沙漠无情 相逢是缘 (Part 2)In the essay, ‘新龙门客栈’, I asked the question how did 玄奘 find the energy and determination to make the arduous journey to the West? I believe it was out of the great compassion (同体大悲) he had which empowered him not to see his destiny as a difficult challenge but as a mission to bring salvation to mankind. Perhaps it is this positive switch that had allowed him to experience joy (乐在其中) instead of suffering in his journey. It is good to see the recent success of the video game ‘Black Myth: Wukong’ and I would like to congratulate the game developer, Game Science on their smashing product. Wukong (悟空) literally means to understand the very deep Buddhist concept of ‘Emptiness’ (空), and Wukong also happened to be a disciple of 玄奘 in the fictional version of ‘Journey to the West’. I have watched some of the game scenes on YouTube and I must say the new monsters and demons are getting bigger, stronger and more ferocious than before. It is only a matter of time before Wukong and the other two disciples of ‘猪八戒’ and ‘沙曾’ couldn’t handle the problems at hand. I thought wouldn’t it be nice and useful to include new disciples to help alleviate the situations? There are many popular heroic demons in Chinese myths and one of them which came to mind is 白蛇 (白娘子), who lately appeared in the new animation ‘白蛇: 浮生’. Fans of Chinese myth may wonder about a common question, what is the difference between demons (妖/魔) and gods (神), or why are Darth Vader and Jedi so powerful and yet their characters are so different? According to the practice of 儒释道, the common point between the two of them is they both need to practise stillness (定功) in their spiritual cultivation, but the demons achieved stillness through ignoring or suppressing emotions while the gods achieved stillness through reconciling their afflictions and emotions with some form of ‘仁耻礼义爱孝忠’ to gain inner peace. This difference is akin to me blocking the noise from the road construction near my Buddhist centre with a pair of ear-plug instead of training the brain to accept and accommodate the noise naturally. If you blocked away all the external sound and emotions, one will enter the state of ‘无情’ when the practitioner will, up to a certain point, feel unbearably dull, dry, lonely and desolate like living in the desert, and it is very unlike the ‘乐在其中’ experienced by 玄奘. That is why many of them lost their cool and gave in to the urge to seek power, wealth and in the case of 白蛇, a romantic relationship, despite having over a thousand years of merits from spiritual cultivation.In the music video of ‘白蛇: 浮生’ theme song, 白蛇 asks if it is worth her while to scarify her thousand-year cultivation for her love, 许仙? That is also the same question many audiences throughout the years have asked, many felt that 许仙 is not worthy of 白蛇’s devotion and the ending is a tad cruel to 白蛇. However, people who studied the philosophy of 儒释道 will understand the deeper meaning to the ending. The training of demons like 白蛇 is not complete; they are only peaceful on the outside but not on the inside, and therefore their external appearances and their original forms are different. That also explains why without compassion and acceptance, there is no assimilation and 白蛇’s good things in life eventually fell apart. At the core of ‘和而不同’ is the ability to assimilate different elements, just like how one can assimilate different items like a phone, a camera and a computer to make a smartphone. If we can assimilate only things that are similar, it is like ‘melting’ the phone, camera and computer into a lump of uniform but unusable object, a smartphone is smart and useful only if we allow each of the different components to play their unique functions. ‘和而不同’ has the effect of making ‘the whole greater than the sum of its parts’ and it allows us to have more good things in life. Again, let me take the case of the 乘风破浪 show to explain how good values can let us have more in life. Initially I was pleasantly surprised to see 赵梦 collaborating with Twins in the final show of that season because it is like seeing Joan Jett collaborating with Donny & Marie. From someone with a 70’s/80’s pure hard rock perspective, rock and pop can never mix, mixing is as sinful as betraying your close friends and family. By associating ourself to a particular genre or idols, one has developed a unique identity which we cling on to. Seeing one’s idol straying away from the original path will create a sense of being sold out by them. If fans of 乘风破浪 do not accept each other, they will jeer and attack each other, rock fans may call Twin’s music as children’s music while pop fans will call rockers wild and unruly. Then everyone will become scornful, refuse to see the show and attack each other on social media. The