The Purpose of Arts and Music (5)I am now trying to keep my momentum in writing going because the last time after publishing 'The Purpose of Arts and Music (2)' in late June last year, I spent much time learning more about the various artists and went through all my journals for writing materials. Collating materials from my many journals was a rather painful experience, I stored my journal entries in a word processor and gave each entries and important paragraphs tags for easy retrieval with the word processor's search function. For example, tag words like 'traditional', 'jazz', 'rock', 'pop' and 'dance' will lead me directly to paragraphs that contain materials relevant to the subjects.However, doing things this way is very stressful and time consuming, I may be able to locate the relevant paragraphs quickly with the help of the search function, but very often, reading the sentences which contained these tag words alone can't bring out any meaning, they are meaningful only in the larger context and so I often need to read the pages before and after these tag words in order for them to make sense. Even after I had collated and understood all the relevant points, it was still difficult to make them fit smoothly. That is why it took me 5 to 6 months later before posting 'The Purpose of Arts and Music (3)' in December 2023.You can compare it to the experience of listening to a news commentary online; let’s say you paused listening after 10 minutes to go run some errands and returned to listen again after a few hours. You will find that your train of thought becomes disjointed, the remainder of the news clip make no sense, you would have lost the built-up enthusiasm and have to start the news clip all over again in order to understand the direction of the storyline.When I heard 刘恋's song '生生不息', it gave me an inspirational spark and I put aside all my journals and started letting ideas flow from my heart instead of trying to piece things together like a chatbot. Then ideas and materials just started flowing naturally and they are always relevant and fit together smoothly in a coherent structure. It is amazing how our hearts have the ability to see things in their entirety, know what are relevant and how things are connected without needing to go through the manual process of research and analysis. This perhaps is the shadow of what Buddhists called the '般若智慧'.That is why we often hear professional performance artists need to immerse themselves totally in the subject of their performance in order to reach the state of unison and one such artist in '乘风破浪3' is 唐诗逸, who is a multiple award winning top dancer from the 'Beijing Dance Academy'. 唐诗逸 mainly specialized in traditional Chinese dance and through her interviews, she revealed that she conditioned herself through studying traditional cultures and ethics, understanding customs and etiquette, appreciating classical literatures, music and fashion.I was very impressed by her performance in '霓裳羽衣舞', '洛阳久事', '一舞飞天, 一梦敦煌’, and was particularly inspired by '一舞飞天，一梦敦煌'. How can I not be, this whole series of essays on arts and music was based on the subject of the Mogao Grottoes (敦煌莫高窟) which I first wrote about in 2/6/2017. The wall paintings in the grottoes feature many angels (天人) dancing and making music while the Buddha was giving a sermon. This depiction was not the imagination of the painter, it was an actual scene of heaven as recorded in various Buddhist sutras. As a result, I developed an interest in the benefits music and art have on spiritual cultivation.BeautyThe beauty of 唐's dances lie in the overall artistic conception, the graceful and precise movement, the elegant costumes, refined accessories and the realistic facial expressions. In my opinion, the traditional Chinese concept of beauty is the manifestation of the values of 温良恭俭让, in fact, maybe all forms of beauty comes from values similar to 温良恭俭让. I came upon this idea when I watched the car review on the MG Cyberster on the YouTube channel, '极速拍档'. One contentious subject of the review was the design of the rear signal lights of the car which took the form of arrows, one pointing to the right and one to the left. Most people including myself find this design rather odd but couldn't explain why. Then I thought, what is wrong with using the arrow designs? Aren't arrows the clearest indicators of direction and as signal lights, the designs are actually serving their purposes well. But this fact just doesn't justify the appropriateness of using arrows as signal lights on sports car, directness and bluntness are more utilitarian then beauty and grace. That is why Penny 戴佩妮 said that if one analyze music too clearly and directly then one will not be able to enjoy the beauty of music, it is as if analysis will block all other brain circuits that enable us to experience joy and get in the flow.If directness and affirmation do not produce beauty, then subtleties and blurriness must be the elements that can do the trick. The subtle metaphors of poems can blur the barriers between people and nature, make us fall in love and enable energy (正能量) to circulate the same way etiquettes like 温良恭俭让 can dissolve the barriers among people to reduce friction and create the joy of harmony. This circulation of energy is the joy and sensation we felt when we appreciate good music and arts. So when we say that the arrow-shaped signal lights of MG Cyberster look odd, it is because things are out of proportion and thus not harmonious, and that blocks our energy flow. HandicraftsThe operative core of these yielding characteristics in Confucianism and Taoism are what the Chinese called '收放自如' and it can inspire wisdom, beauty and refinement in skills across many trades and industries. '收放' is similar to the Taoist concept of 'Yin Yang' (阴阳) or the cycle of detachment and attachment which generate energy flow and thus, 温良恭俭让 is able to enhance our strength and stamina. Besides performing arts, Chinese are also very well known for its non-performing arts like painting, calligraphy, and handicrafts like 木雕, 玉雕, 花丝镶嵌, 緙丝, 吉服袍, 海派旗袍, 古典服装 and many others. The essence of good craftsmanship is very much determined by one's temperament, attention to details and the coordination of the hands. Ancient craftsmen and apprentices must form a deep bond with their masters and observe values which were not too different from Confucianism  in order to inculcate the right characters that are conducive to learning skills. Characteristic such as respect for master '尊师重道' can condition one to be humble so that one can accept criticism from others and improve one's skills. '包容 ' can appease others so that one will be attentive to their all round needs, and in turn, one will become more attuned to seeing the whole picture. This is especially important in the culinary art where the all round appeal of 色 (presentation), 香 (fragrance), 味 (taste) is of utmost importance. '真诚恭敬' will ensure they respect their customers and their own products because if they adopt a negative and cynical outlook, they will trivialize everything and will lead them to develop lackadaisical attitudes.What is less obvious is how these moral values can influence people's control over their strength and the coordination of their bodies. The key lies in '让' or '收', which means to detach. Think of someone carving an intricate piece of wooden artwork, he will need to work with many curves, lines, angles, shades and depth. As he work his carving tool from a straight line to a curve, his mind will need to switch from the thought of 'straight' to 'curve'. Someone who is inflexible (执着) will subconsciously find it more difficult to make that mental switch willingly and are more likely to feel vexed and impatient. On the other hand, someone accustomed to '让' will switch the command in his subconscious mind willingly and produce curve lines that are smooth like calligraphy due to less mental resistance. This process also applies to carving different levels of depth and hue, one who has '让/收放自如' in his nature is more likely to have better control over the various levels of strength needed in carving smooth progression in depth and all the fussy refined details.Perhaps the above explains why places with Confucius backgrounds are good at making stuff. The doctrine of '五伦' guided people to behave in accordance to the roles they are assigned or born into in order to create a harmonious society. This practice later became the bedrock of building effective teamwork that is important in running manufacturing businesses and supply chains.DancingThere are no actual professional craftsmen in the '浪姐3' group except maybe for Cindy 王心凌, who revealed that she is very good with kitchen knives and eye lash brushes. One needs to have a delicate light touch in handling tools like good craftsmen in order to brush eye lashes neat and well defined. I now understand why the '王心凌男孩' are so enamored of her song, '爱你', her deftly dance steps in the song is like a poetry in motion and that made us fell in love. If she had training in football, I am sure she can dribble as well as my football hero, Roberto Baggio.While there are no real craftsmen in the show, there sure are several participants with strong back ground in dancing like 唐诗逸, 朱洁静 and 吴谨言. The one common success factor among professional dancers is what they described as, '把最简单的做到最极致' or honing the simplest motion and expression to perfection.In my opinion, this can be best understood when we compare the smooth kinetic movement of the human body with the jerky movement of robots in the 90's. Robots were jerky because they can't slow down gradually, they can only go from the speed of say, 1 meter/second to a sudden complete stop. On the other hand, professional dancers can execute more speeds to slow down gradually such as going from 1 meter/sec to 0.75 meter/sec to 0.5 meter/sec to 0.25 meter/sec and zero, and this is what makes their movement smooth and graceful. It is the same with general ambulation where machines' motion can be ungainly and lack a wider spectrum of controls like how autonomous driving cars can sometimes make a sharp turn into other lanes instead of easing smoothly into them.People in the robotics and software industry explained that the reason behind the jerky motion was due to the lack of smoothness in the machines' logic. It was hard to write software which can execute so many different speeds and to have processors powerful enough to handle so many commands. I suspect it is for this reason why modern dance tends to look robotic like popping and krumping, and music tends to be rhythmic instead of smooth flowing and graceful like the traditional ones. The minds and logic of modern people are not as smooth as those in the past, this need for rhythmic sound and action is to offset or bridge the gaps of fragmentation in our minds brought on by industrialization and urbanization as previously written. The rhythmic energies from the beat of music are the extra energies needed to push them through these fragmentations or 'bugs' in their logic.This will be the last essay in the 'Arts and Music' series, after watching so many episodes of '乘风破浪' I am beginning to find it hard to detach myself from the images, I am even finding it hard to remember what Jacky Chan looks like. The holidays in the coming Chinese Lunar New Year will be a good opportunity for me to reset and clear my mind's cache, so I shall end this series with the best wishes to everyone in the new year, 新年快乐, 龙马精神, 龙年行大运.

The Role of Art and Music (4)The main attraction of the show '乘风破浪3' to me is the coming together of 30 professionals, from diverse fields such as music, dancing, sports and acting; different genres such as classical, rock, jazz, blues, pop, R&B from China, America, Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan to coordinate in making very creative performance arts. The collaboration  is like the ancient Chinese sailing ship featured in the opening spot of the show which represented the wisdom of ancient people who combined the use of wood (the ship), fabric (the sail), water (the ocean) and air (sea breeze) to create effective mean of mass transportation. It is not too different from how modern people combined a phone, a camera and a computer to give us the smart phone. It shows that wisdom involves the ability to assimilate, and to assimilate involves breaking down barriers or else a smart phone would look like tying together a phone, a camera and a pc with a rope in a very awkward and unusable way.In the show '时光音乐会 2', the singer Penny 戴佩妮 said that the hardest thing to do in singing is to have the acumen to do it by the right amount (刚刚好) and she also said that she doesn't like to be a music producer because a producer has to analyze music attentively and once you do that, you can no longer enjoy music. She also said that she has the tendency of doing things out of passion instead of profits and fame.These 3 matters may seem like 3 different issues but they share the same root. In order to do things by the right amount '刚刚好', one must have the ability to see the big picture clearly. For example, in designing cars, designers must have the ability to sense the right proportion and envision the whole car (the big picture) in their mind so that the curves and lines of the front bumper and fenders must share the same theme with those at the back; the roof lines must ensure occupants have sufficient head room and yet blend with the front and back in a coherent way; the overall design must give the car a weight distribution of 60:40 to ensure good handling; the bumper and the diffuser at the back must create a low drag to save fuel, improve speed and maintain ground effect whilst staying consistent with the design theme of the car. If the designers can't envision all these in their minds and work on them concurrently, the design will look awkward and will take a very long time to complete. If let's say they just focus on the front design first, the design maynot be compatible with the roofline or weight distribution; or if they focus on the side first, then the design may conflict with the coefficient of drag of the car later. They will need to go back and forth many times before they can arrive at a design that can satisfy all the criteria of the design. This is no different from how a CEO must see the big picture in order to allocate the right resources and right people to the right places to produce sufficient profits whilst complying with workers unions, general regulations and international standards; or how an engineer must understand the compatibility of the components in their production line in order to ensure smooth and systematic operation.Writers, mathematicians, sportsmen, dancers and just about any trade and profession need this acumen in order to produce the right results, and this acumen was what Penny 戴 meant when she said why musician must use their 'heart' (心) instead of analysis to write and appreciate beautiful music. It is known that Taoist priest or Buddhist Monk often answer very complex questions with very short metaphorical lines that are almost like abstract art in order for people to understand through '领悟'. The meaning of these short lines are often the core or equillibrium point of those complex questions asked. The reason they can see the core of these complex questions is because they can see the big picture; and in order to see the big picture, one need to see with the heart. The brain see things in fragmented forms when it uses logic and analysis which breaks down and segmenting facts (分别执着) but the heart uses assimilation to see things in their totality like the process of designing cars mentioned above.Assimilation can be described as ' 融合' and one must first break down barriers through '包容' in order to assimilate or join all the dots to form the big picture. That is why Confucius teaches the '包容' values of '仁耻礼恭敬爱孝忠' to enhance his students' core acumen to assimilate so that they can excell in the '六艺' skill training. The morals of yielding such as '仁耻礼恭敬爱孝忠' and '上善若水' should not be regarded as values that can weaken our ability because all types of skills such as writing, music, engineering, arts and sports are meant for breaking barriers, solving problems and joining the dots, and yielding facilitates them. These values also enabled people to live together collectively in harmony in order to allow these skills to flourish.These are the spirits that enabled the ancient Chinese to make important invention such as the system of governance, ship building, paper, printing, compass, just to name a few. Rules and regulations can control our bodies but not our hearts, only morals can persuade our hearts to behave in a certain way willingly. Once people can behave in an acceptable way then we may not need too many rules and people in the society can enjoy more freedom.

