Path of Cultivation in Chinese Metaphysics

 Love these photos of Buddhism and Taoism co-existing. 

I think like many Feng Shui practitioners, along the way, we may bend towards Buddhism and/or Taoism belief. 

Not about those ritual practices but rather the values. 

After studying Bazi, I realized that no matter how good I am able to accurately read a person's life chart, very often there are little things I can do to change what will happen. 

When relationship turns sour and marriage fails, it's not as if you can "Feng Shui" a place and bring two person to fall in love with each other again. 

Accidents do happen. It's not as if you can hang something in your car or carry something in your bag and you can avoid a car crash just because you didn't crash onto someone else. But someone else crash onto you. 

We all will suffer from illnesses and death. No Fengshui in this world can guarantee that you will be free from cancer. 

That’s when I realized somewhere along my years of learning, I was stuck at a cross-road. 

Then why did “Heaven” or “God” let me learn Chinese metaphysics to be able to read charts but not giving me the ability to change lives? 

Slowly, along the way as I get to know more about Buddhism and Taoist philosophy I realized that perhaps Chinese metaphysics skills are only part of the story. 

These are merely tools (用）for us to read, to prepare, to understand. 

But the road of life takes more efforts than just Feng Shui-ing a place. As a Chinese saying goes. 

一命二运三风水，四积功德五读书，六名七相八敬神，九交贵人十养生

(1) Life, (2) Luck, (3) Feng Shui, (4) Karma, (5) Study, (6) Reputation, (7) Appearance, (8) Respect for spiritual, (9) Knowing Nobleman, (10) Healthy Living. 

Your Life and Luck is destined but if you put in effort in other areas, you can improve your life. 

But yet again this is only part of the story. Life is like a complicated “Matrix” programme. 

Everything is inter-related and everything has it’s own path, time and space. 

Imagine yourself a dot in the middle. You have macro external factors that influenced your life but you can’t see it and you can’t feel it. You can only feel or see the result. 

You can put them all together and perhaps call them “Act of God” but I somehow think of them as Siblings. 

The siblings are Nature, Fate, Time, Space, Illness, Mental, Karma.  They sometime work together or on each own. 

Unknowingly to you, they can be mischievous to you, they can also be cruel, evil or kind to you. 

And because there are too many macro external factors that are uncontrollable influencing us, Buddhism and Taoism philosophies seek to cultivate us to live with them, attempt to minimize (if not break away) their influences on our minds and bodies. 

The essence of Buddhism is on Internalising. The emphasis of 空， 无我 (emptiness) is to cultivate our mind, and hence our emotions to be “empty” so we do not get affected by other worldly affairs. 

At the same time, Buddhism encourages Compassion and believe in Karma. 

To have good thoughts, say good things, do good deed and bear good intentions to others. 

These are ways that we all can understand and hopefully do positively. And in so, no matter what might come along and hurt you. Hopefully you will have the strength internally to make yourself transparent like “emptiness” and reduce the hardship. 

Taoism on the other hand teaches one to understand nature and go with the flow of nature. 

The essence  of I-Ching was for people to understand how Nature evolves and changes through time, space, environment and people. 

There’s a Taoism saying 趋吉避凶 - leverage on the positive and avoid the negative. 

Another of my favorite quote from Dao De Ching (道德经）- 上善若水。Literally means “Be like Water”. 

 Be magnanimous, forgiving. You don’t have to fight with others or life forces. You can be adaptable and maneuver along even the smallest crack. 

You can stay and you can move. You can be as dirty and smelly as drain water but you can also be clean and drinkable water. You can be a droplet and you can be part of the ocean. 

In other words, adaptable, mutable, flexible. 

Not just in our actions but more so cultivating our minds and emotions. 

Hence the martial arts Taiji. 

When someone deal you a blow, as a Taiji practitioner, you bring in that blow, maneuver and control it. Either to exhaust the energy away or to convert it as another energy.

There are just too many things to talk about in Buddhism and Taoism philosophies. I’m just touching on the tip of the iceberg.

What I’m trying to say is. Through my life of studying Chinese metaphysic, I found that we need to also understand either or both Buddhism and Taoism philosophies. 

Rather than doing rituals or finding miracle cures, the cultivation of self, be it internalizing or flowing with nature is probably a better way of dealing with life obstacles/challenges.