show can’t go on (no assimilation) and we will miss out on a lot of creative performances and go back to live in the dry and lifeless desert. With the good attitudes of ‘和而不同’, we will get to enjoy more things because we can engage (相应) them safely and see them positively as tools instead of seeing them as obstacles or betrayal. Otherwise, we can’t even have common things like road-going vehicles because bad drivers will be reckless and turn road vehicles into killing machines. In the more extreme form of immorality, we can’t even have 淄博烧烤 because people will dump the barbeque stick all over the places after they finished the food or use the stick to poke at others.When we don’t have good moral foundations, we can’t have social media because we can’t effectively reconcile and engage the massive amount of information if we are more inclined to react (相应) to the negative news and perceive the good ones the wrong way. For example, some of us can get upset when we are hit with 2 ‘dislikes’ despite having 8 ‘likes’, this is not too different from rejecting something good that comes with 8 benefits but has 2 disadvantages; it is a sign that our brain’s search algorithm is skewed towards unpleasant things. I believe this is because people who can feel satisfied from having 8 ‘likes’ but 2 ‘dislikes’ is because they can feel the love of the 8 ‘likes’ and become confident; whereas the other group which also got 8 ‘likes’ and 2 ‘dislikes’, experienced arrogance instead of love, and the arrogance will make their minds focus only on the 2 ‘dislikes’ and got all upset and forget about the other 8 ‘likes’. This is what we saw in sports isn’t it? When they see fans cheering them, some sportsmen became arrogant and their game deteriorates thereafter. Selfish people will become arrogant when they are praised because they feel they are on top of others, less selfish people will become confident when they are praised because they perceive others are with them side by side.The one concern which I have is that emotionally dramatic media content can accentuate the bad emotions in some of us and train their brains to become anxious and hard at relaxing. Medical professionals have discovered that our brains quietly learn things from the media even if we just watch and do not participate. For example, if we sit in a cinema to watch characters in movies doing dramatic running and jumping, the part of our brain that is responsible for running and jumping will also get activated dramatically even when we are sitting passively. According to my understanding of the theory of ‘太极拳’ and other Taoist health care methods, if we are constantly trained by these intense emotions, then chances are we will find it hard to relax our nerves and muscles. We may grip our tooth brush, pen and general tools tighter than we should, and we may over react emotionally to matters. Their muscles will tend to get tired and ache quickly because their minds can’t let go of the impression (着相) of stress and will carry forward the cumulative stress from task to task to compound the overall hardship. This inability to let go of impression can have far reaching consequences such as dancers and sportsman may confuse their movements, customer service personnels confused their tasks when they are attending to too many customers at the same time, investment officers find it hard to learn new creative investment schemes because their minds are still stuck with older products and factory engineers got lost in a sea of finicky details and procedures.But I must say that intense media contents don’t always have the same effects on everyone, for example, I have observed over a long period of time how my own nephew who played hours of intense video games could break from the game when it was time for homework and studies without making a fuss. The impression or stress from playing the game didn’t seem to have disrupted his concentration, thinking processes or behavior too much.I am now learning to appreciate fine traditional Chinese arts through the cultural shows produced by CCTV such as, ‘诗画中国’, ‘非遗里的中国’, ‘国家宝藏’ and ‘CCTV记录’. If media contents can train our brains to become tense, they can also coax them to relax through these artful and unhuried cultural shows. Modern forms of entertainment are inevitable due to the changing social structure, economic rhythm and technological landscape. It is in a disruptive time like this that we need to maintain a healthy mind and spirit evermore with the help of these cultural instruments. So now readers understand why I used to recommend those mild 70’s movies adapted from the novels of 琼瑶, and why I find mixing the elements of traditional performance arts of 唐诗逸, 朱洁静, 吴谨言 and 陈丽君 in ‘乘风破浪’ is both entertaining and liberating.These