The Role of Art and Music (3)Lately I experienced what it means to be '凉了' or the fizzle out of enthusiasm as I waited a couple of months before writing the next essay on this subject. I waited because I was hoping to learn new things about the these artists and the entertainment industry, but as time goes by, the level of my energy dropped and I am finding it harder and harder to learn new things. That is why young people should seize every opportunities to learn and work as much as they can while they are young because it is harder to get a second chance to do that at a later stage in their lives because of the drop in their vitality and the ability of older brains to learn new knowledge.However, maybe things are not meant to end half way, in early December, one of the 浪姐3 （刘恋） published her new song '生生不息' and this title happens to be related to some of the matters I worked on in my previous essay. It formed a common point with my essay and created impetus and a sense of connection (交流) to motivate me to continue writing. The whole experience felt like the blurring-the-line effects of reciting poems which I mentioned in the previous essay. In my previous essay, the poetic line of 'comparing the strength and hardiness of male to the mountain and the beauty of female to flowers' was actually from a song's lyrics instead of a poem. It was from the song '高山青' which I heard in another Mango TV's program, '声生不息', and it goes like this '阿里山的姑娘美如水呀， 阿里山的少年壮如山'. It is a classic Taiwanese folk song which I heard when I was a young boy in the 70's, and that was the first time I experienced the metaphoric sensation of literature and it made me wonder why did literati like poets, writers and lyricists need to compare human to nature? Around ten years ago, I came across another program made by a Chinese tv station where the presenter revealed that Chinese in the 70's and 60's did not have too much entertainment and material posessions. Despite of the harsh standard of living, they managed to keep themselves going by spending their leisurely time in the parks and public spaces telling stories and reciting poems in groups. He said that reciting a beautiful poems felt just like love, kinship, friendship and peace, and I believe this flow of energies was achieved by blurring the lines or the removal of preconceived ideas (执着) such as 'woman' and 'flower' to enable the two ideas to interact (交流). The interaction of the ideas itself will produce the energy flow that felt like love and peace among, for example, woman, flowers, man and mountains. Buddhist called the removal of preconceived ideas as the removal of '执着' and it is vital for achieving good fortunes like wisdom and compassion. Taoist explained that the removal of these barriers allowed the '阴' and '阳' to interact and mingle in the '中轴线' in order for energies and good fortunes to be generated.The importance of meaningful interaction '交流' among people was also echoed by another '浪姐3', Kelly 于文文, in the variety show,'时光音乐会 2'. In episode 9 she mentioned that '我不孤独，不过我很寂寞'， which essentially means that she is not alone because she was constantly surrounded by people in her work place and social life, but despite of all that interaction, she can't experience the connectedness and goodwill in her circles and thus she felt lonesome even when she is not alone. What Kelly went through was not something new, people already had these feelings in the early 80's. Back then I moved from my rural home to live in an urban flat/apartment to further my studies, and I often heard people say that residents in these housing areas may be living close together but they hardly interact with one another unlike in the rural places.I thought about the whole thing while I was vacationing in Kathmandu lately, and the thought reminded me of the western hippies who loved to visit Kathmandu in the 60's and 70's. In those days, the world was plagued by cold wars, hot wars and civil rights matters, and all these confrontation caused much unease and conflicts in people's hearts which could block their energies from flowing smoothly. That was why the hippies need to gather in groups and communions as an alternative way to create the peace, connectedness and love in order to bring back the energy flow that was lost due to the conflicts mentioned above. They indulge in music, arts and literature because the harmony in music, the coherence in literature and the proportion of beauty/art can help them defend the sanity destroyed by the fragmentation of human conflicts. Please refer to the previous essay regarding energy circulation for a clearer description.The hippies were evolved from the beatniks in the 50's and romanticism in the 19th century Europe which was formed as a reaction to industrialization and the age of Enlightenment. It was recorded that a segment of the society felt science had killed emotions and the industrialization which arose from the Enlightenment destroyed the natural landscape with their ugly factories and pollution. To counter these changes to the lifestyle and environment, the romanticists also sought solace and refuge in arts, literature and music.My understanding is that science and logic has the tendency to cause fragmentation in our thinking because logic specified that, for example, 'man is man, mountain is mountain and man is not mountain' which blocks or segmented our thought pattern. Similarly, logic also organised the way we work and live in fragmented ways, for example, in the pre-industrialised world, a carpenter who wanted to make a chair will need to do everything from begining to end. He will need to look for the right design and the suitable timber; then he will need to saw and chisel them to the right sizes before carving, fitting and lacquering the finished product. But in an industrialised society, jobs became highly specialised, the entire process of making the chair got separated into specialised activities or departments such that each carpenters are required to do only one specific activity all the time, for example, the carpenter in charge of painting will just do painting and nothing else. As a result, people's mind became more fragmented from the compartmentalised way of doing things and caused the mind to lose its coherence. Things got exacerbated with the creation of more industires and trades because new rules and standards got created to regulate the economy and further restricted the way we think and act.Similarly, industrialisation also brought along urbanisation where people are increasingly made to live in flats and apartments because it is the most space-saving and efficient way to create living spaces. This living environment is also a form of compartmentalisation which separates people and made human interaction a lot less compared to the living space layout in rural communities. So all in all, industrialisation, urbanisation and human conflicts caused our minds to be fragmented and it created blockages to our minds which then affected the flow of energies in our bodies. When our thoughts are fragmented, we can only process the idea of 'female is female and flower is just flower', and ultimately, '你是你 我是我'. This is the root to why Kelly于 felt '我不孤独，不过我很寂寞'.However, without industrialization and urbanisation, the vast majority of human would still be living in poverty. I was told that in the pre-industrialised China, people who could wear clothes that were sufficiently warm during winter were considered very lucky. Today, almost everyone can afford to have several warm clothings hanging idle in their closet during winter. Such is the immense material benefits brought by science and industrialisation that we must treat it with respect and learn how to contain its harm as mentioned above.I find it wise of China to contain these risks by reviving the traditional Chinese cultures and the Confucius values of '仁耻礼恭敬爱孝忠' , which have the effects of bringing people closer together to reduce the fragmentation and blockages that are detrimental to their wisdom and health. The revival was carried out through the many teaching materials, public inculcation and a good mix of modern and traditional entertainment programs on CCTV (China Central Television), Mango TV and others which I enjoy watching. Other geopolitical initiatives like the 'One Belt One Road', is an earnest effort to bring peace and propel civilization by deepening interaction with other countries through cultural exchanges, skills transfer and trade.

The Role of Art and Music 2 (Amended)It has been a very long time since the last I wrote an essay on this blog, the Covid 19 pandemic and all the incidental disruption had really distracted me from writing. I believe the pandemic and all the quarantine had prompted the entertainment producers in China to make high quality TV programmes to keep people entertained while under lock down. One such programmes was '乘风破浪3' (Sisters Who Make Waves) which was aired on May 2022 on Mango TV. Some short video clips of the show that featured Cindy Wang (王心凌) was recommended to me through my YouTube feed and the images of '王心凌男孩' infatuation with her song '爱你' was really infectious, it was very hard for me not to check out the rest of the show on YouTube. It was a singing and dancing show that was participated by 30 celebrities and many of them were familiar faces who debuted in the show business in the 2000's. I must say the quality of the entire show was way beyond my expectation, the design of the performance stage, the choice of songs and choreography, the stage pyrotechnics, the artists' makeup and fashion were all top notch.To be honest, wasn't too familiar with the works of these 2000's artists back then but they sure brought back fond memories of the things I did, people I have met and places I have been in the 2000's. Even though life was hectic for me at that time, but I was energetic, purposeful and full of hopes and dreams. Now that I have more freedom and am half retired  it is only reasonable to assume that I should feel better. In certain ways it is more comfortable but at the same time, living without much purpose just makes me feel lethargic and redundant. That is why seeing these 2000's artists have awakened memories of me being active and given me energy to write something purposeful again.The presence of the Hong Kong pop duo 'Twins' in the show reminded me of the essay 'The Role of Arts and Music' I wrote in 2017 and I saw some similar elements in the contents of my essay and the show. So I thought it is time to add some new insights to the Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism (儒释道) on wisdom and energy management that were dealt with in the first essay. As the Buddhists adage goes, 佛法在世间不离世间觉 离世觅菩提恰如求兔角， that is why I always prefer to understand these teachings from the perspective of their practical daily applications. The Buddha chose to preach the 'Four Noble Truths' 2,500 years ago in India/Nepal because livelihood of people in general at that time was tough and therefore people can relate better to the 4 types of sufferings in the 'Four Noble Truth' and will find the teachings acceptable and usable (因缘说法). I choose to interpret the dharma in the context of arts and music is because they are very much part of our daily lives these days and will be easily assimilated by the modern line of logic.The Chinese philosophies and religions believe in the importance of the Yin Yang circulation (阴阳循环 刚柔相济 静动结合 生生不息 ) as the fundamental force that keeps everything in existence, and in Buddhist understanding, '阴' works like '分别' while '阳' works like '执着'. The smooth circulation of this fundamental Yin Yang energy is very much dependent on the harmonious flow or interaction between these two elements. This interchange of Yin Yang is very similar to the interchange of the nothingness and somethingness mirror images (刹那生灭) as mentioned in the previous essay 'Flower Adornment Sutra' (华严经) which created our space time continuum, it is like our universe is breathing. When the breathing is blocked, it means freeze frames as the bodies or entities can't generate inner energies to counter the implosion caused by the karmic gravity. They will usually take the form of chaos, instability, desperation, asphyxiation, agitation and the system will resort to extreme actions in order to continue breathing again.In order to keep the energy circulating to sustain our existence, we need to overcome the obstacles that are in its way, and we do it with morals and interpersonal skills such as generosity (仁) to break down barriers between the rich and poor; humility (耻) to close the gap between the victorious and defeated; courtesy(礼) and respect (恭敬) to harmonise differences; justice (义) to resolve wrong doings and discrepancies; and love (爱), piety (孝) and loyalty (忠) to reciprocate the kindness and favors from others.In addition to that, we also develop other alternative skills/circuits of Yin Yang circulation which act like ancillary power generators to create sensations and current flow when the main generators as above are blocked by karmic obstacles. These skills are in the form of harmony in music, coherence in literature, synchronicity and poise in dancing and sports, symmetry in design/beauty and logic to equate and balance numbers.As you can see moral qualities like generosity, humility, courtesy, respect, justice, love, loyalty and piety; and different forms of intelligence such as harmony, coherence, synchronicity, symmetry and logic, share the characteristic that is similar to the nature of equality. It is this nature of equality that enabled the Yin Yang energy to circulate and this energy is what the Chinese called, '福气' or good fortune. Please refer to the article 'The Impermanence of Reality' for a more complete understanding of equality.We take a look at how musical skills can be used to open a pathway for energy to flow, for example, the Jazz music made use of sounds or chords that give us the impression of something unresolved. Hybrid chords like these are filled with sharp or flat notes which are meant to blur the lines between two full notes and they have the effects of suspending our thoughts so that we are not fixated to any ideas or emotions. It is quite similar to the use of metaphors and allegories in poems in order to suspend our thoughts, for example when we equate the strength and hardiness of men to montains and the beauty of women to flowers, we blurr the lines between men and mountains, and between women to flowers.  Without it, men will be men and women will be women, and no new associations and ideas will be created. Once we have blurred the lines or fixation (执着)   then we will feel relaxed and free up the minds to let new ideas (分别) and energy to flow and set the Yin Yang cycle in motion.We can also experience this suspended jazzy feelings from looking at masquerades and appropriately so, there is a jazzy song called 'This Masquerade' by 'Carpenters'. When you see people wearing half masks, you get to see only half their faces, it created an intriguing feeling of '若有若无', or 'looks like it but not quite it'. This slight intrigue created an uncertainty in our cognition that is open to interpretation, and it is this slight unresolved tension that is causing sensations to flow. It is like the kind of pleasant and soothing sensation you feel when you rub your hand together gently. If you don't do anything, you can't feel the current and become '死水' but if you rub your hands together too vigorously, you will feel pain. So it shows that we need a good balance of Yin (detach) Yang (attach) in order to generate the energy of '福气', too much of any side will yield either lifeless desolation or painful destruction.Another example is how we get bored of our favourite music after listening to it over many times. If a song is genuinely good then we should be able to enjoy it no matter how often we listen to it right? The  problem is, the deep impression (着相) of the music that formed in our minds from the repetition will cause our minds to become jaded or fixated  like a writer's block. The deep impression prevented our mind to '收' (detach) and '放' (attach) in order to create the pleasant soothing current when we listen to our favourite music. We will have to stop listening to the song for a while so that our brains have time to erase the deep impression before we can enjoy it again. 