The real trick of pursuing a martial art like I Liq Chuan over the long term is recognizing the end of the duality of "on the mat" and "off the mat", so that one is always training.
The I Liq Chuan system guide opens with the following;
意力合一
yi li he yi “awareness and the physical (actions) as one”
意控制力
yi kong zhi li “awareness gains control over the physical”
用意用不力
yong yi bu yong li “use (only) awareness and not physical (force)”
The admonitions are everywhere. Train the mind, the mind is the key. This is Zen; be aware of your own mind.
The nature of human habits though, is that they are strong, hard to change, difficult to let go of.
As such it can be difficult to follow that cardinal most rule of Tai Chi and Zen - “change with the change”, especially when the change is drastic.
It seems like there's been a lot of deaths in my life lately.
A few weeks back, two of my best friends from growing up lost their younger sister. She was somebody that I had a little crush on when we were young. She was at the lake with her kids, and the waves swept her away. She drowned.
A few days ago my neighbors were killed when a home invasion turned into a double homicide.
In the face of these tragedies, it seemed somehow wrong that I should still go to work, buy groceries, scold my kids and so on, but then last night I caught site of my wife in such a way that gave rise to some kind of understanding and it made me think of and old Zen story, which I'll leave to you to ponder it's meaning.
A monk was walking along the road in the mountains when suddenly, he was confronted by a tiger which began to chase him. In his haste to escape, the monk slips over the edge of a cliff but manages to grab hold of the roots of some bush. Looking up, the hungry tiger waited for him to climb and looking down the monk sees a second tiger pacing below. A tiger above, a tiger below, without doubt the monk has met his end. Then he notices a berry nearby. He thinks “What a perfect berry”, which he picks and eats.
