[ MY JOURNEY OF MASTERING METAPHYSICS II ]
If you have been thinking of learning Chinese Metaphysics 玄學, I need to be honest with you.
Training to be a competent Metaphysics practitioner is not for the weak-minded, or those in for a quick buck.
Sorry for bursting your bubble of fallacies.
You can choose to specialize in one or a few genres. If you have a very brilliant and dedicated Shifu as your teacher, you are expected to be competent in many areas. And I mean, M-A-N-Y.
When I was about 13 years old, I came up with this game of adding up the numbers in a car plate. So in the many car rides I had with my younger sister, we would be competing to see who got the answer first, of any car that passed us by.
I always have an edge over her, being five years older. It takes me only two seconds or less to get the total sum of four random numbers.
I now think that was Divine Intervention preparing me for my inevitable future.
During my painful training as a Metaphysics practitioner, my mental dexterity was stretched wider than capabilities of the Elastic Girl. The homework was endless. The pressure was forever mounting.
In my bookshelves, I have easily 200 or more books on Metaphysics and Buddhism, mainly from Taiwan and Hong Kong. 90% are read. 70% of them are read more than once. Or even thrice.
Shifu believes that an able practitioner is one who has many real-life experiences, not just from reading books.
For starters, he wanted us to go out there and with whatever knowledge we have at that time, consult people for free and solve their problems. Master that ability to read people as if they are naked, so that they don't need to tell you their Bazi or Chinese names, and you would know their past, present and future.
When you can read a person very well, you can already read their living environments, without being physically there. Hence the saying, 人如其屋，屋如其人.
I now take about 10 seconds to read a person completely inside out. But Shifu does it in a split second. #姜還是老的辣 #oldgingeristhespiciest
My early years of training were very harsh.
When I go for my flight, during those long lull periods, I have to talk to a colleague, be it my junior or senior, about Metaphysics. It usually starts off with me analyzing my colleague's Chinese name and the conversation will flow from there. Love life problems, career choices, children issues, etc. Sure there were many awkward starts, embarrassing pauses but these interactions sure honed my skills and confidence fast.
When we dine at a restaurant, right after the waitress takes our order and leaves Shifu would turn round and ask us, so what is the most distinguishable feature on the waitress' face? What problem is she facing now? What does that mole on her face signify?
Insert *Blank looks all round the table.*
Got mole meh?
One of our most memorable impromptu training comes from cab rides. Taxi drivers are notorious for being opinionated, especially the older ones. Learning how to talk to them about Metaphysics and Buddhism was a nerve-zapping challenge for many of us.
If we shun away, we get scolded by Shifu. And gentle isn't exactly an adjective you would use to describe his chiding.
If we have the courage of a lion, as novices at that time, we fall short in the confidence and knowledge department, and the conversation usually ends with the taxi driver having the final (wrong) say.
Insert *bang head against wall*.
Once, we were at Uniqlo Suntec. Shifu wanted us to go up and advised the mother of a young male teenager, about a particular facial feature he has.
The mother was none other than Pan Lingling. She was at the store together with Rebecca Lim, Belinda Lin, Chew Chor Meng, Chen Han Wei, her husband and her son. Intimidated by their celebritity status, my Dharma Brother shook his head and did not dare to approach them.
I took a deep breath, walked up to the group and said what I should, pretending that I did not know who they were. Turned out that another practitioner had once told Pan Lingling about her son's feature too. #gladItried
It wasn't lead conversion that Shifu wanted us to learn. It was the willingness to help people and the guts to stand by the ancient knowledge of our sages, that Shifu hopes for us to master. A good doctor will never back away from treating a patient, just because the patient is very famous, right?
I used to write many lengthy Bazi reports, using the Bazi of famous people and people around me as case studies. I wrote countless reports analyzing Chinese names of people I know and people I don't know.
None of my reports passed Shifu's scrutiny on the first round. So there were often many, many, many rounds of correction...
I used to spend many late nights poring through the modern Chinese dictionary and the Kang Xi Chinese dictionary, coming up with suitable Chinese names for a fictitious Bazi. I figured it is that kind of nightmare that will wake me up if one day I slip into a coma.
I had to learn to write in traditional Chinese, as the art of 姓名學 Name Analysis is built on the foundation of traditional Chinese characters, not the simplified form that we are writing now.
The first time I wrote a 2-pager in traditional Chinese, it took me four hours.
I have sat in for hundreds and hundreds of Bazi consultations and Feng Shui audits.
Every time Shifu finished a Feng Shui audit or any consultation, we have to tell him what we had learn from the audit and explain why he did what he did. Without looking at our notes. Eloquence, memory power and solution suitability are the key points he is looking for. If any one of us screws up, never mind, just go home and write a report, detailing everything. 😱😱😱
Formulas for Bazi and Feng Shui (Yin House and Yang House) to memorize run as long, if not longer, as the Oxford Dictionary.
What I have shared is probably only 30% of what I had gone through as a Metaphysics apprentice.
Is it easy to learn to be a Chinese Metaphysics practitioner?
That depends on what caliber you aim to be.
To be continued.