阴阳循环，刹那生灭就是若有若无的现象.The great thing about this episode of 乘风破浪 is that it has many elements which I am familiar with, such as rock music which I listened to for a period of time from age 13 to 15. Even though the appearance of the modern rock music and its elements have evolved a lot from the versions I was exposed to in the late 70's and early 80's, I can still relate to them because the essence hasn't changed.Rock and roll music has its roots in jazz music as we can see how the 12 bars blues of Jazz got adapted to become the main hook in rock music. This suspended unresolved sound was used by rock musician to activate the logic of 'I don't care' or 'I am cool and indifferent' when they are faced with challenges and fear in lives. For example, we often watched in movies when militants were flying in helicopters to various destinations to carry out dangerous military operations, some cool and audacious rock and roll music will play in the background to help them temporarily suspend their fears. The 'devil may care' attitude of the rock music helped them to unresolve or deter the idea of fear from taking shape. This alternate state of mind tend to make them look numb and unperturbed by the dangers or turn them goofy and trivialize the dangers ahead with jokes. This is important for them to not let the stress and worry overwhelm them so that their minds can muster enough courage to carry on.Besides being oblivious and reckless, one other element of the rock and roll soul is dereliction. Rock artists often make themselves look tattered, dilapidated, drab, gruff but cool from their makeup, hairstyle, fashion and posture. I wasn't exactly sure why they adopted this type of appearance until I read the memoirs of famous novelist, lyricist and movie script writer, 三毛 (陈懋平). She was very popular in the 70's and 80's in the Chinese literal community because of her vivid, romantic and liberal writings. One of her peculiar habits was collecting discarded waste like paper, glass, wood, metals and rubber and piece them together as beautiful and functional artworks, very much like what Pablo Picasso were very fond of doing.This artistic expression reminded me of another Chinese artist, 陈漫 whose art philosophy centred on the idea of marrying opposite items and values into a coherent and communicative form. So it is the same philosophy behind 三毛's art of piecing together different pieces of waste to form a coherent end product. When they do that, they feel as if they had harmonized a certain conflict in their minds be it personal or philosophical, and once they achieved this harmony, they will feel great satisfaction because the harmony will enable the Yin Yang circulation to flow again. I believe the messages (the resolved conflicts) behind 三毛's garbage art and the derelict image of rockers are the same, they are saying that even discarded waste can be regarded as beautiful and popular, and that which are lowly can also have high regards. The rockers are people who felt that the conservative values are too stiff and exclusive, and they do not want to be constantly judged by standards which are perceived to be unfair. These aren't exactly dangerous military operations but they are defitely chocking their breath and they sought to break out from this constraint through expressing their subconscious grievances in the form of rock and roll music and culture as their own path in thinking and lifestyle.I shall end part 1 here and continue to examine soft music, movies and dancing in subsequent essays from the same angle of 儒释道 and hope that things will be coherent. Soft music and dancing requires a different mindset and it is better to extricate from the rock and jazz state of mind first to avoid confusion.

In the previous essay, we spoke in length on the state of partial harmonization that was espoused by Confucianism, you may now want to know more about the state of complete harmonization as mentioned by Lao Tzu or Taoism. Lao Tzu did not leave behind a lot of literature on this issue but we can borrow the knowledge of the ‘Flower Adornment Sutra’ (华严经) to give us a better understanding on this matter. ‘The Flower Adornment Sutra’ is said to be the jewel of the crown of Mahayana Buddhism and I will try my best to bring out the deep meaning of this sutra in guiding us to understand reality from the Buddhist perspective.As mentioned several times before, one will enter an alternate state of reality (like most of us now) when we developed the concept of the self ego. Even though we are in an alternate state, we are never detached from the original state of oneness (自性/佛性) in the realm of infinity (法界); for example, a gold necklace, gold ring or gold pendent are all made from gold no matter what shape they take, and they will have to play by the rules that determine the fundamental properties of gold. As such, this alternate state which we call reality is a mimic version or the ‘shadow’ of the actual thing. But from the Buddha’s point of view, our reality is a kind of phantasmagoric mixture of what is real (自性) and distorted. According to the sutra of ‘十二应缘’, this process of mimicking gave rise to our soul, reality and all its senses that we called ‘八识五十一心所’. In the previous essay, I have briefly mentioned about how we mimic our real nature (自性/佛性) with moral behavior, logic, music, arts, food, sex and etcetera, in order to help us gain a temporary equilibrium. The reason is because once we developed and hold on to the idea of a self ego, we are straddling two opposites - we wanted to hold on to the independent self ego on one hand but at the same time we can’t denounce our very fundamental state of oneness, like how a gold ring will behave according to the properties of gold. As a result, we needed something extra to help us straddle the opposites and this something extra gave rise to an alternate reality which we called ‘八识五十一心所’ which created the cycle of rebirth and everything contained in it.Let me explain the above with an analogy, let’s say for example the ‘自性/佛性’ is Jackie Chan and I wanted to make movies like Jackie Chan but I can’t be like him because I wanted to hold on to my independent self identity. So I will need a lot of extra elements in order to make a mimic version of his movies; maybe I will need to use many stuntmen and computer effects to help me do the fight scenes and generate excitement, hire heavy weight female celebrities to be my sidekicks so that I can look macho like Jackie, and perhaps also hire top comedians to help me achieve the comedy effects when I film my own ‘Rush Hour 4’. Jackie have all these elements on his own while I need a lot of additional elements like stuntmen and computer effects to mimic him, and you can think of all these additional elements and tools of mimicking as the ‘八识五十一心所’ and cycle of rebirth or the ‘big bang’.Before I go any further I must stress that these analogies are for illustration purposes only and I am not linked to any political interests, business associations or fan clubs in order to prevent readers from reading any alternate meanings in my essay. The dharma concept contained is very deep and readers will misunderstood or lose focus if they let their minds drift into another reality. I wrote all these essays for the various schools of Chinese philosophy because many masters find it hard to motivate followers these days and I though perhaps if I can find deeper meanings or deliver the messages in a different way then perhaps it could help. Cultivation or mind training is like burning the excess fat in our bodies, if we keep doing the same set of exercise, the fat tissue will become resistant to the effort of burning them. Similarly, I believe if the mind keeps listening to the same thing then it too can develop numbness to resist changes (improvement or decline) done to it.That is the analogy, I believe the actual thing is something like this according to my understanding of the sutra of ‘十二应缘’; the moment the self ego (the concept of ‘I’) emerge, one will lose access to all the characteristics of the Buddha hood such as being omnipresent, all knowing, all embracing (compassionate), omnipotent and eternal life and peace. However, since the nature of the Buddha hood is the most fundamental form of existence, the self ego can’t detach from it but neither can it revert back because it is holding on to its new found independent identity (like me and Jackie Chan in the analogy). As a result the self ego is caught in between or like what I said ‘纠结’ in the previous essay and start searching for a way out by developing a new neuron circuit to bypass a blockage (纠结) in the original circuit. I believe this ability to search for a bypass is the ability of ‘分别’ which is derived from the original ability of ‘妙观察智’, and when the self ego has found an alternate neuron circuit to give him a fake temporary equilibrium, like me using stuntmen to mimic Jackie Chan, it will feel relieve and it will get fixated (执着) with these extra elements because they can provide a temporary equilibrium. At this early stage, the process of ‘分别, 执着’ to search for an alternative equilibrium does not mean the self ego actually search the entire universe for the missing piece in its life, it actually made belief something from nothing to fill up its void and Buddhist call this making belief as ‘一切唯心造’ in the ‘Flower Adornment Sutra’; for example, we made belief time to mimic the sensation of eternity and space to mimic the state of omnipresence. I have already explained the principles behind the creation of time, and space is created in a similar way because space and time are just different manifestation of the same thing. So when the notion of self is created, the idea of ‘somethingness’ is created and the idea of ‘nothingness’ is also created at the same time to give meaning to ‘somethingness’. Then you think of ‘somethingness’ as a mirror to your left and ‘nothingness’ as a mirror to the right side of your brain, like the ‘镜灯’ in the Flower Adornment Sutra I mentioned in a previous essay. When both the mirror face each other, you will see images of an infinite row of mirror within mirror created when reflection bounce of each mirror; and when you combine the images in both the mirrors into one you will get the ‘depth of field’ illusion like how the combination of visions from both the right and left eyes give us the depth of field. This depth of field is the illusion of space, and together with time, is created by the interaction between ‘somethingness’ and ‘nothingness’.You may say, this interaction is all inside the brain of the self ego, what is the point of combining both the left and right vision to create an outward projection of space. The reason being, the self ego is feeling constricted when it is caught between its ‘纠结’, and it needs to dream up space and an animated body of itself moving around in the space in order to mimic the state of omnipresence. Have you ever seen animals kept in confine places like cages in zoos or in pet shops pacing themselves continuously from left to right? They do so because they are trying to cope with their unbearable stress of confinement by dreaming up an animated version of themselves walking freely in the park or forest, and this is what I meant by saying the self ego makes an outward projection of space and an animated version of itself roaming in the space.With this understanding of reality we can explain a supernatural phenomenon Buddha demonstrated to His disciples. It is recorded in one of the sutras that when one of His disciples asked Him where is His Buddha Land (佛刹土), the Buddha lowered his foot to touch the ground and made His Buddha Land appeared right in front of everyone, then the Buddha said, “It is here, right in front of you.” We have heard that usually the Buddha lands like ‘西方极乐世界’ and ‘华藏世界’ are situated billions of light years away, so how is it that a place situated billions of light years away can also be right in front of us? The reason is that this immense billions of light years of space is only from our perspective because they are created when we are still caught in the dream chamber of ‘镜灯’. We go back to the example of the pet shop, assuming the animated version of the animal roaming in the park somehow saw us in the shop, then it will see us as being separated by a distance of several kilometers, however, when it stopped dreaming, it will see us standing right in front of its glass cage. We too, are animated or holographic projections from a source in the ‘法界’ and we are separated from it by billions of light years of space we dream up when in actual fact it is only right in front of us. I believe this conundrum can be explained by the science of super symmetry which claims that all our 90 billion light years of space is actually contained in a medium (a mirror) which is no thicker than a piece of paper. That is why in reality, we are only separated from the Buddha land by the thickness of a piece of paper and why the Buddha said that the Buddha Land is actually right in fron of us. As long as we are enchanted by the endless reflected images of the mirrors of somethingness and nothingness, time will keep moving forward and space will keep on expanding.We now look at other major forms of alternate reality like creation and procreation, which in my opinion is to mimic the Buddha nature of everyone is everyone and eternal existence. Oneness is when you are already everyone and everything and therefore one is always peaceful and contented, and there is no need to seek out anything (food or material possession) or anyone. When the self ego is out of touch with oneness, it will cope with this state of anomaly by splitting itself into yin and yang in the alternate reality to create the sensation of having or being with someone. This sensation of having someone is to mimic the state of oneness where everyone is part of everyone. As such, Taoist are very particular with keeping a balance between the yin (nothingness) and yang (somethingness) because if not the frames or time and space will not move forward and become stagnant or unable to mimic the Buddha nature of oneness. That is why we keep procreating or giving birth to new babies to enable a part of us to live on eternally and having a big family tree or becoming members of a larger community in order to resemble oneness of everyone. Not only do human has the urge to procreate something, we saw in movies that even advance extraterrestrial and sentient beings in higher dimensions also have the same urge to tweak with DNA or make new inventions. It is also for this reason that the different branches of Buddhism created the various methods of cultivation, that are based on the foundation of ‘戒定慧’, such as moral behavior, meditation and dharma studies for the purpose of mimicking the oneness of the Buddha nature in order to lead us into the real thing.Another major enabler