Throughout my life I never gave it a seconds thought when I heard someone say, "I am a practicing Catholic". Then recently it occurred to me ... "I am a practicing Daoist". And, well, I "practice" every day, whether it is with some of my Daoist sisters via Zoom or by myself. It is one thing to say one is Buddhist, Daoist, Christian, Jewish, Baptist, etc. etc..... We can identify as something / anything - spiritual or worldly - without having to practice at it.
Chinese is not my language. And so, I practice, practice, practice. For it is the vibrational frequency that is telegraphed to the Universe through me - the antenna - Just as Latin is the vibrational frequency of the Catholic mass and Hebrew for the Jewish. And so I chant in Chinese while understanding in English. At times I have studied with Jeffrey Yuen, a contemporary of my Shifu. When he is taking apart a Chinese character on a white board, explaining not only its etiology but its evolution, he has said that the 'Old language' held the vibrational frequency. And that the modernized written AND spoken language has lost much of that. If we want to capture what the old language was like.... look (or perhaps listen) to northern Vietnamese.
Everything was all passed down through an oral tradition. There was no other means. Face to face is how one of my teachers (Zhang Xue Xin) put it. And my Shifu, Master Chen, speaks of common affinity for how easily or difficult it is for someone to "get it". And my teacher of more than 20 years, Justin Meehan, had his own unspoken rule of not sharing any video until after we had already learned a gong or a form. Nowadays, we are flooded with media and videos to teach us anything and everything. I am here to tell you - video or audio - the magic is between the lines. Even Chen Xiao Wang said in a workshop that he had practiced for YEARS before he had a piece of information that transformed his practice - He said he had wasted 10 years practicing incorrectly. I would add this: There are layers upon layers of information within any practice. Some would share it all to beginner and advanced alike. Others would teach at the lowest common denominator (even if there was just one beginner in a group of intermediate or advanced) There is no right or wrong way. Getting more information than you can absorb [my Taiji sister calls that "drinking from a fire hose"] just means that the information that you didn't understand gets filed away until you are at a place where it does have meaning and becomes incorporated into your practice.
In 2007, 21 students in our St. Louis Taiji school attended the 1st Hun Yuan Taiji Conference in Beijing. Grand Master Feng Zhiqiang gave an eloquent opening speech to 2000 attendees. He was renowned for his martial ability. But he said very clearly that he only got just a little bit of HIS teacher's skills. More importantly .... there are few TODAY who are willing to put in the time and practice to achieve [GONG] an even lesser skill than he ever reached.
And so, we practice. There are so many layers to that word. What are YOU practicing? (Qigong / Taiji / Music / sports / parenting / Being human /
Fill in the blank...................................
What layer are you at?
Practice - Practice - Practice
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