191. Qigong Art of War - The Civil War within

Even if you care nothing for Baguazhang internal martial arts, or the game of Go/Weiqi, or even the Art of War and just want to find inner peace through the tranquil art of Qigong, the sad fact is: If it involves other people, the you have to play the game. What game, you ask? Truthfully, there is no game or at least there shouldn't be. Qigong is the inner cultivation of one's life force through external actions. This is what separates it out from meditation and sitting still like rock. And even if you were to disagree with me, eventually a person's qi grows so big that whatever shit you got going on the inside of you will find itself projected on the outside of you. And the people around you have a way of becoming active players in the game that is your reality... (Suddenly, that mindfulness retreat amongst the birds and bees isn't so peaceful after all.) It is this disturbance, this interplay between polarities that leads to the true cultivation of qi into something that can be tangibly experienced. Both as an external physical sensation and as an internal development that goes way beyond just correct breathing exercises. So perhaps there is a Qigong Art of War. While Martial Qigong seeks to use qi as some sort of mystical weapon, and is constantly being either ridiculed or proven as fraudulent, the Qigong Art of War works on the premise that a person has weak or low qi because their Yin and Yang are held in a constant state of civil war. And just like a real civil war, the two main protagonists don't actually do the actual fighting. It is left to their minions to do the mutual slaughtering. And while a master of Martial Qigong seeks an external opponent to fight against, the master of the Qigong Art of War knows that their external opponent is just an outwardly projection of the civil war raging within. It is the same thing that sometimes happens when two alpha-male lions fight over a pride. Hyenas get drawn in, and they will attack whichever lion loses. In fact, outward displays of overt power and excessive internal control are a dead giveaway that one's qi is extremely weak because Yin and Yang no longer flow smoothly between them. Neither side sees value in keeping the union going but feel compelled to keep the status quo out of a mutually shared wounded ego. All of which, the master of the Qigong Art of War knows is total bullshit.