of alternate reality is of course our eight senses (八识) and I believe they are created to mimic the all knowing and omnipotent characteristics of the Buddha nature (自性/佛性). Our eyes, ears, taste, smell and tactile senses are all used as tools to channel information to our brain which are then processed by the sixth and seventh senses of ‘分别, 执着’ and finally stored in the eighth sense of ‘阿赖耶识’. When one is in the realm of Nirvana, one will experience a perpetual delightful and beautiful bliss, but loses it when one switched to the self ego mode. The self ego will then create all kinds of beautiful sensation to achieve an alternate parity to the delightful and beautiful Buddha nature. When the self ego is still very pure at the early stage, it can generate these beautiful mimic sensations at will; it can transubstantiate or dream up beautiful sceneries, music ,art, objects or maybe even life forms as it pleases. If it wishes to see something beautiful, beautiful things will appear, and if it wishes to listen to beautiful sounds, sweet music will be heard just like the lyrics, ‘看似一幅画听像一首歌’ in the song ‘小城故事’. I doubt the consciousness of the self ego would want to see ugly or vulgar things at the early stage when it is still very pure and free from too many obstacles (障碍) or distortions.Students of the sutra ‘十二应缘’ should be clear by now how and why new sensation, cognitive processes and emotions like the ‘五十一心所’ are created over time - they are all created as tools to enable the self ego to mimic the ‘自性/佛性’. For example, the emotion of joy (喜/乐) one gets from say appreciating the beautiful scenery is meant to mimic certain positive virtues of ‘自性/佛性’, however, these emotions are dualistic by nature and that means anything nice will have an ugly side to it. When the ugly side of watching beautiful scenery sets in, blockage will be formed and it probably takes the form of boredom and one will start to develop the sense of smell to smell the aroma of flowers, and then the sense of hearing is created to hear the chirping of the birds and the whole process will continue to grow into more intense and obsessive sensations. Then, greed (贪) is created to hold on to this temporary parity and once we lost it, hate (嗔) might set in to motivate one to recover the lost, or sorrow (悲) to lead one to seek an alternative. We have to be careful not to think that since good things have bad sides then bad things like anger or hate will have good sides to them. We must know that emotions like hate or anger are used to perhaps belittle others and that means one uses them to make gains, and when the gain is over the pain will set in.Another way to explain the ability to create by transubstantiation in more scientific terms is perhaps through the ‘double slit experiment’. The experiment shows us that when we are not measuring or observing material, they exist in the form of waves, but once we observe them they will turn into particles. It means that our consciousness can determine what we see or get, and that is why when we are very pure like mentioned above, our consciousness is powerful enough to will things into existence. I guess if we can somehow get an Angel or heavenly sentient beings to participate in the ‘double slit experiment’, maybe the nature of the particles they observe is different from those observed by humans. That is why, if I am correct on this, students of Mahayana Buddhism are often reminded that ‘emptiness’ (空性) is actually our ‘自性/佛性’ which has the ability to generate our reality and all its contents. As a result, when we get in touch with ‘emptiness’ through ‘都摄六根’, the focus is to dissolve our inner ‘八识五十一心所’ instead of eliminating external elements. The external reality is created when we are deluded and misuse our ‘自性/佛性’ to make toys and shadows to help us get a temporary equilibrium, misusing it a little will give us heaven and misusing it a lot will give us hell. So, eliminating the external does not cure the internal, doing so may even eliminate us because the external reality is part of our own ‘自性/佛性’.Basing on my understanding so far, I conclude that if we wanted to practice moral and restraint through controlling the ‘五十一心所’, we must also dissolve ‘分别’, ‘执着’ and the ‘阿赖耶识’ to eradicate the self ego and move closer to our natural state of oneness. If not we will be stuck in a very conflicted situation and become either very dry or extreme because we can’t utilize its ability to mimic oneness.P.S., Blockages or stagnation do not just come from conflicts, they can also come from deep impression of trauma and euphoria which prevent our thoughts from moving forward or they can originate from karma which is a discrepancy in the balance of energies.

One of the main principles of Buddhism is that everything in our reality is not permanent and that everything goes through a process of change described as 成，住，坏，空. In this essay, I will dwell deeper into the nature of the forces of change and how they have influenced our society. Basically, when we don’t have a state of everything is everything like in Nirvana (一真法界), then change or impermanence is inevitable. In a state where everything is everything, there is no notion of I vs You, big vs small, good vs bad and so on; A can be B or C and B can be A or C simultaneously. It is like all the traffic in the junction can cross at the same time and not collide into one another, thus we call it the ‘无障碍世界’ or the realm with no obstacles. The problem begins when the notion of ‘I’ or the self ego is developed by accident (无始无明) and then we no longer have everything is everything; the perspective of what is good or bad, beautiful or ugly, big or small, right or wrong slowly come into existence according to my understanding of the ‘十二应缘’ and the ‘唯识’ sutra. All these new values (right vs wrong) are what we call ‘knowledge’ and our infinite wisdom (般若智慧) then became intelligence (世智辨聪). As a result, intelligence enabled us to select what is right and suitable but eliminate what is wrong or inappropriate. According to the law of Karma, change occurs when we enjoy what is good now, we will have to deal with what is bad later because the good and the bad gives meaning to one another and are thus inseparable. It is the same like the Yin period will be followed by the Yang period, and Marxism described it as how anti-thesis will challenge the thesis to form a new synthesis. I observed this Marxist philosophy of change when I watched those Taiwanese ‘爱情文艺’ movies made in the 70’s where I get to see how the society changed over the years and what made them change. Take for example, I believe textile was a big industry in Taiwan in the 60’s or 70’s and the government would surely had encouraged more people to join the trade to create jobs and taxes. However, not every participant will be successful in this line due to the process of competition or selection and elimination (分别执着), and those who were eliminated will be anxious or fearful and if no new growth areas are crested, anxiety may turn to destructive emotions like anger, hatred and jealousy. As a result, those who were eliminated in the textiles industry can try their luck in the complementary fashion and retail lines, and that’s why they also used movies and pop culture to set the trend in fashion and even super market business like in the movie ‘海! 亲爱的’, we may take supermarket for granted these days but back then it was a novel retail experience. Wouldn’t you hope to see Jackie Chan playing the male lead role in this movie? I have always hoped to see Jackie and Joan Lin starring in these old romantic movies.At the same time, people will also need to instill more liberal and open minded values in the society so that people can accept different types of lifestyles and preferences. That’s why we often see in these movies how young people went against the wishes of their parents and wanting to do something new and different; we see woman becoming independent and having a say in society; and we see a fair bit of consumption and hedonism in scenes of people patronizing cafes, bars and restaurants as if they were setting a trend in dining out to boost private consumption. I believe all these are meant to empower young people to consume more to improve their self image and venture into new trades so that businesses can do well and less people will be left behind in this world of selection and elimination. Think about all the products and services in Taiwan’s economy today, and then imagine the social values in Taiwan today are the same as those conservative (封建) ones in the 60’s and 50’s, chances are the two can’t co-exist; and if the economic profile of Taiwan today is the same as those in the 60’s, it will not be sufficient to cater to everyone. As such, liberal values are needed in order to accommodate the problems caused by the unceasing process of selection and elimination in the society.I am writing this to offer an alternative view on what forces caused the society to change over the years so that it can enrich the discussion between the purists and the liberals in Chinese philosophy. I am not stating whether these changes are appropriate or not, maybe only the Buddha can have the wisdom to answer that. To continue, if we are not flexible enough to provide more industries and trades then people are inclined to use force to get their resources as we have seen from incidences of major upheavals in ancient China like the tragedy of Baima in Tang Dynasty, the Donglin Academy massacre and the Taiping Rebellion, just to name a few, were partially caused by the competition among Confucius scholars themselves. If the society at that time has some kind of mass communication industry then perhaps rebel scholars like Hong Xiuquan can find lucrative jobs in the industry and skipped the Taiping Rebellion he started.That is why a modern Confucian society like Taiwan has to be more liberal to avert similar types of conflict from happening, for example, the renowned novelist 琼瑶 was said to have faced discrimination in the Taiwanese literati fellowship and as a result her work was not recognized by the fraternity. However, the good thing was that the society at that time can accept more liberal types of literature like romantic novels and allowed ‘rejected scholars’ like琼瑶 to have a very fulfilling career as a novelists, and went on to create those popular 爱情文艺 movies that promoted Taiwan’s economy and brands. What if there was no outlet for her talent at that time? It is hard to say, she is also known to be a very tough character and she could have caused some disruption. Or we take Alibaba’s Jack Ma for another example, I was very surprised someone as intelligent and dynamic as Jack Ma was rejected by twenty employers in the past, maybe there was a lot of inefficiency or bias in the human resource practices in China at that time. But thanks to the reform, liberty and technological innovation in China, Jack Ma was able to find his own success through the internet and side-stepped the barrier created by inefficient human resource practices. Maybe KFC (China) regrets not hiring him otherwise he would not have created the food delivery service which is competing with KFC now.So, as we can see, the moment we develop ‘分别执着’, change becomes inevitable due to the process of selection and elimination, and even if the dominant thesis can suppress all the challenging anti-thesis, it will soon get bored and stressed up by the status quo and volunteer to seek out new things, and the reason is that once the cycle of pleasure is over the cycle of pain will set in to form blockages to the mind and body and then one will seek out more intense form of pleasures to arrive at a new temporary equilibrium.With the above understanding of the Chinese philosophy, we can now address the deep meaning behind the famous exchanges between Lao Tzu and Confucius in their brief encounter several thousand years ago. Lao Tzu’s intention was to transcend to the realm of infinity and become as one with all things in the universe (天地与我同根，万物与我同体), this is the way of the ‘Tao’ (Buddhist call it ‘佛性’) and when one is in line with this principle, all things will grow and prosper, anything that deviates to much from this principle will be against nature and deemed as abnormal. I believe Confucianism agrees with the basic concept of the Buddha and Lao Tzu, but due to the inherent difficulties in the society at that time, he felt that he needed to work out something which is very similar in principle to the ‘Tao’ or ‘佛性’ that are more practical and can ensure a longer lasting stability (not infinitely). Unlike in the realm of infinity, if all the cars in our junctions were to cross all at the same time, we will have a massive pileup and for that reason, the Confucianism that is used to spearhead civilization is like a smart traffic light system that directs the traffic so that they won’t crash into one another while minimizing the traffic congestion (conflict and friction) in the city streets. In my opinion, there are three elements in Confucianism which sought to mimic the nature of everything is everything in our ‘佛性’ as closely as possible. ‘佛性’ is perfect equality, and equality means justice because justice is used to restore equality, such as good is right and bad is wrong, or good means reward and bad means punishment. So a system with a strong and fair legislative, judicial and enforcement departments is considered as in congruence with nature or ‘佛性’.The second element is something like a system of meritocracy. As we now know intelligence like logic (math), harmony (music), justice (legal), proportion (arts/design), synchronicity (sports/dance) coherence (writing) and etcetera are all functions to balance and equate things, and this intelligence is the mimic version of the ‘般若智慧’. Since our most fundamental state is perfect equality (I = You), we automatically and constantly try to get back to this original state of equilibrium because that’s who we are, but because of the blockage caused by our bad karma, we can only seek a temporary relief or an alternate equilibrium with the functions of the above intelligence. For example, like mentioned in the previous essay, we use scientific logic to invent fertilizers, irrigation and earth work machines to help us overcome the deficiencies in the soil but they don’t transform the nature of the soil permanently, and neither will eating stop us from getting hungry again. When we combine justice and meritocracy, we can understand why Confucius says the society will be peaceful and prosperous if everyone plays his or her role well in the society. It means that a father should behave like a father and a teacher should behave like a teacher, similarly if one is a musician then he should play music, if one is an engineer then he will be most productive working as an engineer and if one is a writer then he will find the most peace and satisfaction from writing. When we have all round surpluses, people in the society are more contented and less inclined to do destructive things even though the relief is only temporary.Having the above two elements are not sufficient because there is another important one and that is moral conduct. The moral system espoused by Confucianism is very similar to those mentioned by Buddhism, Taoism and other major religions known to us, they all call for us to be inclusive to everyone, conduct charitable activities and community services because this is a close mimic to being everyone is everyone in the state of infinity. We now go back to the example of the character Sebastian in the movie ‘Lala Land’, he is always in some sort