performances have helped to open up new doors to the traditional philosophy that I am learning. Take for example 陈丽君, I was very impressed by her performance in 乘风破浪 but I did not know how to describe her awesome presence until I watched the variety show, ‘我们的歌-6’, where the participants described her performance as ‘弥漫着一股气 … 行云流水’. ‘行云流水’ is an important concept in Chinese philosophy because the properties of water are meritorious according to the ‘道德经’. The merits of water and ‘生生不息’ are often spoken in the same breath, an example of things that can last a long time (生生不息) are the sacred texts and sutras from ancient wise sages. These writings have lasted for thousands of years but our modern literature and pop music don’t seem to enjoy that sort of lifespans. The main reason I believe is because ancient wisdom liberates our hearts instead of exhausting them like pop and drama. In the ‘道德经’, it is said that 生生不息 comes from peace (清净), and good morals reduce friction and facilitate peace. It is perhaps for the same reason why couples who experience true love can be together for long time, and why Cyndi 王 said in the show that she can play the role of ‘甜心教主’ for as long as we like. She is obviously not exhausted by the role, there is something liberating or ‘生生不息’ about it, maybe because she places the needs of her fans above her own preference.If she had taken those occasional harsh treatments from her mother and others in a selfish and negative way, she probably would have been too exhausted to move on and excel. Her inborn moral enabled her to be selfless and empathize with her mother instead of thinking of her own pain, and this selfless nature helped her deflected and detached from the blows directed at her. This ability to detach is like water in the stream which can slither past rocks and hindrances smoothly instead of sticking to them like glue; it is the ability to detach which enabled water to ‘收放自如’ or ‘随心所欲’ and shape-shift to take on various forms and bend around barriers. However, it doesn’t mean one should do whatever one wishes regardless of legal and ethics considerations, on the contrary, people who got involved in illegal and unethical activities are precisely because they can’t turn difficult corners in their lives. Detachment and selflessness liberates our hearts like ancient wisdom and make us ‘生生不息’ to adapt and thrive in all situations.Thus, the awesome aura (气场) and the state of ‘行云流水’ of 陈丽君 comes from her training and a kind of righteous nature in her which enabled her energy to circulate smoothly like water to generate the strong magnetism which we called ‘aura’. Because she can detach, she doesn’t need to exert too much strength (不用力过度) to move about and wear herself out prematurely. Not using too much strength also made her movement smooth, precise and effortless. Finally, detachment allows her to adapt and play different roles in opera and even switching between male (小生) and female (花旦) roles. By now you may ask how can I reconcile the need to ‘accept’, as written in the beginning of the essay, with the importance of ‘detach’? These two are on the surface contradictory. The answer is, in order to accept or to have more, we first need to detach and morals facilitate detachment. As a rock fan, I used to wear t-shirts of rock bands such as Def Leppard and Iron Maiden. In the spirit of 和而不同, maybe I should also accept t-shirts with the images of Cyndi王 and 陈丽君 or all the other celebrities I have written before, I believe they will look nice. Think of a variety show with only a single artist like Kelly于, 赵梦 or 刘欣 in it, that would make the show rather monotonous. However, if we add more celebrities, the show will add on new dimensions; it will have hues, shadows and metaphors to show the sense of depth, colors to show contrast, different generations to express time and a bigger presence to create the sense of space. 白蛇 may have sacrificed everything for 许仙, but it is also through such sacrifice that let her realised the importance of acceptance and compassion in spiritual cultivation. In the 儒释道 practise, 白蛇 being a senior 蛇仙 is only one step away from attaining the state of a heavenly dragon (天龙). Heaven is a higher dimension and that means dwellers there will have access to more dimensions as opposed to only three in the human realm. It is through having a bigger heart from practicing compassion and detachment that one can develop a more coherent brain to handle the added complexities in higher dimensions. So, in the end it is not difficult to imagine how the selfless love of 白蛇 enabled her to detach and break through to a higher realm where she gained extra dimensions to make the triple space-time fold of past, present and future and travel back to the Tang dynasty to protect 玄奘.

