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"You ought to know by now that the outward form of anything we do is really an expression of our inner state."
...
"It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you gather energy with your actions and transform it into power."
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It was growing dark and I was becoming more and more apprehensive about finishing my task.
Clara had asked me to rake the leaves in the clearing behind the house; and also to carry some rocks from the stream and make a border on each side of the path leading from the vegetable garden to the back of the patio.
I had raked the leaves, and was hurriedly lining up the river rocks along the path when Clara came out of the house to check on my progress.
"You're setting the rocks any which way," she said glancing at the path. "And you haven't raked up the leaves yet. What have you been doing all afternoon, daydreaming again?"
To my dismay, an untimely gust of wind had scattered the neat piles I had made before I had had a chance to put the leaves in a basket.
"The path looks pretty good to me," I said, on the defensive:
"As for the leaves, well, can I help it if the wind made a mess of them?"
"When aiming for the perfect form, 'pretty good' isn't good enough," Clara interrupted:
"You ought to know by now that the outward form of anything we do is really an expression of our inner state."
I told her that I didn't see how arranging heavy rocks could be anything but hard work.
"That's because you do everything just to get by," she retorted.
She walked over to the row of rocks I had lined up and shook her head. "These rocks look as if you've dropped them without considering their proper placement."
"It's getting dark and I was running out of time," I explained.
I was in no mood for a lengthy discussion on aesthetics or composition.
Besides, I felt I already knew more than Clara about the subject of composition from my art classes.
Clara said, "Placing rocks is just like practicing kung fu.
"It's how we do things that matters, not how fast or how much we get done."
I shook my wrists to relax my cramped fingers. "Do you mean that carrying rocks is a part of martial arts training?" I asked, surprised.
"What do you think kung fu is?" she countered.
I suspected she was asking me a trick question, so I deliberated for a moment to find the right answer.
I said confidently, "It's a set of martial arts fighting techniques."
Clara shook her head. "Leave it to Taisha to come up with a pragmatic reply," she said with a laugh.
She sat down on one of the wicker chairs at the edge of the patio from where we had a good view of the path.
I slumped into the chair next to her.
I settled comfortably, propping my feet on the rim of a huge ceramic pot.
Clara then began to explain that the term "kung fu" is derived from the juxtaposition of two Chinese characters; one meaning 'work done over a period of time,' and the other word signifying 'man.'
When these two characters are combined, the term refers to man's endeavor to perfect himself through constant effort.
She contended that whether we practice formal exercises, or arrange rocks, or rake leaves we always express our inner state through our actions.
"Therefore, to perfect our acts is to perfect ourselves," Clara said. "This is the true meaning of kung fu."
"But still, I don't see the connection between garden work and practicing kung fu," I said.
"Then let me spell it out for you," Clara replied with a tone of exaggerated patience:
"I asked you to carry the rocks from the stream so that walking up the hilly trail with the added weight would develop your internal strength.
"We are not just interested in building muscles, but rather in cultivating internal energy.
"Also, all the breathing passes I have taught you thus far, and that you should be practicing daily, are designed to increase your internal strength."
I felt guilty: From the way she had looked at me when she said I should be practicing the breathing exercises daily, I knew that she was aware I wasn't doing them religiously.
"What you have been learning here with me might be referred to in China as internal kung fu, or nei kung," Clara continued:
"Internal kung fu uses controlled breathing and the circulation of energy to strengthen the body and augment one's health.
"External martial arts, like the karate forms you learned from your Japanese teachers and some of the forms I showed you, focus on building muscles and quick body responses in which energy is released and is directed away from us."
Clara said that internal kung fu was practiced by monks in China long before they developed the external or hard styles of fighting that are popularly known as kung fu today.
"But understand this," Clara continued. "Regardless of whether you are learning martial arts or the discipline I have been teaching you, the goal of your training is to perfect your inner being so that it can transcend its outer form in order to accomplish the abstract flight."
A feeling of dejection swept over me like a somber cloud.
I felt my old mood of failure taking hold of me.
Even if I did do the breathing passes as Clara recommended, I felt I would never be able to succeed in whatever it was that she wanted.
