"As for walking around stupas, the stupa is your body and mind. When your awareness circles your body and mind without stopping, this is called walking around a stupa. The sages of long ago followed this path to nirvana. But people today don't understand what this means. Instead of looking inside they insist on looking outside. They use their material bodies to walk around material stupas. And they keep at it day and night, wearing themselves out in vain and coming no closer to their real self."
- Bodhidharma, 515 CE
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, p. 101. Translated and with an Introduction by Red Pine.
One of many stories told about Bodhidharma, the first Zen Buddhist Patriarch in China, is that he spent seven years in seated meditation while facing a stone wall. Talk about wearing yourself out in vain!
The only thing that would "wear out" while walking around a stupa, or a mountain, or a bagua circle, or a lake, or a soccer field would be one's shoes. Thankfully, the Bodhidharma finally Woke Up after his seven years of staring at a blank wall, and resolved that Shaolin monks thereafter would be required to exercise, practice Kung Fu and Qigong, garden, and do chores along with meditating, sutra studies, chanting, and interviews with the Master. To this day, 1500 years later, people still speak respectfully about the Bodhidharma - the founder of Shaolin qigong and kungfu, and the First Patriarch of Zen in China.
Whether you sit motionless in meditation for seven years, or practice Shaolin Kungfu for 14 years, or walk the Bagua circle around the post in your backyard for 28 years, you will always wear out. The Second Law of Thermodynamics points the Arrow of Time towards a depletion and dissipation of energy (a diffusion and loss of Qi), aging, systems breakdown, death, and a blending with the Silent Aging All.
Walking the Circle: Ba Gua Zhan
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