172. Internal Chicken versus Eagle Qigong

Even though I am a master of Qigong, I still have to deal with the everyday like everybody else. And sometimes during heights of euphoria over achievements and successes, I can just as easily find myself in the ditch again. Unless I decide to go live somewhere without other people around, that's just the way life will have to be played out from time to time. To give an example, just the other day at Qigong class, my students and I, had reached the milestone of separating one Qigong ball into two Qigong balls. One for each palm. Flush with excitement from the success, after the class, I failed to stop at a stop sign while driving through some back streets. Out of nowhere, a policeman on traffic patrol pulled me over and I got booked with a $344 fine and the loss of three demerit points. If a person loses ten demerit points then they lose their driver's licence. At least I hadn't been speeding or drink-driving. I find it interesting how the mind keeps replaying the past because I just can't figure out where the cop was hiding. I should have seen him if I was only doing 30km/h in a 50km zone. The whole thing feels like I created my own problem just to get me off the euphoria I had been feeling because of the Qigong event. So here I am. A couple of days later and definately feeling grounded. And facing reality again. But reality is an illusion just like fantasy is an illusion, so what is the difference? For a lot of martial artists, keeping it real means staying grounded: But if a chicken lives in the real world, what then is the eagle doing when it is flying in the sky? This is the war that tugs at an internal martial artist deep within themselves. The eagle's desire to be an eagle as eagles are meant to do, is constantly being reigned in by the chicken on the ground. And all the while, the chicken can't seem to understand why the eagle doesn't live with the same fears that the chicken has. As this whole podcast illustrates, this civil war has got nothing to do with other martial artists even when other martial artists are involved. External events are just projections. But that does not mean the difficult situations we face aren't real. My traffic fine is real. My demerit points are real. And the government does everything in its power to remind me of the consequences should I fail to stop at a stop sign. It doesn't really matter how lenient the rules are in the game of Monopoly. Unless they get rid of the "Go to Jail" square, at some point in the game you are going to go to jail. What internal martial arts tries to tackle is the little slight of hands that we unknowingly do to ourselves to speed up that process. And turn this bad habit into positive advantage. Positive advantage in Monopoly would be something like waiting out your three turns in jail, while you collect the rent from the other players. Sure, you did not pass go and get your $200. But your rental income may be more than enough to cover your shortfall.