I didn't even know what the great crossing meant, let alone conceive of it as a pragmatic possibility.
"You've been very patient all these months," Clara said, patting me on the back as if sensing my need for encouragement:
"You've never really pressed me about my constant insinuations that I am teaching you sorcery as a formal discipline."
I saw the perfect opportunity to ask something that had been on my mind from the first time she used the word.
"Why do you call this formal discipline sorcery?" I asked.
Clara peered at me. The expression on her face was seriousness itself.
"It's hard to say," she replied. " My reluctance to discuss it is because I don't want to misname it and scare you away.
"I think now is the time to talk about it, though.
"But first let me tell you something more about the people of ancient Mexico."
Clara leaned toward me and in a low voice said that the people of pre-Hispanic Mexico were very similar in many respects to the ancient Chinese.
Perhaps because they both may have had the same origins, they shared a similar world view.
The ancient Indians of Mexico, however, had a slight advantage, she said, because the world in which they lived was in transition.
This made them extremely eclectic and curious about every facet of existence.
They wanted to understand the universe, life, death and the range of human possibilities in terms of awareness and perception.
Their great drive to know led them to develop practices that enabled them to arrive at unimaginable levels of awareness.
They made detailed descriptions of their practices and mapped the realms that those practices unveiled.
This tradition they handed down from generation to generation, always shrouding it in secrecy.
Nearly out of breath with excitement or perhaps wonderment, Clara ended her discussion of those ancient Indians by saying that they were indeed sorcerers.
She stared at me wide-eyed. In the twilight, her pupils were enormous.
She confided that her foremost teacher, a Mexican Indian, possessed a complete knowledge of those ancient practices, and he had taught them to her.
"Are you teaching me those practices, Clara?" I asked, matching her excitement. "You said the crystals were used as weapons by the ancient sorcerers, and the sorcery passes were empowered with their intent, and the recapitulation also was devised in ancient times. Does that mean that I am learning sorcery?"
"That is partially true," Clara said. "But for the time being, it's better not to focus on the fact that these practices are sorcery."
"Why not?"
"Because we are interested in something beyond the aberrant, esoteric rituals and incantations of those sorcerers of ancient times.
"You see, we believe that their bizarre practices and obsessive search for power resulted only in a greater enhancement of the self.
"This is a dead-end road because it never leads to total freedom, and total freedom is what we ourselves are after.
"The danger is that one can easily become swayed by the mood of those sorcerers."
"I wouldn't become swayed," I assured her.
"I really can't tell you any more at the moment," she said, exasperated, "but you'll find out more as you go along."
I felt betrayed and protested vehemently.
I accused her of deliberately toying with my mind and feelings by keeping me dangling with bits of information that piqued my curiosity; and with promises that all was going to be clarified at some unspecified future date.
Clara completely ignored my protests. It was as if I hadn't said a word.
She stood up, walked over to the pile of rocks and picked one up as if it were made of Styrofoam.
After deliberating for a moment as to which side to turn up, she set the rock down on the edge of the path.
She then arranged two more rocks the size of footballs on either side of it. When she was satisfied with their placement, she stepped back to study the effect.
I had to admit that the garden path, the smooth gray rocks she had set, and the jagged green leaves of the plants made a most harmonious composition.
"It is the grace with which you manipulate things that matters," Clara reminded me as she picked up another rock:
"Your inner state is reflected in the way you move, talk, eat or place rocks.
"It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you gather energy with your actions and transform it into power."
For a while, Clara gazed at the path as if considering where to place the next rock she held in her hands.
When she found a suitable spot, she gently set it down and gave it an affectionate pat.
"As an artist you should know that the rocks have to be put where they are in balance," she said, "not where it is the easiest for you to drop them.
"Of course, if you were imbued with power, you could drop them any which way and the result would be beauty itself.
"To understand this is the real purpose of the exercise of placing rocks." From the tone of her voice, and the ugly, erratic arrangement of my rocks, I realized I had failed again at my task.
I felt acutely dejected.
"Clara, I'm not an artist," I confessed. "I'm merely a student. In fact, I'm an ex-student. I dropped out of art school a year ago. I like to make believe that I'm an artist, but that's about all. I'm really nothing."