沙漠无情 相逢是缘  (Part 1)沙漠无情 相逢是缘 is actually a phrase from the movie/opera 新龙门客栈, it kind of means the desert is harsh and inhabitable, and it is a metaphor for being heartless and lifeless. Continuing from the previous essay, when the Zen master 玄奘 reached 玉门关 where the 新龙门客栈 was supposedly located, the road branch out into 3 different paths, there was one to the south, one through the middle and one to the north of Xinjiang (新疆). However, the one through the middle and south passed through a long stretch of the Taklamakan desert, while the one in the north which were connected to areas like the present-day Hami (哈密) and Urumqi (乌鲁木齐) only passed through a relatively short stretch of the Gobi Desert (戈壁). 玄奘 chose the norther passage because there were more inhabitants and civilizations in those areas, and it turned out to be the right choice because that was where he met the ruler of ‘高昌国’ (the present day Hami/Urumqi) who then became his big benefactor.  The ruler, 麹文泰, gave 玄奘 plenty of material and man power support to make the journey a success. Without this support or if 玄奘 had chosen the paths to the south and middle of Xinjiang, he might not have made it through and a large section of Buddhist teachings wouldn’t have reached East Asia.  The fact that 玄奘 had chosen to go north to a bountiful place instead of the desolate Taklamakan desert made me come to the realization that spiritual cultivation does not have to be a lonesome, isolated and unfeeling (无情) pursuit. It should be one that is inclusive and can live side by side with material things and civilization, as 玄奘 have shown how the material support he received from 高昌国 had greatly benefited him in the pursuit for higher levels of enlightenment. This is very much in line with the 六祖慧能 teaching of, ‘佛法在世间不离世间觉 离世觅菩提恰如求兔角’ mentioned in the essay ‘The Role of Art and Music (Part 2)’.This idea of inclusivity can also be found in the Confusion adage of ‘君子合而不同’, which means a virtuous person should be at peace with people or beliefs which are different. I first came across the concept of ‘君子合而不同’ from CCTV’s program of ‘龙行天下- 龙泉宝剑藏龙气青瓷聚龙魂 2024/02/13’. The program described the spirit of the Chinese Dragon as akin to the 龙泉宝剑 which is 坚韧锋利 while at the same time it can also be the opposite like 青瓷 which is 内敛温润. Together, they are 刚柔並济 and is the essence of ‘合而不同’.This embodiment of two opposites has always puzzled many students of Chinese philosophy and especially those who study the entire ensemble of 儒释道. I have written in previous essays on how being 内敛温润 through 温良恭俭让 can improve our wisdom and skills, but how can being 内敛温润(soft) also makes you 坚韧锋利(tough) at the same time? Take for example, how can Cyndi 王心凌, whom I described as having a soft delicate touch (内敛温润) like a craftsman, is also 坚韧锋利 at the same time? If my analysis is correct, toughness (坚) and resilience (韧) are enabled by the positive values of 温良恭俭让, and that is why they are not hard but brittle. 坚韧 is like a ball which can bounce back when you drop it on to the floor, whereas something that is brittle will crack if subjected to the same impact. The reason the ball can bounce back is because of the air inside, and this is the purpose of the Qi (气). When we are impacted with difficulties, getting angry and frustrated will cut off the circulation of our Qi, but if we have good values like 仁耻礼义爱孝忠, it will ensure that we face or look at (相应) the challenges positively so that our energy circulation can keep going to prevent us from becoming fragile.Take for example, in the essay ‘新龙门客栈’, we saw how the bad childhood experiences of 王斤斤 had turned her into a somewhat spiteful and insecure adult. The childhood experiences of Cyndi 王 was no worse than that of 王斤斤, but somehow it did not turn Cyndi into a negative person. She revealed in her interview that her father left her family when she was little and her mother had to take up several odd jobs to raise her and her brother. They had little to live on and her mother also occasionally took out her frustration on her. You may think this would give Cyndi a very bitter experience in life, but she did not take things the hard way, she could reconcile her own pain through showing empathy for her mother’s difficulty and disappointment. She regarded the beating and scolding she got from her mother was nothing compared to the hardships her mother had to shoulder. Instead of bearing grudges, Cyndi