A punch is a punch. A stance is a stance. A pill is a pill. None of them meet.
This is the mindset that gives rise to ordinary cultivation fiction. Each idea is discrete, compartmentatlised, separate from each other. This is how the modern person views the world. This is how Westerners see the world.
This is not Chinese culture.
Throughout this series, I’ve tried to communicate the essence of Chinese metaphysics. The West draws a bright line between sacred and profane, mundane and mystical—and the rationalists, materialists and atheists deny that which they cannot measure. Not so with traditional Chinese culture.
Consider the internal martial arts. Every movement does the following: it generates, stores and releases kinetic energy; it massages the internal organs; it expresses a fundamental energy of the universe; it aligns mind, body and spirit with that energy, and by extension, the universe.
In his martial arts manuals, grandmaster Sun Lutang takes pains to draw out these connections. He describes how certain postures benefit the organs, the proper way to practice a technique, the connection between martial arts and the Dao.
But these are just descriptions. To truly appreciate this, you need to experience it for yourself. Until you feel the flow of qi, sense your spirit settle into sacred silence, experience your body spontaneously flowing from one movement to another, it is all academic.
Chinese spirituality is living, embodied, and immanent. It bleeds into all things in life, for the Way is in all things. This approach is still practiced today, even outside martial arts.
Chinese astrology studies the flow of energies through time and space. This allows a practitioner to calculate auspicious dates and times to carry out certain events. It also empowers them to predict the outcome of an action through astrology. Underpinning the various schools of Chinese astrology is yin and yang, the five elements, the eight trigrams and the twelve animals.
Many of these fundamental ideas make their way into other fields. Traditional Chinese Medicine is focused on unblocking and regulating the flow of qi, based on theories of yin and yang, the five elements, and organ correspondences. You can find those same correspondences and ideas of elements in the internal martial arts, especially xingyiquan. It is said that proper practice of xingyiquan strengthens the internal organs, similar to acupuncture or massage. Xingyiquan standing practice is static meditation, while its fist techniques can be treated as moving meditation. In integrating deliberate movements and breathwork, the martial art is transformed into qigong. And for the martially-inclined, the twelve animals of xingyiquan represent martial strategy, both at the individual level, and at the scale of armies.
Instead of splitting life into multiple compartments, it is experienced as multiple aspects of a seamless, unified existence. One aspect of life informs all other aspects. In practicing one skill, you gain proficiency in all other skills. And at the end of the road, you discover you have returned to the beginning—stronger, wiser and more skilled than before.
This mindset, more than anything else, is something I sought to describe in Saga of the Swordbreaker.
We now return to the question I asked at the beginning of this series: what is the meaning of cultivation? Is it for fighting? Health? Honour? Spirituality?
Yes.
What happens if you only focus on fighting, the way conventional writers do? Then all you develop is raw power. It may be useful for combat, but outside it, there is little application. Your character might become as powerful as an asura, but if he retains the mindset of a rebellious teenager, he has not grown at all.
Or, rather, he has grown to be extremely dangerous and volatile, and is now a threat to everyone around him.
Cultivation is a means of holistic development. Focusing on fighting to the exclusion of other areas leaves you dangerously imbalanced. The classics teach that if one pursues strength, you will not gain true strength. That’s because the kind of intense training needed to gain prodigious strength in a short period leads to burnout and injury. And without developing the virtues to use that strength wisely, you may place yourself in a situation where you will be destroyed by your own strength.
In the internal martial arts, you do not simply learn martial arts. You also learn how to be a good person—and, in the process, learn the kind of techniques and principles that enable you to act ethically. Health practices are also incorporated into training—which has the happy benefit of allowing you to sustain your own training. You may unlock the secrets of static and moving meditation—and by uniting mind, body and spirit, you can move as an integrated whole, and thus generate that much more power. Every field of training feeds into every other field, an infinite loop that never ends, but merely grows wider and deeper.
Saga of the Swordbreaker is founded on this ancient wisdom. It’s a work of fiction, sure, but is founded on the deep truths transmitted across the ages. Click here to find out more!