"We are all nothing," Clara reminded me.
"I know, but you are a mysterious, powerful nothing, while I'm a meager, stupid, petty nothing. I can't even set down a bunch of dumb rocks. There's no..."
Clara clamped her hand over my mouth. "Don't say another word," she warned. "I'm telling you again.
"Be careful of what you say out loud in this house, especially in the twilight!"
It was almost dark then and everything was absolutely still to the point of being eerie.
The birds were silent. Everything had quieted down. Even the wind, which had been so annoying earlier while I was trying to rake the leaves, had settled.
"It's the time of no shadows," Clara whispered. "Let's sit under this tree in the dark and find out if you can summon the shadows' world."
"Wait a moment, Clara," I said in a loud whisper that bordered on a screech. "What are you going to do to me?"
Waves of nervousness were cramping my stomach, and in spite of the cold, my forehead was perspiring.
Clara asked me then outright if I had been practicing the breaths and the sorcery passes she had taught me.
I wanted more than anything to tell her that I had, yet that would have been a lie.
In truth, I had practiced them minimally, just so I wouldn't forget them; because recapitulating took all of my available energy and left me no time for anything else. At night I was too tired to do anything, so I just went to bed.
"You haven't been doing them regularly or you wouldn't be in this sorry state now," Clara said, leaning closer. "You're trembling like a leaf.
"There's one secret to the breathing and the passes I've taught you that makes them invaluable."
"What is that?" I stammered.
Clara tapped me on the head. "They have to be practiced every day or else they're worthless.
"You wouldn't think of going without eating or drinking water, would you? The exercises I've taught you are even more important than food and water."
She had made her point. I silently vowed that every night before going to bed I would do them, and again upon awakening in the morning before going to the cave.
"The human body has an extra energy system that comes into play when we are under stress," Clara explained. "And stress happens any time we do anything to excess; like being overly concerned with yourself and your performance, as you are now.
"That's why one of the fundamental precepts of the art of freedom is to avoid excesses."
She said that the movements she was teaching me, whether she called them breaths or sorcery passes, were important because they operate directly on the reserve system; and that the reason they can be called indispensable passes is because they allow added energy to pass into and through our reserve pathways.
Then when we are summoned to action, instead of becoming depleted from stress, we become stronger, and have surplus energy for extraordinary tasks.
"Now, before we summon the shadows' world, I'll show you two more indispensable sorcery passes which combine breathing and movements," she went on:
"Do them every day and you not only won't get tired or sick, but you'll have plenty of surplus energy for your intending."
"For my what?"
"Your intending," Clara repeated. "For intending the result of anything you do. Remember?"
She held my shoulders and twisted me around so that I was facing north.
"This movement is particularly important for you, Taisha, because your lungs are weakened from excessive weeping," she said:
"A lifetime of feeling sorry for yourself certainly has taken its toll on your lungs."
Her statement jolted me to attention.
I watched her bend her knees and ankles and assume a martial art posture called the 'straight horse,' because it simulates the sitting position of a rider mounted on a horse, with his legs a shoulders' width apart and slightly bowed.
The index finger of her left hand was pointed down, while her other fingers were curled at the second joint.
As she began to inhale, she gently but forcefully turned her head to the right as far as she could, and rotated her left arm at the shoulder joint over her head in a full circle all the way to the back, ending up with the heel of her left palm resting on her tailbone.
Simultaneously she brought her right arm around her waist to her back and placed her right fist over the back of her left hand, wedging it against her bent left wrist.
Using her right fist, she pushed up her left arm along her spinal column, her left elbow bent akimbo, and finished her inhalation.
She held her breath for a count of seven, then released the tension on her left arm, lowered it to her tailbone again and rotated it at the shoulder joint straight overhead to the front, ending up with the heel of her left palm resting on her pubis.
Simultaneously she brought her right arm around her waist to the front and placed that fist on the back of her left hand, and pushed the left arm up her abdomen as she finished exhaling.
"Do this movement once with your left arm, and again with your right one," she said. "That way you will balance your two sides."
To demonstrate, she repeated the same movements, alternating arms, and this time turning her head to the left.