even helped to discipline her younger brother in order not to create more troubles for her mother.The soft (温润) values of 温良恭俭让 enabled Cyndi to accept her fate and appreciated how her mother had worked tirelessly to raise her instead of bearing grudges like the brittle 王斤斤. It is these moral values which made Cyndi more inclined to see (相应) the bright side of things and flicked on the positive switch in her mind that let her absorb the punches and bounce back (坚韧) from many difficult situations in her life. If her mind was dominated by hate, jealousy and anger, she would be overwhelmed by the sense of loss and pain, and became bitter. As a matter of fact, many successful people were also raised from broken families and less than ideal social and economic circumstances. They too had gone through many failures in their careers and it is the same positive attitudes (坚韧) which enabled them to bounce back and make things happen eventually. The positive ‘相应’ is most commonly expressed as the ‘正能量’ and has the effect of making one see opportunities when others see threats. Let’s take an example which I believe most can relate to; let’s say in a village where there is plenty of vacant lands, a positive person may see the benefits of improving the living standard of himself and others by planting apple trees on these vacant lands. Those who are negative (负能量) are overwhelmed by the thoughts of the hard work involved in planting and maintaining an orchard, or they are too cynical to believe that the village land administrators will be willing to cooperate. The fear of failure and loss totally incapacitated them and they may even rationalize their own inaction by calling those who are willing to work as greedy. In the event the prices of apples actually soften due to the higher supply, negative people may be busy gloating over the other’s misfortune, calling it retribution for being greedy and opportunistic. But a positive person on the other hand may see this threat of over supply as an opportunity for him to mass produce apple juices and snacks in a just-in-time way from the steady supply of apples in the village.This positive attitude is reflected in many other minute areas in our lives which we don’t even notice. In the vacation-based reality show, ‘与彩云相约’, 汪东城 mentioned that he was once very surprised to see Cyndi drove a super large SUV to work because it was completely out of proportion to Cyndi’s dainty appearance. Many ordinary people hesitated to drive large SUV due to fear factors such as the high maintenance, the difficulty of maneuvering the vehicle on tight busy streets, the hassle of finding parking spaces and maybe the soft resale market for these vehicles. Cyndi on the other hand was less bothered by these considerations probably because she has accurate spatial judgement, saw (相应) the benefits such as the higher load capacity of the SUV, its prestige, comfort and stability at high speed. Certain bad elements (bad karma) subconsciously turn people negative, worrisome and anxious. The pessimism make people see narrow paths and spaces, make people perceive the inconveniences and losses outweigh the gains in many situations in life, while people with good merits tend to experience and perceive less of such obstacles. This could be the reason why some of us scream with joy in roller coaster rides while others scream in fear.To accept one’s fate like how Cyndi did when she was little may sound like one is weak, passive and easily give up in the face of adversity, but on the contrary, from my own experience, it enabled one to deal with adversity with less fear and resentment. Once there was a road construction going on outside the Buddhist center where I went to pray and recite sutras. The noise was rather disruptive and I complained to my master that I can’t concentrate; my master then told me if things were reasonable and legal, then I should put myself in their positions and try to feel what it was like to do hard labor under the hot sun and show empathy and compassion to those workers by offering them cold drinks. True enough, once I did that, the level of frustration in me subsided and the noise didn’t seem that disturbing anymore because when there is acceptance and compassion, the resistance/blockage is removed and the circulation of energy will continue smoothly to keep me cool and easy. It was like compassion and acceptance had helped