Yesterday I reposted an old video (Embedded Below). It was something I posted back in the first COVID lockdown. I recorded it on my phone and the audio was really bad. I used an AI tool and it made the audio very clear. This is a good use of AI.
Unfortunately- it is very easy for people now to use AI to make their forms look better, sharper, make them look stronger, faster etc. this is harmful and misleading.
I mean, it is good for entertainment- Superhero/Wuxia movies etc. but people are depressed because their real life doesn’t match other peoples online ‘perfect lives’- it never can, because you are seeing something which is edited, filtered, and now: AI enhanced.
Now you can also be depressed because your kung fu can never match an online ‘perfect form’!
The most fundamental exercise in Zen Buddhism is called ‘wall gazing’. Da-Mo who, according to legend, founded Kung Fu and Zen, having travelled from India to the Shaolin Temple in China, spent nine years in a cave looking at the wall. The challenge is to just clearly see what is arising in the present moment. No distraction, just open awareness. Thoughts come, boredom comes, pain in the legs comes- it is all just the stream of passing thoughts and perceptions arising in consciousness.
Most people cannot do this for half an hour- never mind nine years! There is a constant need for distraction, for entertainment. And now, with portable electronic devices- we need never be ‘bored’ again. Unfortunately- this means never facing the wall, the reality, the present moment. We are always ‘running away’ from the immediate experience and experiencing life from an illusory safe distance.
‘Consciousness’ is what is understanding these words on the screen now. AI doesn’t have it. It is your ‘original face’ as the Zen Buddhists say. It is the real miracle that arises continually, in the present moment. It can’t be ‘enhanced’ because it is already perfect. There is nothing to compare it to, because everything else arises within it.
When your Kung Fu, or any area of your life comes from this insight, you are no longer interested in ‘self improvement’ per se. The idea that you need improving is already a delusion, in fact- the idea that you are a ‘self’ is a delusion, ha!
So- why do we do it? Because it is a beautiful expression of this principle. Birds sing, not to make a ‘hit’ song, flowers bloom, not to make a perfect social media picture. When you just do something for the pure joy of it – you are expressing your true self. You are partaking in the act of creation.
I am currently travelling in Asia. After seeing my teacher in China, I have travelled to Vietnam, to an area which is a hotbed for ‘digital nomads’. This is something that appeals to me, because of a boyhood fantasy about ‘non attachment’: wandering the world like ‘Kwai Chang Caine’ or more recently, ‘Jack Reacher’. Teaching online, I am free from the constraints of a physical school, and can teach people in any location, from any location.
But now I am older, I see that you can never really ‘get away’ from anything. ‘Wherever you go- there you are!’ as the saying goes. It is always ‘here’, it is always ‘now’.
So, for some people, the apparent ‘non attachment’ of the ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle is actually a subtle form of escapism, a wish for things to be different, more exciting.
Here, lots of people who are ‘surgically cosmetically enhanced’ are walking around with ‘selfie cameras’. People back home are seeing their perfect faces, bodies, perfect lives. Then they turn off the camera, and something changes. You can feel it. It is almost as if they only exist when they are being filmed. Many really do not seem happy- they are impatient to get to the next location- turn on the camera and become again the avatar that really has a good time. It feels very inauthentic to me, but perhaps that is just my judging mind.
I can see this same tendency in myself: I get a nice meal, and there is a need almost, to photograph the meal to send to my girlfriend or my kids. I certainly like it when they do that to me (Perhaps a primal instinct, to make sure your loved ones are well fed?)
In Canton, they say: “相機食先”- ‘The camera eats first.’ It has become part of the culture.
The first time I saw somebody do that I laughed to myself- how ridiculous! Ten years later, I was doing it, too. I guess because we have our camera phones with us always, and it’s easy to do. I mean, when I was young you wouldn’t take a camera to a restaurant, never mind going to the chemist to have the film developed, and then traveling to your friends to show them your pictures- they would think you were mad!
Perhaps now, it is just easier to be mad?
Anyway, this has been a little musing before going out.
If people like this kind of a thing, please comment and get a conversation going. If you would prefer I stick to the kung fu/tai chi posts, let me know too. I have some free time in the next couple of weeks and happy to write/film whatever you guys want more of.