"Now you try it, Taisha," she said, stepping aside to give me room to circle my arm backward.
I replicated her movements.
As I swung my left arm back, I felt a painful tension along the underside of my extended arm, running all the way from my finger to my armpit.
"Relax and let the breath's energy flow through your arm and out of the tip of your index finger," she said. "Keep it extended and the other fingers curved. That way you'll release any blockage of energy along the pathways in your arm."
The pain grew even more acute as I pushed my bent arm upward along my back.
Clara noticed my pinched expression. "Don't push too hard," she warned, "or you'll strain your tendons. And round your shoulders a bit more as you push."
After performing the movement with my right arm, I felt a burning in my thigh muscles from standing with my knees and ankles bent.
Even though I stood in the same position every day while practicing kung fu, my legs seemed to vibrate as if an electric current were running through them.
Clara suggested I stand up and shake my legs a few times to release the tension.
Clara emphasized that in this sorcery pass, rotating and pushing the arms up in conjunction with breathing moves energy to the organs in the chest and vitalizes them.
It massages deep, underlying centers that rarely are activated.
Turning the head massages the glands in the neck and also opens energy passageways to the back of the head.
She explained that if awakened and nourished by the energy from breathing, these centers could unravel mysteries beyond anything we can imagine.
"For the next sorcery pass," Clara said, "stand with your feet together and look straight ahead as if you were facing a door that you are going to open."
Clara told me to raise my hands to eye level and to curl my fingers as if I were placing them inside the recessed handles of sliding doors that open in the middle.
"What you are going to open is a crack in the energy lines of the world," she explained:
"Imagine those lines as rigid vertical cords that make a screen in front of you.
"Now grab a bunch of the fibers and pull them apart with all your might.
"Pull them apart until the opening is big enough for you to step through."
She told me that once I had made that hole, I should step forward with my left leg and then quickly, using my left foot as a pivot, rotate one hundred and eighty degrees counterclockwise to face the direction from which I had come.
By my turning in this manner, the energy lines I had pushed apart would wrap around me.
To return, she said, I had to open the lines again by pulling them apart the same way I had done before, then step out with the right foot and quickly turn one hundred and eighty degrees clockwise as soon as I had taken the step. In this fashion, I would have unwrapped myself and would again be facing the direction in which I had begun the sorcery pass.
"This is one of the most powerful and mysterious of all the sorcery passes," Clara cautioned. "With it we can open doors to different worlds, provided of course that we have stored a surplus of internal energy and are able to realize the intent of the pass."
Her serious tone and expression made me ill at ease.
I didn't know what to expect if I succeeded in opening that invisible door.
In a brusque tone, she then gave me some final instructions.
"When you step in," she said, "your body has to feel rooted, heavy, full of tension.
"But once you are inside and have turned around, you should feel light and airy, as if you were floating upward.
"Exhale sharply as you first lunge forward through the opening, then inhale slowly and deeply, filling your lungs completely with the energy from behind that screen."
I practiced the pass several times as Clara looked on, but it was as if I were only going through the outward motions.
I couldn't feel the energy fibers forming the screen that Clara was talking about.
"You're not pulling the door open hard enough," Clara corrected me. "Use your internal energy, not just your arm muscles. Expel the stale air and pull in your stomach as you lunge forward. Once inside, breathe as many times as you can, but be on the alert. Don't stay longer than you need to."
I mustered up all my strength and grabbed the air. Clara stood behind me, held my forearms and gave them a tremendous pull sideways.
Instantly I felt as if some sliding doors had opened.
Exhaling sharply, I lunged through it, or rather Clara had given me a shove from behind, pushing me forward.
I remembered to turn around and breathe deeply, but for a moment I worried that I wouldn't know when to come out. Clara sensed this and told me when to stop breathing and when to step out.
"As you practice this sorcery pass by yourself," Clara said, "you'll learn to do it perfectly, but be careful.
"All sorts of things can happen once you go through that opening.
"Remember, you have to be cautious and at the same time bold."
"How will I know which is which?" I asked.
Clara shrugged. "For a while, you won't. Unfortunately, prudence comes to us only after we've gotten blasted."
