In this chapter, we will mainly discuss the so-called cultivation of qi.
When ordinary people cultivate qi, they mostly use breathing methods to mobilize the flow of qi within the body, adjusting the state of their qi and blood, and through that adjustment gaining certain special abilities.
Such as accelerating metabolism, or shifting the position of qi and blood to enhance the energy activity of a specific part of the body, and so on.
But those who cultivate immortality do not mobilize the energy of qi solely by adjusting their breathing. They also adjust their thoughts.
Adjust yourself into a state of anger and fury, and that emotion will cause the body to secrete large amounts of adrenaline.
Besides helping raise your combat power, adrenaline has other unique tricks. It can dull your sense of pain, reduce fear, heighten excitement, and make your vision feel clearer than ever before. Your strength and reactions will surge far beyond normal, allowing you to rapidly become active from the brink of death within an extremely short time.
But remember, do not use it excessively. Too much will produce the opposite effect.
By the same token, other emotions can have similar effects.
This method of mobilization requires no wind-up time. It can be activated in an instant, with complete ease in releasing and withdrawing it.
The emotional power being mobilized here does not mean truly getting yourself so furious you are beside yourself, or so sad you are beside yourself.
It means mobilizing only that state, not genuinely making yourself angry.
If real emotions rise up, the mind will stop working clearly and your own judgment will be clouded.
The state during mobilization is similar to practicing Drunken Fist—the form is drunk, but the intent is not drunk; the principle is exactly the same.
Outwardly, you may seem to be seething with rage, yet inwardly you remain calm, knowing that this is merely a method and not that you truly need to become angry.
You must be able to adjust the level of anger according to the actual situation—or rather, the strength of the energy.
If you can achieve this, you are already something different.
Beyond ordinary people, in control at will.
Do not take your thoughts too seriously, and likewise do not take your emotions too seriously, because every emotion is brought about by thought.
When cultivating this, do not do it too frequently. Or rather, there is no need to deliberately practice it at all. You only need to set it within yourself so that a certain state will trigger a certain emotion.
For example, when I am startled, or feel even a trace of fear under some circumstance, I will instinctively reveal a wrathful glare in an instant.
My eyes will widen at once, my fists will clench, and sometimes my hand will already have shot out.
Fortunately, my self-control is fairly strong, and I can stop myself in time. Otherwise, if someone suddenly appeared behind me or patted me without knowing, they might suffer my instinctive attack.
In other words, whatever kind of conviction you deliberately give yourself in daily life will automatically trigger at a critical moment.
When this reaction can trigger automatically, it is called instinct.
If you observe carefully, you will notice that most people's shoulders are unnatural. Many people like to raise them slightly.
Or when they hang downward, they feel rather awkward and not very natural.
When cultivating qi, you must remain relaxed at all times—body and mind relaxed—feeling that your body is exceptionally light and comfortable.
This is when a person is in their best state.
And while using emotional control to adjust your physical state, you must also make sure you can readjust yourself at any time.
Achieve this: when needed, it comes; when not needed, it goes—free and effortless.
Of course, the methods of using qi do not refer only to mobilizing energy through emotions.
You can also become very formidable while your body and mind are relaxed.
For example, if you bump your arm when you are not paying attention, the more you focus on the spot you hit, the more pain you will feel.
But if you actively shift your attention somewhere else, after a while you will find that the spot you hit does not seem to hurt as much.
This is also a use of qi, making use of the principle of shifting attention.
For example, if your throat feels uncomfortable and you keep coughing, you can shift the focus of your thoughts elsewhere. The more you forget about the problem with your throat, the more you can block out the discomfort in it.
You can even reach the point where you feel virtually nothing at all.
This too is one of the ways qi can be used.
I wonder whether any of you have seen Stephen Chow's film From Beijing with Love.
During one operation, because he was betrayed by a teammate, the character played by Stephen Chow was shot in the thigh.
After returning, Stephen Chow had that woman dig the bullet directly out of him with a knife. But there was no anesthetic at the time, so it could only be dug out raw.
Stephen Chow pulled out an adult educational biological science film about the reproduction of humankind through one-on-one combat between men and women, and watched it without blinking.
It greatly reduced the pain in his leg, and he even occasionally let out a few comfortable moans.
This was also one way of using qi: numbing your own pain nerves.
And back in the Three Kingdoms period, Second Master Guan was struck in the left arm by an arrow. Hua Tuo scraped the bone to remove the poison, while Second Master Guan focused on playing chess, enduring agony that ordinary people could not endure.
It was all the same principle.
Deliberately using thoughts to think of something and stir emotions, or shifting thoughts elsewhere to magnify or block awareness of the body—these are all ways of using qi.
Qi is the various forms of energy within the body. Control this energy, and you can attain all kinds of states.
And the way to control energy lies in your thoughts.
It is much the same as the states of following your heart and Shifting Thoughts that I spoke of earlier; they are merely used at different times.
The energy that can truly make a person unaware of pain, the strongest kind, is called indifference.
If you can stir up this emotion, never mind bumping yourself somewhere—even if you take one or two knife wounds, your expression will not change.
Because you simply do not care. Once you do not care, your attention is no longer on yourself at all.
Sometimes I even feel that, under certain specific conditions, this emotion can be even stronger than the emotional energy stirred by anger.
Because when anger goes too far, you simply do not know pain. But when you are indifferent, you fucking know it hurts, yet you simply do not care that it hurts. It is a complete "whatever the hell" attitude—cut me once, and I will break your legs—while your face remains utterly expressionless.
I think that even if Brother Jesus came and saw it, he would have to swagger a little.
Because what radiates from it is not the fiery temper of anger. It is completely and utterly a kind of Killing Intent, a murderous aura—the chill emanating from the very bones.
Sometimes, if you provoke someone who loves to lose their temper, it may not amount to much. It will more or less end there.
But if you provoke that sort of indifferent and terrifying person, then it becomes dangerous.
Those people who kill without batting an eye and still laugh and talk after committing evil deeds—every last one of them is indifferent to human nature beyond all measure.
Rainy Night Butchers, cannibalistic demons—most are cold by nature, even utterly devoid of humanity.
So do not casually use the emotion of indifference unless it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, if you do something earth-shattering, you will most likely end up getting dismissed from class early.
Then your path to immortality will be cut off. In your next life, there is no telling what you might be reborn as. Perhaps still a human, perhaps a horse or a pig, perhaps even a dung beetle. So cultivate a kind heart and kind thoughts; do no evil, lest you end up eating shit in your next life.
Amitabha! Good, good!