Preface; this is a look at the darkness of the soul at it’s darkest before the light. Said in any other way, in so many words, and you have already made a mistake. Beware for your very souls!
Recently, the Chessman said something on Facebook that hit a little different.
“Blessed Sunday! Studying the 7 deadly sins this week and sloth today. The idea of sloth not just as laziness but as being unfocused and busy at things that don’t matter was a nice insight.”
“As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.” (Proverbs 26:14 KJV)
“Be not slothful in business; be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” (Romans 12:11 KJV)
The thing is, why is Chessman quoting the bible?
I don’t mean why is he dragging morality into this… I mean, why the Bible and not Confucius?
I really want you to take a moment and see what is going on here. In order to do so you must at least — even only momentarily — attempt to comprehend the massive, blinding influence Confucianism has had on Chinese culture. To the Chinese, Confucianism is life itself — it is survival. Without getting to deep into it, Confucianism as seen as the means by which the Chinese have survived. Those who stray from the path do not make it to the next generation. This reflects strongly on kungfu culture; it is, in fact, the very thing that allows Chinese kungfu quintessentially Chinese and quintessentially Kungfu.
This isn’t a knock on the bible. We here in the West grew up in a Christian country. This affects us in ways we cannot comprehend. However, you can see the approachings of the horizons of it from far away, through careful thought, if you learn your zen meditation.
This got me thinking. What does it mean when it is said, “This generation is evil, and we cannot pass Kungfu down to it.” Whoever the we is — which, incidentally, has come to include me. I know this is a lot to process so let’s take a step back and let me just say that I am of a very low skill level. However, I seem to have entered the door, in some small way.
And even from this vantage point, I can easily see, “This generation is evil, and we cannot pass Kungfu down to it.” But here’s the paradox. Even as I realize this, I realize that I myself am also “evil”, and that is a very large reason why I am of middling to no skill in kung fu.
How did I pass through the door? It’s simple, there is a door, and you simply pass through it. For example, when I met my sifu on the street, I bowed down to my sifu. In the middle of a crosswalk, I saw him driving, so I bowed down on the street. He smiled. Another way, was that when my ‘friend’ did something disrespectful and a senior student had to put him in his place, I stood there and let him yell at me too even though I had nothing to do with it. Another way? I basically failed out of University for not going to my classes, because I was busy practicing kungfu in the park for 4 hours every morning. Yes, I am a sick puppy. Frankly, I had friends in gradeschool but I was also something of a loner or a loser– which was strange, since I seemed otherwise to have led a normal life, with friends, parties and such. But looking back I realize that some of my greatest personality flaws, which were criticized and caused me to become ostracized from most others were my excessive generosity and unwillingness to be abusive to others; my desire to work hard instead of socialize and play; my desire to explore nature and my natural intelligence.
In short, I passed through the door because I wanted to. That’s all. It’s like that line from the neijing tu. “Those who desire to study this will surely achieve something good.” Anyways, after all of this I sort of realize, that evil here is not like what we in the west think of as evil. We are not talking about the devil, or sin per-se. We are talking about a kind of “evil” that “leads to death,” but not necessarily through sin.
Look, let me explain it this way. Let’s go back to the 1970s. Milton Freidman famously argued, “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” That is true by common sense (and incidentally, by law). Yet what most people do not know about this is that Mr. Freidman was responding to someone. Now we need to go back — back to the future — to the 1950s.
Keith Davis was a major business ethics scholar in the 1950s–1960s, and he did state quite plainly that ethical and socially responsible companies tend to perform better over the long run than immoral ones. He is best known for formulating the Iron Law of Responsibility in 1960: “Those who do not use power responsibly will lose it.” This gave birth to the New American Capitalism — the strategy that dominated world business and finance for the next 100 years.
Business ethics explicitly pays
The idea that a postwar scholar would identify morality as a key driver of success would sound very familiar to a Confucian scholar. In “Can Business Afford to Ignore Social Responsibilities?” and “Business and Society” was shown the idea that ethical behavior is economically rational; trust reduces transaction costs, reputation attracts customers, employees, and partners, and social legitimacy protects firms from regulation, backlash, and collapse.