She added that cautiousness without cowardice is hinged on our ability to control our internal energy; and to divert it into the reserve channels so that it is available to us when we need it for extraordinary actions.
"With enough internal energy, anything can be accomplished," Clara said, "but we need to store and refine it.
"So let's both practice some of the sorcery passes you've learned and see if you can be cautious without being cowardly and summon up the shadows' world."
I experienced a surge of energy that began as small circles in my stomach.
At first 1 thought it was fear, but my body didn't feel frightened.
It was as if an impersonal force, void of desires or sentiment, was stirring inside me; moving from the inside out. As it ascended, my upper back jerked involuntarily.
Clara moved to the center of the patio, and I followed her.
She began doing some of the sorcery passes, slowing herself down to allow me to follow her.
"Close your eyes," she whispered. "When your eyes are closed, it's easier to use energy lines that are already there to keep your balance."
I shut my eyes and started to move in unison with Clara.
I had no trouble following her cues for changing positions, yet I had difficulty in keeping my balance.
I knew it was because I was trying too hard to do the movements correctly. It was like the time I had tried walking with my eyes shut, and kept stumbling because I desperately wanted to succeed.
But gradually my desire to excel diminished and my body became more limber and subtle.
As we kept on moving, I became so relaxed that I felt I had no bones or joints.
If I raised my arms overhead, it seemed I could stretch them all the way to the tops of the trees.
If I bent my knees and lowered my weight, a surge of energy rushed downward through my feet.
I felt I had grown roots. Lines were extending from the soles of my feet deep into the earth, giving me an unprecedented stability.
Gradually the boundary between my body and its surroundings dissolved.
With every pass I did, my body seemed to melt and merge with the darkness until it began to move and breathe all by itself.
I could hear Clara breathing beside me, performing the same passes.
With my eyes closed, I sensed her shape and postures.
At one point, the strangest thing yet happened.
I felt a light turning on inside my forehead.
But as I looked up, I became aware that the light wasn't really inside me at all. It came from the top of the trees, as if a huge panel of electric lights had been turned on at night, illuminating an outdoor stadium.
I had no trouble seeing Clara and everything on the patio, and what was around it.
The light had the strangest hue, and I couldn't decide if it was rose-tinted, pinkish or peach, or like pale terra-cotta.
In places, it seemed to change its glare depending on where I looked.
Clara, peering at me curiously, said, "Don't move your head, and continue keeping your eyes closed. Just concentrate on your breathing."
I didn't know why she had said to continue keeping my eyes closed since she saw that my eyes were wide open: I was trying to determine the coloration of the light, for it seemed to change with every movement of my head, and its intensity fluctuated depending on how hard I stared at it.
I became so involved with the glow around me that I lost the rhythm of the breaths.
Then as suddenly as the light had turned on, it switched off again and I was left in total darkness.
"Let's go into the kitchen and heat up some stew," Clara said, nudging me. '
I hesitated. I felt disoriented; out of place. My body was so heavy I thought I must be sitting down.
"You can open your eyes now," Clara said.
I never remembered having had such a difficult time opening my eyes as I did at that moment.
It seemed to take me forever to do it, for just as I got them open, they would droop shut again.
This opening and closing seemed to go on for a long time, until I felt Clara shaking my shoulders.
"Taisha, open your eyes!" she commanded. "Don't you dare pass out on me. Do you hear?"
I shook my head to clear it and my eyes popped open.
They had been closed all the time.
It was pitch black, but there was enough moonlight coming through the foliage to see Clara's silhouette. We were sitting under the tree on the two rattan armchairs in the patio.
"How did I get here?" I asked dazed.
"You walked over here and sat down," Clara said matter-of-factly.
"But what happened? A moment ago it was light. I could see everything clearly."
"What happened is that you entered into the shadows' world," Clara said with a congratulatory tone:
"I could tell by the rhythm of your breathing that you had gone there, but I didn't want to frighten you then by asking you to look at your shadow.
"If you had looked, you would have known that..."
I instantly understood what Clara was intimating.
I gasped, "There were no shadows. There was light but nothing had a shadow."
Clara nodded. "Tonight you've found out something of real value, Taisha. In the worlds outside this one, there are no shadows!"