my brain to become more coherent and enhanced its ability to filter away noises. Probably, it was the same brain activities that helped Cyndi enhanced her skills in dancing and singing when she was young.You can think of it this way, most of us may find working 9 hours a day and 5 days a week tough, but if we think of the positive outcomes such as the material and knowledge gain or doing it out of the love for our families, we will somehow manage to find the strength to go on. Many successful people also started their careers doing very mundane jobs like washing dishes, doing laundry or making coffee and they excel in all these mundane jobs. They accepted these jobs without too much resentment and resistance because they see these jobs as means to widen their social contacts, build up good reputation and gain better career opportunities. Resentment, on the other hand, will block us from getting motivated by positive factors and make us focus on the low pay and stress instead. The root of resentment is none other than our sinful emotions such as greed which creates unreasonable expectations, anger makes us easily frustrated, hate makes us perceive obstacles, jealousy makes it hard for us to get along with others and pride give rise to arrogance and footloose behaviors. All in all, having good morals don’t make a person soft, in fact, they will make us confident and calm so that we don’t abdicate from our duties out of fear and frustration. They will give us clear minds to make the right decisions and make us focus on solution instead of conflict. Hopefully, the direct link between good morals and our performance and productivity will be clearer one day so that we can engage in ‘良性竞争’ in a modern civilized society.

新龙门客栈China’s entertainment industry never stops making new programs, they are already broadcasting ‘浪姐5’ while the memory of ‘浪姐3’ is still very fresh in my mind. The new element in 浪姐5 which caught my attention is 陈丽君 who is a professional Chinese opera (越剧) actress of ‘新龙门客栈’ fame. I always find it interesting to see what, artists of traditional performance art like 唐诗逸 and 朱洁静, can do in modern pop entertainment. The fusion of modern and traditional art often can bring unexpected pleasant surprises.Going from ‘浪姐3’ to ‘浪姐5’ makes me think of ancient travellers who traversed the old silk road from China to the west (西域，天竺) or present day India, Nepal and other central Asian countries, for trade, cultural and spiritual reasons. They will need to make a stop at the ‘敦煌石窟’ which was mentioned in ‘浪姐3’, and then the next stop at ‘玉门关’ where the ‘新龙门客栈’ was supposedly situated along the ancient silk road. After ‘玉门关’ will be the harsh and arduous trek across the Taklamakan desert ‘塔克拉玛干’ and the Tengri Tagh mountain range ‘天山山脉’. It is really hard to imagine how ancient people can withstand such strenuous expeditions across the lands to trade or gain knowledge. If I am an ancient traveler, just thinking of these obstacles makes me want to give up on the journey and seek shelter in ‘新龙门客栈’ to enjoy the amenities and entertainment such as opera and music provided by the inn.Traditional opera, I believe, can be regarded as the movies and TV dramas of the ancient world. It shows that we have this natural tendency to act and tell stories, it is not something created by modern capitals purely for the purpose of commercial exploitations.  To me, storytelling is somewhat similar to having wandering thoughts (妄想/杂念) during the process of meditation. My mind will keep churning out all sorts of imagination or ‘stories’ and it makes me very restless and wants to go do something else instead of sitting still, and if I tried very hard to stop these fleeting thoughts, I will fall asleep in meditation instead.I believe this inclination to have wandering thoughts is the reason behind why we love to tell stories and project our imaginations onto novels, comics, operas and movies. But meditation masters on the other hand are more able to sit still without wandering thoughts but also do not fall asleep while being in a state inaction and tranquility. I found out later from Zen masters (禅师) that the reason they can do it that way is because they have less blockages in their meridians (经脉), and thus the circulation of Qi (气) in their bodies are smooth and ample, and that is why even when their minds and bodies are inactive, they are still able to have sufficient