of conflict or frustration in the movie and it is due to some immoral behavior that made it difficult for him to get along with people. However, he was able to experience harmony through music and jazz as he explained how the fluent coordination and improvisation among the various musicians in the band can give him very enlightening moments. These moments of harmony came when they are able to change their styles or scales each time someone improvised something new. These moments of adjustments and harmonization is not too different from why mathematicians enjoy solving equations like maybe 1 + X = 8/2; or maybe if you are harmonizing the very difficult jazz piece of ‘Coltrane Changes’, then the harmonization is similar to doing harder equations like maybe, 2(X + 3) + 8 = 3(X - 1) + 15. What the musician and mathematician are doing is similar to how a person with good moral conduct enjoys being inclusive and getting along with others, and we all enjoy doing these things because we always wanted to get back to the state of oneness where everyone is everyone. So the peace and joy Sebastian experience while playing music is a mimic version of oneness or ‘佛性’.You may ask what if we just keep on applying fertilizers to correct the deficiency in the soil or keep on playing music and inventing scientific equipment to provide us with temporary relief? The problem with that is the fertilizers and all of our endowments like music, science or beauty are like the limited wealth or ‘Qi’ in our souls, if we keep on using them without replenishing, we will exhaust everything one day. Besides, all mimic versions of ‘佛性’ are pleasures that come with pain later and that is why I mentioned in my previous essay that the best way for lay person to break out from this dilemma is to do our work with the right moral attitude and to practice spiritual cultivation. Building a good civilization is like constructing a stable pyramid or a decision tree which can yield the right results, and that depends a lot on the nature of the decision nodes on top of the decision tree. The top decision node is like the CEO of a company and if you use the above philosophical criteria to select the CEO then the person must be one who has the best moral conduct and the best technical skills. The reason is that in this realm of selection and elimination, those who didn’t get the coveted posts will most probably be frustrated with the outcome and it takes moral and technical skills to manage the friction caused by the competition. Let’s say X and Y were competing for the position of the CEO and Y got the job because of the criteria. Since Y has the best technical skills he or she is more likely to produce surpluses every year; and since he also has good morals and is an inclusive person, he will treat X in a professional and cordial way, and is willing to distribute the surpluses to X for his department’s projects, and the hard feelings between X and Y will be minimized. If X is also willing to do the same to his underlings then the friction in this whole chain of competition will be minimized, disruption will be reduced, morale will be high, work processes will be synchronized and the company will prosper.P.S. There are many other 70’s romantic movies and theme songs which I like such as ‘秋歌’, ‘我是一片云’, the award winning ‘小城故事’, just to name a few. Even though they are very mild movies, if you watch too much you will feel conflicted (纠结) after awhile. This conflict can come in many different forms, for example, my mother becomes very ‘极人忧天’ after watching too much tragic dramas on tv, each time I travel to another town for a few days she will think of ten different ways I can get into trouble while I am away and I believe she was influenced by the negative emotions contained in these drama. Others became very ‘娇情’ and ‘多愁善感’, I believe that means they will tend to interpret things in a very difficult way because that is how they have come to like it, sort of like the more difficult it is the more romantic it feels. These conflicts act as blockages to our neuron pathways and after awhile our brains will automatically develop other neuron pathway to by-pass the blockages and I believe that is the reason why audiences’ tastes changed from Taiwanese romantic stories to those Hong Kong romantic comedies which I mentioned in a previous article (How Thoughts and Emotions Changes). Of course other factors include a progressively more liberal society and the need to create more genres of films to cater to different actors. If you start an acting academy, you can’t expect all actors to be handsome like 周潤發，谭咏麟，秦汉, 秦祥林 and 吴亦凡 who are suitable lead characters in romantic movies. You will also have action stars like Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen and Jet Li, and you will also have others who can be comedians and villains; thus you will need to make movies about Kungfu, comedy, triad and horror in order to provide opportunities to everyone. So once again we see how change, be it cognitive or physical, is caused by competition which then turns into impasse or blockage, and out of that comes new variations.

In the second part of the essay, we try to understand the deeper meaning of ‘般若智慧’ and ‘心到力到’ so that the students can enhance their confidence in the teaching. I must point out that the following is not some dharma dictum, they are only my interpretation of the dharma based on my experience and understanding. To begin, we need to briefly describe the very nature of our reality or the third dimension from the perspective of karma. Assuming you are in heaven (欲界天) and is having a good time (享福) and as mentioned before pleasures will lead to greed or the fear of losing something. Then someone in heaven ask you to help out with some work but due to the subconscious fear of losing, you will develop the idea you may lose some energy if you help this person, and after awhile, you will ask this person “what is there in it for me if I help you?” The deep sense of disparity (vector v) between what you have now and what you have to give up if you help created ripples and these ripples later formed what we call the karmic energy fields or obstacles that shaped the dimensions.As the karmic obstacles accumulated through the years, it will become strong enough to block certain dimensions. Let’s say in the beginning you have access to left, right, up, down, back and front; but as the vector v of gain vs lost (分别) is created, a set of perspective or energy field is created and blocked your access to left and right (remember why the puppy can’t yield to its left or right to navigate the obstacles ahead). As a result, you are left with up, down, front and back, and this is roughly how you ‘fell’ from the higher dimension (heaven) to our third dimension. The effects of these karmic energy fields will link you to be reborn in a three dimensional space like earth where everything is shaped by the energy fields of those who have committed very similar types of sins. So while you are on Earth, you got hungry and asked the soil to grow you some fruits, the soil will turn around and asked ‘what is there in it for me if I help you?’ That means the soil will need tillage, irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides, labour and a few years in time in order to produce food. While you were in heaven, if you need some food, all that you need to do is to will for it through transubstantiation (心到力到/心想事成), because when the heart is very clear (less ripples) it can reflect everything clearly and get what it wished for. However, because of the greed (and many other sins) induced discrepancies, the heart created many ripples to block its clarity and resulted in the karmic obstacles of needing tillage, irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides, labour and time in order to produce some food. This is the nature of our reality on earth, everything is made up of the karmic energy fields of perspectives, discrepancies and deficiencies or simply put, problems (烦恼/分别执着). From the day we were born we will need food, medicines, shelter; when we grow up we will need knowledge, skills, strength to resolve problems and when we move around, we need to overcome the disparity of distance and time.Of course, the reason why you fell from Heaven is not just greed alone, it is a very complicated mixture of other karmic entanglement. It is just like the college classmate I mentioned in the previous essay, when she rejected options A,B,C,D and E, her sinful past caused her mind to erect blockages to her left, right, front, back, up and down. But luckily for her, some of these obstacles were only imaginary and she managed to choose an option at the end and freed herself of her financial difficulty. If she continued with her sinful behaviors then technically she will be reborn in one of those third world countries which seem to be mired in obstacles perpetually. We have seen how poverty eradication programs in these countries were obstructed when despotic and corrupt governments embezzled the financial aids, natural calamities like droughts and floods destroyed food crops, infrastructure bottlenecks choked the delivery of resources and disease and parasites killed their livestock. These are not merely imaginary problems like those experienced by my college classmate, these are real problems that never seem to go away; and if the level of sins goes one step deeper, we will be looking at one of those dark and horrific realms where nothing seems to escape.Thus far, I am explaining the nature of our reality and how they are formed and the main focus of this essay is to show how we can use ‘般若智慧’ to help us navigate the many obstacles we face in our reality. As mentioned before, if you are the CEO of a company, you will be preoccupied most of the time with resolving different sets of discrepancies/unmet needs represented by the interests of the customers, the employees, the board of directors, the shareholders and the authorities. We now try to understand the meaning of discrepancies/perspectives in a slightly different way; if you are a Star Wars fan you will probably have watched ‘Rogue One’ and there was a scene in the movie where Chirrut used his force to shoot down an empire fighter jet which then slammed into a menacing empire cannon on planet Eadu. If Chirrut were the CEO, what set of discrepancies/perspectives he had to ‘calculate’ in order to achieve the above feat (shooting the jet at the right time so that it will slam into the cannon)? He will probably need to compute the distance between the jet and the cannon; the speed at which it is travelling; the wind speed and direction that will affect the trajectory of the fall; the spot on the jet where he has to hit in order for resultant explosion to push the jet towards the direction of the canon; the tonsil strength of the steel; the voltage of the blast from his gun and so on. The right shot that can bring the desired result is the same as the equilibrium that the CEO is seeking in order to satisfy all the different groups of people.If we use our binary thinking (意识心/世智辨聪) then we will need a super smart device which can compute this point of equilibrium very quickly, but Chirrut used what they call ‘the force’ (instinct) which is the ability to ‘观照’ as derived from ’般若智慧’ that I have loosely translated as quantum computing in my previous essay. This is roughly how it works, let’s compare the set of perspectives like wind speed, distance, voltage and etc. as salt, sugar and msg (monosodium glutamate); then you pour all three substance into a container one layer at a time and ask someone to find out the content in the mixture. The only way he can find out what is in the mixture is to sample the whole content and this is analogous to Chirrut using a super smart device to compute the big data to arrive at the right equilibrium point (where and when to shoot). On the other hand, if you dissolve all the three ingredients with water, the tester will be able to find out the nature of the mixture with just one taste of a small sample, and this is analogous to how Chirrut used his instinct or ’ 观照’ to spot the same equilibrium point without computing the big data. The reason is that, when you dissolve all the ingredients together, you are turning them from a state of separation to a state of oneness where ‘everything is everything’ (一即是多多即是一) as described in ‘华严经’ (The Avatamsaka Sutra); which I believe is the same as ‘破四相’ in the ‘Diamond Sutra’ (The Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita), or the ‘五蕴皆空’ described in ‘般若心经’ (The Heart Sutra). These sutras tried to explain our reality is a kind of hologram (梦幻泡影) and in a hologram, every single pixel of the hologram contains enough information to recreate the entire hologram and that is why ‘一即是多多即是一’. Because every bit of our reality contains information of the entire universe, Chirrut can practically compute the equilibrium from the air he breathes.The point of equilibrium can be derived from the dissolved state of oneness because ‘一即是多多即是一’ represents a form of equality, fairness or justice. In other words, if the CEO is able to apportion resources and responsibility to all the different parties according to their merits, skills, capital contribution, mistakes, demerits and authority, then this appropriate apportionment will make everyone feel satisfied and when equality is established, things will be stable and in working order. However, ‘一即是多多即是一’ is a very advance state of consciousness and that is why Confucius taught us an entry level version that espouses everyone plays their roles well accordingly in the society and treat each other with the recommended inclusive moral values; doing so will create an equilibrium that brings peace, prosperity and spiritual development.One must take note that in practice, ‘一即是多多即是一’ or eradicating ‘分别执着’, as we often hear Buddhists say, does not mean giving everyone the same exact thing. It is like how a judge needs to pass a fair judgment so that both the victim and the guilty get their fair treatment and arrive at a fair settlement (the equilibrium). Usually the victim will be compensated and the guilty will get some form of punishment. So, to eradicate ‘分别执着’ (dissolving discrepancies) does not mean giving the same treatment to everyone or ‘anything goes’, it is to see things as they are so that the right actions can be taken to restore equilibrium. Imagine what will happen if you reward both the victim and the guilty? People will be tempted to do more guilty things. On the other hand, punishing the guilty is not an act of discrimination or cruelty, it is done with the hope that it will remedy the deficiencies in the guilty’s characters so that everyone is made more equal. So, the state of ‘一即是多多即是一’ could mean equality and it could also mean coherence like a coherent essay where every points and facts supports or in agreement (equals to) with each other. It is also like a coherent brain where every synapses and brain functions support each other to enable one to carry out an action; and it is comparable to an un-fragmented business work process where all the department heads and their underlings know what each other is doing and are all acting in harmony to achieve common goals. All of our skills like computing, acting, dancing, playing music, writing, drawing, designing, playing sports, practicing law and etc. requires the ability to find the equilibrium through logic or equating facts, synchronicity of the body, visualizing proportion, coherence in thinking and writing, harmonizing of sounds and justifying rewards and punishments. If