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1.1 Hen and EggThe All Too Familiar Conundrum

Daoist philosophy is the fundamental root of traditional Chinese martial arts. The more deeply you understand the Dao, the better your martial arts skills will be. What is the Dao, you may then wonder? Although DaDaoZhiJian (the Great Dao is extremely simple), this is a difficult question to answer. The best place to begin looking for the answer is the first line of LaoZis DaoDeJing:

DaoKeDao FeiChangDao

Literally, this sentence is translated as: The Dao that can be the Dao is not the constant Dao. It sounds like a maze. With some knowledge of classical Chinese behind you, the translation may be interpreted as follows: The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. Still, however, you may feel confused. After some years of a dedicated inner cultivation practice, I have come to a different interpretation of the sentence: The Dao, discussed in any language, loses its original meaning. In other words, we cannot truly understand the Dao simply through words alone. As the way to attain the eternal Dao is wordless, the way to access the Dao must be through direct bodily experience. In order to gain this experiential knowledge, you must be seriously committed to your inner cultivation practice. The path to the eternal Dao involves gaining a deep understanding of your physical body, your Qi body, and your spiritual body. This is because the path to the eternal Dao is not mental or verbalrather, it is experiential.1

Behind these words is a powerful teaching encouraging us to use our cultivation practice to connect with the Dao. The Dai Family XinYi internal alchemical martial arts system offers a method of understanding the wordless teachings of the Dao by experiencing it through our bodies, our breath,

1 You may read more about this in my article, LaoZiHidden Dragon, Empty Vessel: A Journal of Daoist Philosophy and Practice, Winter 2013.

Extract from Xin Yi Wu Dao by Master Zhongxian Wu The full book is available to purchase from www.singingdragon.com

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and our spirits. Through this understanding you will also be able to refine your martial arts skills. Some practitioners prefer to study Daoist philosophy before learning martial arts, not wanting to blindly enter into a system of study. Most traditional masters, however, require their students to have at least one year of dedicated practice before exploring the related philosophy. This may be because many people get so lost in the pursuit of understanding through book knowledge that they either never take the action required to commit to a regular practice, or become so distracted by their own mental processes that they cant leave their heads long enough to fully experience the practice in their bodies. So then, where do we beginwith practice or study?

This rather tedious (if not pointless) question traps us in the proverbial hen and egg situation. Just as the farmer works with both hens and eggs in his day-to-day life, I suggest that having the philosophical context to enrich your practice is essential to reaching your highest aspirations. As martial arts (or internal alchemy) practitioners, we need both the henthe Daoist philosophyand the eggthe martial arts formsin our daily cultivation practice. The flow of this book dictates that I will first focus on the hen, after which I will then share some nice eggs in the subsequent chapters. With that, I can continue to work toward the answer to my beginning question: What is the Dao?

The Chinese character (Dao) is simply a trail, road, or path on which to walk. It also means guide, lead, rule, law, way, method, express, speak, justice, and moral. In classical Chinese philosophy, the Dao refers to the way of nature or the universal law. As I discussed in my book Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, WenYiZaiDao the pattern carries the Dao.2 This common saying suggests that the Chinese written characters themselves are vehicles for connecting with nature and channeling universal wisdom. A detailed study of Chinese graphemes, especially of Oracle Script (the oldest-known Chinese written pattern), allows us to garner greater insight from the ancient Chinese sages.

2 Heavenly Stems and Earthly BranchesTianGan DiZhi: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom Traditions (2014), by Master Zhongxian Wu and Dr. Karin Taylor Wu, also published by Singing Dragon.


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Figure 1: Dao in Oracle Script (calligraphy by Master Zhongxian Wu)

In Oracle Script, the Chinese character Dao is composed of three radicals. Xing is an image of an intersection, symbolizing the connection among all energies and all directions, and is the same symbol used for Element in Five Elements philosophy. The other two radicals are found sandwiched within Xing itself; found directly in the center of the entire character is Shou , a pattern of a head, which symbolizes observe, think, decision, or wisdom; Zhi is a picture of a foot, located at the bottom of the character, which


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represents walk or action. From the perspective of my cultivation practice, the ancient symbol Dao is a portrait of a high-level martial artist or Qigong master with her feet rooting deeply into the earth, head upright connecting with heaven, and entire body physically and spiritually open and merging with the universe itself. This is an illustration of the supreme state mentioned in all classical Chinese artsTianRenHeYi the oneness between human being and nature.

LaoZi further elucidates the meaning of the Dao for us in Chapter 25 of his DaoDeJing:

YuWuHunCheng XianTianDiSheng JiXiLiaoXiDuLiErBuGai ZhouXingErBuDai

KeYiWeiTianDiMu WuBuZhiQiMing ZiZhiYueDao

Something unfathomable createdBirthed before heaven and earth

Within the silence and voidStanding alone and unchangingRevolving without exhausting

May be the mother of heaven and earthI do not know her name

I call her Dao

From this description, we can imagine that the Dao is the origin of the primordial universe. In the Daoist classic QingJingJing , LaoZi describes the Dao as both source and driving force of nature:


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DaDaoWuXing ShengYTianDiDaDaoWuQing YunXingRiYue

DaDaoWuMing ChangYangWanWuWuBuZhiQiMing QiangMingYueDao

The Great Dao is formlessGives birth to heaven and earthThe Great Dao is emotionless

Conveys the motion of the sun and the moon The Great Dao is nameless

Raises and nourishes the Ten-Thousand-Things I do not know her name

I name her Dao

Try as we may, words (even inspired ones) will eventually fail to express the true nature of the Dao. The only way to experience the reality of the Dao is through our inner cultivation practice. In the next section, I must continue discussing the hen in order to explain the Dai Family XinYi system in relation to Daoist philosophyafter which we can begin tasting the eggs!


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