energy to stay awake. Ordinary people like myself have low circulation of the Qi, we are like a car air conditioner with low level of refrigerant and we need to keep the car moving in order to push the circulation of the limited refrigerant to keep us cool. Similarly, the blockages in our primary meridians causes a low level of Qi in us which made us restless/unstable and involuntarily force the mind to switch on other ‘action-oriented’ circuits to activate extra sensation/current to compensate the short fall of Qi  in our systems. These extra sensations may come in the form of wandering thoughts, dreams and fantasies, and if these are not strong enough, then we may just go do something else like listening to music or other outdoor activities.This is quite similar to the storyline of a recent movie, ‘被我弄丢的你’, which I watched because both 黄小蕾 and 刘恋 from ‘浪姐3’ are in the movie. Many people have the same experience of the character, 王斤斤 in the movie where unpleasant childhood experiences created obstacles which made them turn to movies, story books and comics as means to escape from the harsh obstacles in their lives. Just like the blockages in our meridians, these real-life obstacles interrupted the flow of our energies and we seek supplementary energies from the sensation we get from movies and music. The energies of good stories and movies come from its nature of being ‘情理之中, 意料之外’, kind of mean surprising/innovative but within reason, or a good balance between utility and style. It is the interaction between these 2 elements that produce the current like in a ying-yang circulation or the ‘若有若无’ effect that give us sensation. The character 王斤斤 could escape to and got energy from the dark and macabre stories of Edgar Allan Poe is because the stories bear some semblance to her reality but also come with delightful twist. I do not know how exactly things work inside her head, but these monsters and ghouls in Allan Poe’s stories reminds me of the cover art of hard rock albums in the 80’s and 70’s which were replete with grotesque beasts and demons. Rock fans are people who are angry with something, maybe injustice or in the case of 王斤斤, a broken family which made them feel insecure. In order to compensate, they subconsciously think of themselves as these grotesque beasts and demons who are powerful and fearsome; who can create chaos and over power human as a way for them to get even through dominance. So, anger and hurt is the ‘情理之中’ which resonate with the rockers while the powerful and fearsome appearance of the beasts are the thing they fantasize (意料之外). This sort of reaffirm my belief that when one is inclusive like ‘温良恭俭让’ then one is beautiful but if one is spiteful and angry then one will resemble the beasts, demons or even Adams family if you give it a comedy twist.As we can see in the movie, there are many other things people do to escape from reality such as role-play games like ‘escape room’ and ‘haunted house’ for city folks who want to leave behind the hectic urban living momentarily. Some escape through the sugar-coating effects of romantic movies and sentimental songs while others prefer the ignorant and take-it-easy effects of comedy. I remember by the time I was nearing the completion of my last essay, ‘The Purpose of Arts and Music (5)’, my mind was already congested with the contents and images of the 4 essays I wrote since June 2023. I could feel that the logic and style circuits of my brain at that time couldn’t move anymore, and it involuntarily inclined to switch over to the kindred and light-hearted circuits with the mention of big brother Jacky Chan, in order to get things going and prevented ‘内卷’. So, it is for the same reason why urbanites who are constantly under heavy pressures, allowed their brains to take a stress-relieve detour in these role-play games.Maybe the fact that I wrote about ‘新龙门客栈’ is itself some kind of role-playing because the silk road reminds me a lot of ‘玄奘’ and ‘西游记’. Spiritual cultivation is a long and arduous journey and ‘新龙门客栈’ is a metaphorical inn where we can seek temporary relief with entertainment and sustenance. Besides that, I found traditional Chinese health care methods are also very effective at temporarily relieving the blockages in our meridians to help reduce anxiety and stress so that we can be more focused in our work or meditation.

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.