you can perform these tasks well, then your brain is said to be coherent and able to see things as they are to a certain extend. They all requires the ability to make different things to work together (a form of everything is everything) like for example, artistic ensembles like orchestra, pop bands, dance groups and acting will be successful if the members can work together to complement one another with each members’ unique function. Or we can also say that learning to do things together can help us all be better persons; for example, the main character, Sebastian in the movie ‘La La Land’ looks like a difficult person who can’t get along very well with just about anyone. However, when he was playing jazz, he can get along and experience a magical congruence with all his band members, it is like music is the tool to help his brain become more coherent and it gave him his moments of peace and contentment. This phenomenon of one for all and all for one is also a form that is close to ‘一即是多多即是一’.I believe it is for this reason that civilization has created many different industries and trades for different people to develop their minds and bodies. If they can do what is appropriate for them with the right attitude, they can resolve the karma of material and spiritual deficiencies. For example, when we learn to work as a team, we learn to resolve our pride and jealousy; when we negotiate and serve others’ needs, we learn to deal with our greed and anger; patience and perseverance deal with compulsion and so on. If you are able to do these works with honesty and sincerity, it will overcome ignorance because if you say or do things as they are, you will see things as they are. Dishonesty and denial causes a conflict between what is real and false and can cause blockage to our thinking and overall intelligence after awhile. When I hear President Xi Jinping said in his 2018 new year speech that the Chinese should “cut paths through mountains and build bridges across rivers”, it struck me that spiritual cultivation is not limited to practicing quietly in secluded places or resigning to our karmic endowments and restraints. During Buddha’s time, he advised one of his disciples who has severe mental impediment to do additional cultivation in the form of sweeping floor because the stress he experienced and the convenience he provided from the extracurricular activity can be used to resolve the injustice he did in the past. Similarly, I believe if we can do work with the right attitude like what I wrote above, spiritual and material development can complement each other to actively resolve our karma and solve the dilemma of materialism vs idealism.P.S. If you are in a situation where you can let go of worldly things and focus only on cultivation, then the path is a lot easier for you because after all, these material and scientific knowledge is only meant for helping us get by in this realm of much obstacles and perspectives '分别'. For example, once you are in a higher realm, you do not need science to build you a plane to resolve the perspective of distance because you can do it by flying with wings; if you go higher, you can resolve distance by opening worm holes to let you go wherever you wanted and if you are in the ultimate state of infinity (Buddhahood), you would have completely resolved the perspective of distance because you have become omnipresent. So now we understand why the Jedi in 'Star Wars' can do telekenisis, it is because they have partially resolved the perspectives of distance (moving objects) and gravity (weight of objects). That is why it is good for people to experience spiritual cultivation in its various forms such as, ‘八关斋戒’ in the Zen School; ‘打佛七’ in the Pureland school and ‘布萨’ in the Tibetan School. I wrote in the past that my mind felt very light and liberated after attending a three days ‘八关斋戒’, I now know that it is because my mind has become more coherent after the practice. A better description of light and liberated is ‘行云流水’ and I will talk more on this in the future.

In the previous essay, we talked about the Taoist concept of ‘收放自如’ and how it can be used to improve our general well being. In this essay we will look at a concept called ‘心到力到’ which I discovered from the literature of the Shaolin Temple and from my own experience of participating in doing community service at the Buddhist Tzu-Chi (慈济) Foundation. Using my knowledge from ‘金刚经’ and ‘唯识’ to interpret these experiences, I realized that our energy will flow to where our hearts (心) wants it to go and our hearts’ functions are very much controlled by the three factors of karma, trauma and euphoria. Take for example, while you were going through some work documents and your boss asked you to retrieve a certain files from the general cabinet for him. If you are the sinful type, you will probably do it grudgingly, your train of thoughts (心) will probably stutters like this when you carry out the task - ‘I w-a-a-a-alk to the cabinets and t-a-a-a-ake the files’ instead of a smooth and effortless one like ‘I walk to the cabinets and take the files’. So the stuttering thoughts are caused by them being held back by sinful emotions like, if you are greedy you will ask ‘what is there in it for me’ or if you are the prideful ones you will probably ask ‘why ask me and not him to do it’?The whole thing happens like a reflex and I believe this is the result of sinful karma accumulated over our many previous lives, they block our thoughts and energy and causes friction (纠结), it is like the heart wants this but the mind says otherwise. You can think of it as what happen during a body massage, when the masseur try to twist and stretch your body, you will instinctively hold back fearing that the masseur might tear your muscles and tendons. This holding back will cause great tension/damage to your muscles and extra effort from the masseur like having one foot on the car’s accelerator and the other on the brakes.That is the rationale behind why the Confucius system of governance choose morally upright candidates (through the exam) to fill the places in the government, because people who are morally sound tend to experience less friction (纠结) overall and thus more able to do a lot of work and require smaller amount of reward and pleasures, meaning, more able to achieve ‘心到力到’.When I was in Hong Kong two years ago, I visited the Victoria Harbour at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Kowloon. The harbor is facing the skyline of Central in Hong Kong and that view was really breathtaking. I pondered how an ordinary man and a rich man would look at this magnificent view; I believe a positive ordinary man will look at Central as a place of opportunities while a negative ordinary man will look at it as an obstacle. On the other hand a positive rich man will be satisfied to see that he has created for many people opportunities for advancement while a negative rich man will see Central as his oyster.The positive algorithmA positive ordinary man will see Central as a place where he can develop his knowledge, characters and acquire wealth. This positive attitude is the result of ‘心到力到’ where positive values cultivated from young or from previous lives makes them always see things in appositive way. My experience with Buddhist Tzu-Chi (慈济) Foundation taught me to serve others with compassion and this attitude will later enable one to perceive problems at work as a need to ease the customers’ problems and a chance to improve one’s skills instead of seeing problems as enemies and the customers as nuisance and sources of frustration. Cynical people may read this and say ‘yeah right’, but I can assure you if you identify your own bad karma and repent them, you will see the world in a different way because when you resolve your bad karma, you are also reducing what Buddhist call ‘分别执着’ and that will facilitate ‘心到力到’.Another example that could illustrate how sinful emotions obstruct ‘心到力到’ is the experience of the ‘sent down youth’ in China during the Cultural Revolution. The negative youth will see this experience as a nightmare (阴影) or punishment because their pride and greed had given them a deep sense of loss when they were sent away to do hard labour and live in great discomfort. However, there were also those virtuous youth who see this experience positively and took the opportunity to reflect on their own shortcomings and find out the problems plaguing the country and work tirelessly to eradicate these problems and ease the people’s burden. Instead of nightmares, these positive youth were able to draw inspiration and strength from their experience, and many of them later become captain of industries and political leaders like President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang.Good values work in the same way in helping bosses build large businesses, for example if Jack Ma’s objective is to scrounge the customers for profits then chances are he will just end up owning the largest shopping mall in Hangzhou, but because his aim is to enable the customers (the small and medium enterprises), he won himself the largest shopping mall in China, if not in Asia. When you serve a need, you remove the barriers between you and others and thus expanding your vault to contain something bigger. If Jack Ma only thinks of ‘what is there in it for me’, a barrier or a position of conflict (对立) is created and thus making his space or vault smaller. Similarly, Alibaba is also a company which is committed to developing the overall well being of its employees instead of one which squeezes everything from them, and it is this effective and wholesome human resource management that produces a good work force in many successful companies. When you are in congruence with others, you will remove obstacles (障碍) and open more space in your mind to release the free flowing of energy and ideas. We will talk more about this in part 2 of this essay.The negative algorithmWhat I have mentioned so far is an illustration of how the positive search algorithm, that comes with having good moral behavior, can link a person to the good things and in life. We now switch our attention to people who see Central as an obstacle and they are inclined to regard all wealthy people who own or created them as unholy or unsavory people. I believe they may have formed this opinion based on factors which they are not consciously aware of and these factors can be very disadvantageous to every aspect of their lives. Some of them may hold this view purely out of jealousy because even though they find these assets unholy, they themselves would very much love to own them for the wealth they can generate and the pride that comes with the ownership. It is the discrepancy of wanting something and not getting it that created jealousy, and like mentioned above, it is the inherent sins of greed and pride which obstructed their minds and body to work hard for what they want. The resultant jealousy makes them feel miserable and causes them to rationalize or seek a fake parity/solace by calling the wealthy evil who thwarted their chances for upward social mobility and repressing the interests of good people. Even though some of the wealthy are unsavory people but this act of rationalization is a kind of unhealthy chest-thumping or make-believe greatness, and If not careful, can turn into rebellious chauvinistic sentiments (好勇斗狠). You can imagine the sensation of seeing the skyline of Central as listening to the song ‘California Girls’ by the Beach Boys and the positive people will react to it with the mood found in the song ‘Surfing USA’ and made them want to do something like go on a date, socialize to have some fun, work hard to spend some money to make themselves feel good and look good. On the other hand, the negative people will react to the same song with the sentiments of ‘American Woman’ by Guess Who. The tune ‘Surfing USA’ was mainly composed of happy chords like the major and suspended chords while heavy rock like ‘American Woman’ are made up of minor and sometimes mixed with diminished chords. We know that minor chords are melancholic by nature and this sentiment in the came about when people can’t get the good lives suggested to them in those happy songs, and this causes the disappointment as heard in the minor chords. But disappointment is a lousy feeling and they try to overcome it with power and dominance which was represented by the loudness, fast tempo and angry cut-you-down lyrics of hard rock music. Some even used creepy diminished chords in their songs to suggest revenge or trickery to get resolution. So this use of dominance and revenge in chords is like the make believe act which can restore a fake parity to those who feel disappointed in their lives. I am not against negative people because some of them are facing external (distortion and inefficiency in the society) and internal (inherent sins) factors which are beyond their control. I hope I can see beyond the sensational surface and alert them not to be deceived by the wrong emotions because they will link people to some dark places which prevented them from finding success and happiness in lives. To give you an illustration on what I mean by linking a person to dark places, I will talk about a personal friend of mine whom I have known since college. She was some sort of beauty queen in college and she did not hesitate to capitalize on her beauty to manipulate people’s feelings in order to get things her way. I do not know exactly what sort of emotions or motivators are involved when you do that but I guess greed, pride, jealousy and maybe some hate are mixed together to project various types of mischievous and chauvinistic behaviors (任性). All these motivators came back to haunt her years later when she got into some financial problems. Being her friend, I tried to help her sort out her financial trouble and in the process, I witness how the negative search algorithm (bad karma) work. Here is roughly how the discussion transpired; I suggested she take plan A, but she declined because it will not yield her a big enough profit (greed); I suggested she take plan B, but she rejected because she suspected B wanted to take advantage of her (guilt, lust or suspicion?); I suggested she take plan C, but she declined because she suspected C wanted to use this as an opportunity to seek revenge (hate or guilt from having caused harm to others); I suggested she take plan D, but she declined because it will indirectly benefit someone she disliked (hate and jealousy); I suggested she take plan E, but she declined because she suspected E will mock at her financial problems and misery (pride). Finally when I tried to correct her thinking and readjust her her focus, she regarded that as a criticism instead of good advice (pride and anger).As you can see, the sinful motivators which gave her the euphoria and glory in her earlier years are quietly programming her mind to perceive things in a way that will lead her to imagine catastrophe, antagonism and mistrust; it was almost like a traumatic mental implosion where she has to endure self-punishment and miss out on good opportunities in all aspects of her life. This mental condition resembles those of the American counter-culture people in the sixties who are anti just about everything for no apparent reason (even the deodorant advertisement on TV is offensive to them), and I suspect it was the after effects of their excessive indulgence in sinful things like sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Lastly, we look at how sinful elements in our behavior can harm our businesses in different ways. If