changed the way I approach my everyday life. I may tell them the wonderful benefits of our Shaolin Wahnam arts, but if they do not want these benefits, I am not going to insist or waste my time. I rather spend time with deserving students.

Another realization is that you must be able to do what you ask others to do. For example, you may tell others to practice chi kung, but you yourself must be able to practice the exercises you tell others. This will give you confidence and conviction, which are important if you want others to follow your suggestion. Sometimes, other people may ask you to demonstrate what or how they should practice. You must be able to do so, bearing in mind that their standards are different from yours.

The third realization is that you are an example of the benefits following your practice will give. If you tell them that practicing chi kung will give them good health and vitality, you will not be a good example for others to follow if you are unhealthy or lack vitality. If you tell others that practicing kungfu enables you to defence yourself, you must be ready to demonstrate your combat efficiency.

The Treatise of Zhang San Feng crystallizes the way I teach or practice chi kung and kungfu. Actually I taught and practiced the principles mentioned in the Treatise, but it crystallized them.

Being relaxed and freeing the mind of all thoughts were important in the practice of chi kung. I learned them through years of teaching, and the concept of entering into a chi kung state of mind as mentioned by the great chi kung master, Yan Xin, confirmed these principles. I learned from my two sifus, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam and Sifu Choe Hoong Choy, that many patterns should be performed in one smooth flow without any break, and my sparring with opponents confirmed these principles.

My sparring also taught me principles like the importance of the waist, sinking and pressing, and using feint and real moves, and the Treatise crystallized them.

Five Dan Tians, which will be taught at the intensive course in December 2018 in Penang, is an advanced art. Those who will attend the course, especially those with Small Universe, will be able to achieve this skill quite easily.

The holistic effects the practice will have are as follows:

  1. The participants will be healthy, full of vitality, and have longevity.
  2. They will have mental freshness and mental clarity.
  3. They will be happy and peaceful.
  4. They will be solid and agile at the same time.
  5. They will have a lot of force in their hands. They will be more forceful, irrespective of whether they practice kungfu.
Whatever course participants do in their daily life, they will have better results! The following are just some examples how they can enrich various aspects of life:
  1. When they read a book, they will comprehend well.
  2. They will do well in their physical work.
  3. They will enjoy their sexual performance more, irrespective of male or female.
  4. Their intellect will improve.
  5. They will find joy in their simple, daily work.
The experience of “Taiji originates from Wuji” and also “returns to Wuji” confirms for me that all great religions teach the same truth. It reminds me that Transcendental Reality is the same as Phenomenal Realm; the difference is a matter of spiritual perception.

The skill of “experiencing Cosmic and Phenomenal reality at the same time” is very, very high level. Its experience occur to the greatest of masters. This experience as well as the other experience of “Taiji originates from Wuji and returns to Wuji” enhance the joy and beauty of life.

Different people, if they ever have such wonderful experiences, may have different outcomes. But to me these experiences greatly enrich life, enabling me to perform better whatever I do.

Being solid and agile

Grandmaster Wong is not only solid but also agile

The questions and answers are reproduced from the thread Questions to Grandmaster on Wudang Kungfu/Taijiquan & Zhang San Feng in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.

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