Further, he stated the quiet part out loud: Immoral firms tend to destroy their own operating environment. Davis observed that companies acting irresponsibly invite regulation, provoke public backlash, and destabilize the very markets they depend on. This leads to lower long-term profitability, even if short-term gains occur.
The reason thus explained; this is not just an issue of morality, it is an issue of intelligence, wisdom, discipline, and experience. Many people simply do not understand the tradeoff between short term gains and long term profitability. What Davis claimed is a core assumption of Confucianism:
Ethics is not a cost; it is a long-term investment in your very survival.
“A company that acts honestly and responsibly will tend to do better over the long run than one that acts immorally or irresponsibly.”
Now let’s turn back to Confucianism; it’s easy to understand now. Confucianism states that people who take the short-term benefit are evil.
Who is evil?
You are very likely evil, but I’m not really criticizing you. I’m not criticizing anyone. However, there are some events that led up to this epiphany. Last summer some people got banned from some martial arts forums for talking politics. Well, not just talking politics, but spewing vitriol against President Donald Trump. The thing is, you can be a democrat if you want but spewing hatred is spewing hatred. Me? I live in Asia. I’m not a part of the system. I’m just saying, that America has republicans and democrats. I’m not judging that, i’m judging the spewing of hatred. Democracy means you get to vote. Spewing hatred against a political party is not Democracy. It’s anti-democracy because you become so blinded by hate that you do not do the democratic thing and vote the bad guys out — you try to do skirt the system (and the law) by taking short-term action. One of the first steps people engage in is telling lies and spreading propaganda because “the end justifies the means”. This is a common cry and yet it is just as anti-Christian as it is anti-Confucian.
It is in this light that one of my younger kungfu siblings blocked me on social media. Actually, two of them did.
You may find this surprising on many fronts. Let’s just keep it simple: I said that they were posting too many swear words, and spewing too much hatred. They argued with me. I said that they had been misrepresenting facts which were reported in newspapers. They argued with me about that too. But the final straw was when I pointed out they were posting fake AI-generated images to support the previous content. After that, I was blocked. BTW this is iron-clad — the photo was exposed as AI generated by the BBC and once you see the mistakes in the photo the AI made, it is impossible to deny. Yet, they argued with me, and then blocked me. They allowed themselves to become blinded by hatred, they lost the ability to deal with things fairly and rationally, and as a result they excused themselves from our kungfu family. I’ve done nothing to upset anyone. I am not even making a big deal about being their senior, like I am some sort of boss — even the son can criticize the father, if done properly. It’s in the dizi gui. The fact that I am senior is just an uno card that underscores the absurdity of this situation.
Thus, the kungfu cannot be passed down to them. It’s not because they are being punished. It’s not because they can’t learn from Sifu. It’s because they cut themselves off from the truth, from the family, from a source of truth and kungfu — I tell you, I am sure they can learn just as much from me as I could ever learn from them. Now, who will teach them?
The Proof is in the Pudding
Are you a master yet? Are we there yet, pappa smurf?
Let this not be seen as an attack, heaven forbid. But I will say, if this was the only thing I had to mention of their evil, I would not say it. However, the proof is in the pudding. Let’s be honest for a moment. Their kungfu is not good. One of them specializes in therapeutic sit-down qigong for seniors, and another lacks several wude virtues such as min. This is not an attack because it is not unusual. “Min” for example is an extremely hard concept to grasp for Westerners because there is absolutely nothing like it in western culture. To call it “dilligence” is wrong. It is no surprise then that almost every martial artist I have ever met in Canada lacks this basic confucian virtue. Why would they have it? They’re not confucian!
And so, this isn’t an attack, although it will surely be taken as one by the guilty. However, I assure you, they are not “guilty”. You see, “Evil” is the wrong word from a western perspective. A better word would be “not confucian” or “not chinese”. Small c, meaning, informally so. A very hard concept to understand.
Is this the legacy of Wang Ziping?
What have you done? (What have we done? What have you done? What have you done?)
If not you, then who? If not me, then who? If not now, when?
Just go and do it. Walk through the door. No one is stopping you. That’s the story of Wang Ziping just as much as it is the story of the patriarchs. A story filled with hope — emunah — and it is in that light this story should be told; for against all odds, a hope may arise — a star may shine that you may hitch your wagon to it — for all you need is a dream. So go, and dream — for dreams are the highest reality.