you have been reading my essays you will probably know that I was a student of the Japanese economic model in the 80’s and 90’s. There were some Japanese companies who like to psyche themselves with slogans and sentiments which are based on ideas like beating the competition or uphold the honor of the companies’ tradition, and these notions of greatness, invincibility (pride) and dominance (greed) are used to generate the energy to push the employees forward.I suspect when people has a deeply ingrained belief in virtual greatness, they will need to do something that can mimic this greatness in order to maintain the belief, and that was why many large Japanese corporations at that time had strong urges to acquire high profile, expensive and loss-making assets to fulfill this subconscious urge. Even very successful companies and smart Japanese entrepreneurs can’t resist this primal urge to splurge on expensive trophy assets. Those who can’t have trophy assets will experience a mutation in their pent-up emotions and seek out other fake things like teddy bears, mashimaros and anime as means to mimic greatness.In some cases, this pride driven motivation had in fact created very good products like Sansui’s amplifiers, Nakamichi’s cassette players, Sony’s Betamax. This fear of losing honor (pride) has created a void in their psyche and the things (the above inventions) used to fill this void have become irreplaceable, they have almost become the reasons for their very existence. That is fine when things are constant, but when the lifestyles of consumers changed or when the industry introduced game changers like new audio and visual formats, these companies become stuck. For example, Nakamichi should have known the sound quality of compact discs (introduced in early 80’s) can easily beat that of tapes and yet they continued to focus on cassette tapes instead of doing what is obvious and reasonable. I suspect they can’t let go of their invention (losing them is like losing the very thing that fill the void) and the fear based motivation had made them very rigid and focused only on their own needs instead of those of the customers. Sony is also equally guilty of this to some extend when they hang on to their Betamax instead of making VHS video players which were what the customers wanted at that time. If they had focus more on the customers’ needs instead of their own then perhaps they can respond faster to the market conditions and stayed on top of the game like maybe, Panasonic or Toyota.Besides pride and greed, excessive sinful indulgences can also slowly degrade people’s capability and wisdom and eat away their business empires over time. I will use my own observation and logical deduction to chart a chain of causality and hope that it reflects how things work in reality. When the bosses begin to indulge in pleasures, greed and the fear of losing these pleasures will arise, and almost like an instinct, the bosses will listen to information and opinions that yield bad decisions. I believe the fear of losing makes them want to listen to good news and shun bad news, and pleasures also make their minds weak and tired bosses will naturally want to hear that everything is alright with their companies. After awhile, these bosses will only think of their own interests and disregard those of the customers, employees and associates, and we know that is the beginning of the end for them. When the bosses are at this state of minds, they will instinctively want to link up with people like ‘Little Finger’ (笃背脊) in the HBO drama ‘Game of Thrones’ because they can supply the vices to the bosses and tell them sweet lies which they want to hear. Then these ‘little fingers’ will instigate conflict between the bosses and their honest lieutenants in order to reduce their influence and bolster the treacherous ones. An intense mind will seek out intense and out of balance things, when the bosses are used to euphoric sensation from the pleasures, they will develop a taste for the extreme and the vain, they will develop appetite for uninformed bets on exciting high risk investments which often turn sour.Assuming the above is true, then I understand why Hong Kong’s Li Ka Shing advises we should not be overjoyed in good times and overly fearful during bad times. Joy leads to greed, and the greed will make us overwhelmed with the fear of losing the status quo when changes come. If we have good moral conduct and always look after the society’s needs, we will perceive changes as new opportunities to serve new needs instead of seeing changes as threats or challenges to us.All in all, in a winner-takes-all or fear-motivated system, people will tend to see the glass as halve empty, the top guys are always insecure and wanted to outdo each other in securing power while the bottom guys are always dissatisfied and are never grateful for the things they already have. Even though it is one way to drive civilization, it also produces many side effects along the way and we will need the right kinds of moral and spiritual education in order to evolve into something more advance. Otherwise we will need to rely on robots and artificial intelligence to tell us what to do in our lives.P.S. Now that I have introduced more and more branches of the Chinese philosophy, some may wonder which schools do I actually practice. The main body of my philosophy comes from Mahayana school and it was imparted to me by the Pure Land school. However, it was the Tibetan sutra (西藏度亡经) that provided me with the last mile connection which joint many dots together to form a more coherent picture. With that, I was able to gain deep understanding on Confucianism, Taoism, Zen Buddhism and other general matters in life. From my experience, the most important element in practicing philosophy and religion is to have the right attitude of ‘尊师重道，真诚恭敬’ in order to assimilate the values and benefits of the subjects. If readers are wondering which school is the best, I can tell you that it all depends on your affinity (缘), so try everything to find the one most suitable for your character, aptitude and environment.

As we have seen in previous essays, the root to the ability to assimilate and create lies in good virtues or moral behavior which enabled ‘收放自如’ that is essential in helping us to maintain a balance and do well in an ever changing reality. Besides moral cultivation, ‘太极拳’, calligraphy and traditional Chinese dance also help in enhancing ‘收放自如’ in our behaviour. Take calligraphy for example, in order to write the character ‘一’ (one), you need to start by pressing (放) the brush on to the paper, followed by gently lifting (收) the wrist and sweep the brush across and end it by turning the wrist gently (收 and 放) to make a delicate ‘slanted and pointy tail’. What it does is to consciously attune the mind to the state of ‘收放自如’ so that a person can be focused, relaxed and patient, which are characteristics needed to perform delicate and meticulous works that the people in the Confucius Belt are famous for. These characters reduce the tendency for obsessive compulsive impulses or the impulses to overreact such as swiping a fly with a large hammer. When one is relaxed, the sensation of time slow down, the body becomes less tense/dense or resistant and that facilitates the Qi to circulate more freely around the body to make one feeling energetic. In fact, the very act of writing ordinary Chinese characters will attune the mind in this way and I believe it also gives people a good sense of balance because the Chinese characters will look nice only when they are written in a good proportion and this sense of balance will induce us to find the right equilibrium in our daily affairs to a certain degree.We can also demonstrate the above with the understanding on the workings of the Yinyang frames of somethingness and nothingness or ‘刹那生灭’ as mentioned in the essay 'Lantau Island Tian Tan Buddha (Genesis)', with Yin as ‘收’ and Yang as ‘放’. According to many philosophers and scientists in this field, time does not have a set of tangible properties or we often hear others describe it as an ‘illusion’. I believe by ‘illusion’ it means that it does not have fix measurement or description and that is why we experience time differently. Say given a fix interval of time, someone on earth may experience it as one year while someone in a space ship far away may experience that same interval as only an hour. So the only way to reconcile this conundrum is to conclude that time does not have a fix value, its value depends entirely on other circumstantial factors.A more common way to experience this time paradox is to observe the different perceptions of time when we are drunk and when we are sober. When we are drunk, the sensation of time slow down and that is why drunk people can talk the whole night without feeling bored or tired. The whole event feels like only maybe one or two hours when in fact they have already spent six normal hours doing it. If we put this behavior of time in a diagram using the concept of刹那生灭, the difference in the characteristics of these ‘Yinyang frames’ will look something like this:I-I-I-I-I-I-I (sober/six hours) (a)I-----I-----I (drunk or relax/two hours) (b)In the above diagram, ‘ I ’ denotes the point of self awareness or somethingness while ‘ - ’ denotes nothingness, and the more sober a person is the more he is aware of himself and the sense of time. According to the concept of 刹那生灭, the more virtuous a person (or virtuous in their previous lives), the more relax he is and as such his existence generates lesser ‘yinyang frames’. This means that his existence is oscillating at a lower frequency (maybe alpha wave) compared to the more sinful people. So it is a bit like the award winning novel of ‘Folding Beijing’, I have not read it but I believe it says something like people from different classes live in slightly different dimensions and they experience time differently with some having more time while others have less.The reason why a virtuous person is running on a lower frequency is something like this, imagine he practice the yielding characteristics of Confucianism or any other branches of moral ethics, he will always seek out to equalize the disparity between himself and others like being generous to the poor or being humble and benevolent towards the defeated and weak. As he relinquishes his self interest, he is effectively reducing the awareness of self (the ‘I’ in the above diagram) and the disparity with others, and as a result his frequency of existence is lowered like in the case of (b). On the other hand a sinful person is constantly mindful of his own interests or the ‘I’ and thus his frequency of existence resembles more of (a).So you may ask what is the advantage of having a low frequency? For a start, the higher realms like the various heavens are running on lower frequencies, the lower the frequencies the higher up we go and Buddhists will know this very well when they study ‘四禅八定’ and the wonders that come with it. Lower frequency means one’s mind is closer to being ‘清静平等’ and as said before in the essay ‘黄大仙’, that is the foundation to all forms of intelligence and wisdom. If the mind is full of ripples like (a), then one is more likely to lose focus, has a ‘monkey brain’, easily stressed out and lack patience (a function of time) due to the interference of sin and a heightened sense of self.You may also regard (a) as being someone who experiences great difficulties in ‘moving forward’ because the diagrams show that (b) only requires two units of effort to move while (a) need six units of effort to move the same distance or perform the same tasks. The reason for this is that the sinful emotions tend to make the mind very immersed to various experiences as if it is a kind of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or the tendency to use unnecessary force to do something simple. For example, greed will make a person to want a lot of reward (OCD) in order to be motivated enough to do something or anger or antagonism will make a person want to react vigorously and violently (OCD) to even out some discomfort or inconvenience. On the other hand, someone who is or has practiced the yielding qualities of moral conducts will find it easy to detach from one task to another and allow them to achieve more with lesser stress and effort (fuel efficient). This is what I meant when I say ‘收放自如’ enabled the Qi to circulate more freely and makes one energetic and dynamic.There are also situations where OCD characteristics are caused by traumatic experiences instead of sinful behavior, for example, children who grew up with ‘tiger parenting’ may experience what I call a stuttering train of thoughts. These children’s wishes are always subordinated without any good reasons and these rejections created deep impression of obstacles in their mind that acted as brakes which causes their thoughts to progress with much friction and resistance. Because of that their overall energy and performance suffers, and great efforts and rewards are required by these children to do simple things. However, if the tiger parents give reasonable explanation on their strict control then the children will show less tendencies of the above, or if their children are born virtuous then they too will have the capacity to absorb these rejections and trauma and avoided the negative effect of strict parenting (the best thing to do is don’t pay too much attention to the negative things).This virtuous capacity has a very deep meaning in the context of 刹那生灭 or the frequency of existence, as Confucius says, ‘when the container is full, it will keel over and out pours the content’, the bigger the virtuous capacity (大器), the bigger is a person’s vault (金库). Let’s say a person is very generous and he is willing to give much away without acutely expecting for a return and this whole act may look like this: (sacrifice) ---------------------------------(pay back)On the other hand, a miserly person may give away something but will also expect a quick return and the whole act may look like this: (sacrifice)---------(pay back)The difference in the length of the two intervals between sacrifice and payback determines the size of a person’s ‘vault’ or capacity and the bigger the vault, the more wealth a person can contain, and they correspond with the characteristics of the frequency of existence.As we know, a sinful person are often vulnerable to sinful behaviors like, greed will make them gamble or fall prey to get rich quick schemes, and pride or jealousy will make them spend all their money to buy the best and the most exclusive. Furthermore, laziness, anxiety, anger and lust will cause them to use up their Qi or energy excessively. So, taken together we can say that a sinful person (someone who did sinful things in their previous lives) will have a small vault and as a result they can’t hold on to their wealth, health and energy. In Confucius terms, they have a small container and thus the content will spill over more frequently.In the next essay, I will use more Buddhist practices like Zen and ‘般若’ to demonstrate other aspects of this topic. I always feel that if practitioners rely on strict discipline to behave themselves, they will tend to numb their feelings by numbing certain important parts of the brain like the amygdale. I believe when if we numb our brains it will impede us from the feelings of love and compassion which are needed in assimilation and learning. That is why if we can understand the truth better then we will voluntarily discipline ourselves and rely less on numbing and its potential negative effects.

