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Daily Reflection 3.22.21
Mar. 22nd, 2021 08:13 amA blessed Alban Eilir to one and all.
Today, some heavy lifting from Sun Tzu. Or at least, it was heavy lifting for me:
Sun Tzu is concerned here with forced marches; he adds a few other verses about how many of our men we will lose if we force-march 50 li or 30 li. (One li is about a third of a mile.)
What are we to make of this in terms of our own work, the overcoming of our inner enemies and the conquest of our own souls?
Maybe I'm slow, but it took me a few days to figure out what to do with this one. Then the following occurred to me.
Anyone who has done any type of spiritual teaching-- or teaching in anything that requires daily discipline, I imagine-- knows that there are two types of problem students. The first type, by far the more common, is the student who will do no training at all outside of class. If you have class three days a week, this sort of student can still make progress; if one day a week, they may progress, but very slowly; if you have class once a month, they will get nowhere and will drag everybody else down with them.
And then there's the second type of problem student. This type doesn't do too little work-- they do too much. Way too much. In some fields, the only danger is that this person will neglect the rest of their life. Someone who spends 14 hours practicing the guitar won't hurt themselves very badly, but their diet, health, hygiene, friends, and family are will suffer. Someone who spends as many hours training in martial arts is risking serious injury. And someone who spends that many hours doing spiritual practices-- especially practices which involve the movement of internal energies-- is risking their sanity and even their life.
I know this from experience; I am Problem Student Type 2.
Some years ago, I got involved in a group dedicated to qigong and Taoist internal alchemy. We would meet every day at 5am at a local park-- a very bad choice of location, as the park also served as an open-air motel for the city's heroin addicts-- and spend an hour practicing meditation, an hour doing qigong, and an hour doing tai chi. This was already too much-- serious Taoist teachers will tell you that 1.5 hours of practice per day is the maximum that anyone not on retreat or living in a monastery should be doing. But I took it even further, because that's my nature. I had a 9 to 5 job then, with the standard 2 fifteen minute breaks and an hour lunch, and I would spend all that time doing more qigong and internal alchemy (neidan 內丹) practices, and then still more after work.
Now, this sort of routine can work-- if you're on retreat, or living as a monk, in a temple, with the special diets and spiritual protections appropriate to the tradition. If you're living an ordinary life in a city, it does not work. An army can make a forced march; an undisciplined multitude cannot. I kept up my routine for several months, and then things started to get really weird. I began to experience "sleep paralysis"-style spirits attack once a week like clockwork, every Wednesday or Thursday. The attacks spread to my girlfriend, every time she would sleep next to me. I became afraid to go to sleep at all, because I kept having nightmares that I was being attacked by ghosts, and I would always wake up in excruciating pain.
It went on like this for months. My qigong teacher was no help at all; he blamed my Celtic magical practices, insisting that the Druid gods are actually demons. I developed an explosive temper and started lashing out at everything. Then in the middle of all of this, my qigong teacher's own instructor in Chinese medicine, a prominent local acupuncturist known to all of us, was murdered in a grizzly fashion which I won't relate here. Was it a coincidence? Was it related? I didn't know then and I don't know now, but I knew that I was more than a little freaked out. It was around that point that I decided to stop all Taoist energetic practices, and focus only on Western magical work, done in the usual fashion-- about 30 minutes of practice a day.
And things calmed down.
Learn a lesson from my mistakes, and don't make them yourself. The battle for our souls is the most important work that we can do in our lives-- that's why Levi called it the Great Work. But we cannot do more than we're ready to do, and spiritual development in particular cannot, must not be forced.
Today, some heavy lifting from Sun Tzu. Or at least, it was heavy lifting for me:
Maneuvering with an army is advantageous; with an undisciplined multitude, most dangerous.
If you set a fully equipped army in march in order to snatch an advantage, the chances are that you will be too late. On the other hand, to detach a flying column for the purpose involves the sacrifice of its baggage and stores.
Thus, if you order your men to roll up their buff coats and make forced marches without halting day or night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch, doing a hundred li in order to wrest an advantage, the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into the hands of the enemy.