Not too long ago a reader pointed out to me an inconvenient truth in my essay, 'How Thoughts and Emotions Changes', where the set of philosophy on Brigitte Lin’s beauty actually belongs to another Taiwanese actor, 甄珍. When I realized that it felt almost like giving the film award to the wrong film, there is no place to hide the error and we believe in giving credit to where credit is due or else all the talk on lofty philosophy is just empty talk. Die-hard fans of甄珍 must have been gleefully calling Brigitte ‘翻版’ and that can be very annoying in the ears of Brigitte’s fans. Something needs to be done and I have been doing some research on it and found out this is how authoritative voices in the industry described Brigitte’s beauty; if you look at Brigitte’s facial features (eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, etc.) individually, they are not exactly very spectacular, but when you put them together, they will fit in a very perfect proportion and produce a nice end product. People in the past used to be very poetic.This aesthetic philosophy is even more difficult to understand than that of 甄珍, I believe you can say that it means a virtuous soul is able to use ordinary material (unspectacular features) and use it to create something great (perfect proportion). This is almost like ‘随心所欲 而不逾矩’ which I have mentioned before, or ‘无障碍’ which means unimpeded by limitations or obstacles (unspectacular features). Enthusiast of Kungfu will be able to relate to this very easily, it is the enlightened state of being that enables a Kungfu master to turn unspectacular things like a blade of grass or twig into lethal weapons. But I found an even better explanation of this philosophy in one of Brigitte’s film, ‘在水一方’ where we get to see what it is and what it is not.In the movie, Brigitte played the character of 小双 who can thrive in very difficult situations while her husband 友文, played by 秦汉, failed in his career despite having a good education and unyielding support from friends and family. The focus is on why people perceive challenges in their lives differently and sinful emotions affected their success and failure.We begin by looking at why 友文 can’t write and how his sinful emotions inhibits his ability; his jealousy makes him arrogant and combative and he writes because he wanted to challenge other noble laureates when noble laureates mostly write out of their love for writing instead of wanting to prove a point. Arrogance also makes him discriminates and trivializes his wife’s work by calling them vulgar (庸俗). Arrogance gave rise to disgust and violent behavior which then created the tendency to want to bully his wife, and the bullying later makes him self-deprecate and develop the warped idea that his wife look down on him. This is a bit like how soldiers who suffer from PTSD tend to get illusions of war from innocuous things like maybe the sound of fire crackers or loud machines. As a side note, it is for the same reason why Luke Skywalker warned Kylo Ren not to strike him with hate and anger because PTSD will follow him for the rest of his life and distorts his perception of reality, and he is more likely to skew towards decisions that bring disaster and hardship.As you can see友文’s inner world is full of obstacles (心有千千结) or his bad karma such as pride and arrogance makes him see obstacles when they none. To illustrate how sinful emotion stunted 友文’s writing further, we assume that this essay is the topic of a discussion forum and if the participants like to gossip, they are prone to commit the sins of ‘绮语’, ‘妄语’ and ‘恶口’, because they have the habit (a peculiar symbiosis) to drift to sensational places due to the effects of excessive entertainment. Maybe they may imagine that in real life 秦汉 bullied Brigitte Lin and perhaps he also likes to gamble, and that’s when the discussion comes to an unproductive or embarrassing end. Similarly, sinful emotions also stifled友文’s writing or the flow of ideas the way bad gossip can choke the discussion. For that reason I must put a firewall here to curb people’s enthusiasm – focus only on the story instead of the actors’ personal lives.I will cite two more examples to show how sinful emotions like greed and pride can obstruct our progress in life. There is this Youtube video on the casual conversation among three friends in Hong Kong which describes the negative effects of greed very clearly. One of the friends complained about the bad attitude (greed) of some taxi drivers this way – they do not like to take passengers on short trips because the fare is low, then they do not want to go to further places like the airport because the queue is very long and they are also not willing to go to the New Territories because they may not get another passengers there on his return to Hong Kong island. So, greed makes them very calculating or afraid not to get something and thus developed many mental obstacles which prevented them from doing any work.This next example on pride can reflect more clearly how sinful emotions have created友文’s mental obstacles of arrogance and disgust and turned him ‘意志消沉’; we know that several years ago there was a big street protest in Hong Kong and I had the chance to listen to some of the protestors’ grievances. I can summarize their grievances with this simple analogy, let’s say these protestors protested because of the lack of business opportunities in Hong Kong and you may advise them to go look for opportunities in Shenzhen, they will then say that they can’t work with the officer in Shenzhen because he spits in a spittoon and it disgust them. Then you suggest they go to Zhuhai which again did not work out because the officer there eats dog meat. Finally, you advise them to go to Dongguan, but again they declined because the officer there keeps a mistress. These are the ‘neuron circuitry’ or search algorithms that show how 友文’s chauvinism and antagonism has created ‘心有千千结’ or an extreme/narrow scope of thinking (转牛角尖) which prevented him from even writing the first chapter of his book. So, if we have the full set of various sins, we can imagine how little space there is in our hearts and mind and it is precisely for this reason that we have dimensions like ‘无间道’ where ‘间’ stands for ‘空间’ and ‘时间’ or the space time continuum. But I must say that the above only represented a certain portion of the overall protestors, there are many other protestors who are very intellectual and have justifiable grievances and the administration is very sympathetic with them. So when I misrepresented the philosophy of Brigitte’s beauty, it felt like a very mild form of obstacle (心结) because it is not done on purpose or with bad intention but it shows that inaccuracy or injustice (sin) is like a discrepancy which created a gap that prevented people from crossing over; or an uncertainty/ignorance that made people stall because they do not know whether to turn left or right. Similarly, unrepented sins and karma is also a kind of discrepancy or gap which frustrates our brains from crossing over to evolve into a higher state.On the other hand, 友文’s wife小双 was quite the opposite, she appears to be born into a poor family and later orphaned. She is very flexible and not choosy with what she does, she can teach music, compose songs and write lyrics. She doesn’t need grandiose projects to motivate her and can perform well in these jobs which 友文 regarded as vulgar. She has to shoulder the role of the breadwinner of the family and has the temperament and grace to put up with her husband’s verbal abuse and compulsive gambling habits. You may wonder if a person is facing so many obstacles then these ‘road blocks’ must have been obstructing her thoughts and energy and she shouldn’t be able to perform well in her career and be a supportive wife to the end. What is it that enables her to manage all these? This is what the Taoist philosophy call ‘收放自如’ and the Buddhist call it ‘生活禅’ or the state of ‘无障碍’, and all these comes from a person’s moral cultivation either in this life or previous ones.The Buddha says that our reality is not permanent (remember 一波未平一波又起?) and that means we must keep changing in order to thrive in this binary realm, and thus we need to find continuous equilibrium to stay relevant and prosperous. For example, a CEO may be able to hatch a plan which is in equilibrium whereby different interests such as the customers, employees, board of directors, shareholders and policy makers can agree to. But sudden changes to the market caused by foreign competition may compel the CEO to recalibrate everything to seek a new equilibrium. If the CEO can’t change then you can say that he can’t ‘收放自如’ and becomes like a broken clock which can only tell the time correctly twice a day.We take dancing to demonstrate this point because it involves continuous fluid movement and reader can form the picture more easily. Good dancers must find a good balance between the music and the body movements, as the music changes, the whole body must also change in tandem, meaning the face, arms, shoulders, waist, hips, legs and the music must constantly seek new equilibriums or else it won’t work. If the dancers’ thoughts are stuck in some trauma or euphoria, it will obstruct her mind and body from seeking continuous equilibrium in her dancing and that’s when you say the dancers can’t flow. Artists who were broken by fear and depression like Kurt Cobain or Sylvia Plath may still be able to produce remarkable works but their scope is very limited and they don’t lead a happy life. Similarly, artists who are too preoccupied with their good looks and social media popularity also tend to become very limited in their dynamism and are often branded as ‘flower vases’ or a broken clock which can only tell the time correctly twice a day.What causes the fear, euphoria and frustration to stick in the artists and the CEO and prevented them from progressing? If you understood the part of the essay on 友文 then you will know the answer already, but I can give more examples to enrich our understanding on this matter. While I may not know much about dancing or the work of a CEO, I do watch a lot of snooker matches because I used to play that game. Steve Davis, who is a multiple world champion, once commented that if players can soak up the pressures, then they can bring out the best of themselves. All the players who play at the top level have received the same amount of technical training and have put in an equal amount of effort in perfecting their games, what sets them apart is how well they can control their nerves at the most critical moment. Pressure will make players doubt themselves, hesitate in their games, stiffen their shoulders and arms and their minds will become preoccupied with the fear of losing. This fear comes from none other than their inherent/acquired sin or bad karma like greed, which makes them fearful of losing the tournament’s prize money or pride which makes them fearful of losing face and the glory of becoming the champion. If you don’t believe that pressure or fear dulls our abilities, look at the fantastic snooker they can play once their brains regained coherence after the score has reached an unassailable stage. So, we now know that self confidence comes from virtues which make one not fearful of losing, and the notion that moral cultivation makes one lazy and boring is a big misunderstanding, it is bad karma and unresolved sins which make people lazy and boring.If you are a professional writer then you can probably tell that my writing is not as smooth as it could be because I also experience those友文-moments occasionally. These ‘意志消沉’ moments are strong in some mornings when I just woke up from sleep, I will have many hesitation in writing essays which contain many pop culture elements because they are regarded as vulgar. But after I do my morning qigong exercise, these negative thoughts will go away and I will feel a sense of exuberance ‘心开意解’ and my energy and thoughts will flow again. Maybe Qigong exercises can help ‘宅男’ overcome some of their problems because they are said to be ‘意志消沉’.My master told me that I have those bad morning feelings because I smoke cigarettes and drink too much milk tea (a depressant) at night and those things choke my meridian and cause those lousy morning blues. After I do those qigong exercises, my meridians became unblock and restore the dynamic ‘收放自如’ or continuous equilibrium again. Perhaps the reason why Jack Ma is always positive and dynamic is because he is able to do ‘收放自如’, and that could partly be attributed to the practice of the ‘太极拳’. For example, let’s say he has an opinion on how things work and then he meet someone who has a different opinion, ‘收放自如’ enables Jack Ma to put aside (收) his opinion without feeling frustrated so that he could work out (放) a win-win compromise with the other party. However, I must caution that if you really wanted to learn ‘太极拳’, it is better to learn from a master because without moral guidance, people will use the dynamism to do reckless and audacious things and their energy will spill all over the places to form more bad karma. There are more to ‘收放自如’ but it is better that we stop here for the time being so that readers can digest the meaning in the essay.P.S. Perhaps fans of other starlets in the Chinese language section may not agree with my choosing of 甄珍 and Brigitte Lin to represent the philosophy of beauty, but I did so because I have to consider what impact it might have on the stars themselves. Those who have had a lot of experience in the industry would have learnt how to give and take (收放自如) and thus they will not let things affect them too much. If you give the title to young stars then they might feel dizzy and we know it is not good to let people peak too early because they have not developed the emotional capacity to deal with fame and success.