The stronger men will be in front, the jaded ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one tenth of your army will reach its destination.
If you set a fully equipped army in march in order to snatch an advantage, the chances are that you will be too late. On the other hand, to detach a flying column for the purpose involves the sacrifice of its baggage and stores.
Thus, if you order your men to roll up their buff coats and make forced marches without halting day or night, covering double the usual distance at a stretch, doing a hundred li in order to wrest an advantage, the leaders of all your three divisions will fall into the hands of the enemy.
The stronger men will be in front, the jaded ones will fall behind, and on this plan only one tenth of your army will reach its destination.
Sun Tzu is concerned here with forced marches; he adds a few other verses about how many of our men we will lose if we force-march 50 li or 30 li. (One li is about a third of a mile.)
What are we to make of this in terms of our own work, the overcoming of our inner enemies and the conquest of our own souls?
Maybe I'm slow, but it took me a few days to figure out what to do with this one. Then the following occurred to me.
Anyone who has done any type of spiritual teaching-- or teaching in anything that requires daily discipline, I imagine-- knows that there are two types of problem students. The first type, by far the more common, is the student who will do no training at all outside of class. If you have class three days a week, this sort of student can still make progress; if one day a week, they may progress, but very slowly; if you have class once a month, they will get nowhere and will drag everybody else down with them.
And then there's the second type of problem student. This type doesn't do too little work-- they do too much. Way too much. In some fields, the only danger is that this person will neglect the rest of their life. Someone who spends 14 hours practicing the guitar won't hurt themselves very badly, but their diet, health, hygiene, friends, and family are will suffer. Someone who spends as many hours training in martial arts is risking serious injury. And someone who spends that many hours doing spiritual practices-- especially practices which involve the movement of internal energies-- is risking their sanity and even their life.
I know this from experience; I am Problem Student Type 2.
Some years ago, I got involved in a group dedicated to qigong and Taoist internal alchemy. We would meet every day at 5am at a local park-- a very bad choice of location, as the park also served as an open-air motel for the city's heroin addicts-- and spend an hour practicing meditation, an hour doing qigong, and an hour doing tai chi. This was already too much-- serious Taoist teachers will tell you that 1.5 hours of practice per day is the maximum that anyone not on retreat or living in a monastery should be doing. But I took it even further, because that's my nature. I had a 9 to 5 job then, with the standard 2 fifteen minute breaks and an hour lunch, and I would spend all that time doing more qigong and internal alchemy (neidan 內丹) practices, and then still more after work.
Now, this sort of routine can work-- if you're on retreat, or living as a monk, in a temple, with the special diets and spiritual protections appropriate to the tradition. If you're living an ordinary life in a city, it does not work. An army can make a forced march; an undisciplined multitude cannot. I kept up my routine for several months, and then things started to get really weird. I began to experience "sleep paralysis"-style spirits attack once a week like clockwork, every Wednesday or Thursday. The attacks spread to my girlfriend, every time she would sleep next to me. I became afraid to go to sleep at all, because I kept having nightmares that I was being attacked by ghosts, and I would always wake up in excruciating pain.
It went on like this for months. My qigong teacher was no help at all; he blamed my Celtic magical practices, insisting that the Druid gods are actually demons. I developed an explosive temper and started lashing out at everything. Then in the middle of all of this, my qigong teacher's own instructor in Chinese medicine, a prominent local acupuncturist known to all of us, was murdered in a grizzly fashion which I won't relate here. Was it a coincidence? Was it related? I didn't know then and I don't know now, but I knew that I was more than a little freaked out. It was around that point that I decided to stop all Taoist energetic practices, and focus only on Western magical work, done in the usual fashion-- about 30 minutes of practice a day.
And things calmed down.
Learn a lesson from my mistakes, and don't make them yourself. The battle for our souls is the most important work that we can do in our lives-- that's why Levi called it the Great Work. But we cannot do more than we're ready to do, and spiritual development in particular cannot, must not be forced.
