Infinite Dao – 前半生 Previous Life

Extracts from Patrick Kelly’s book ‘Infinite Dao’ Chapter 1. (Part 1)

前半生 Previous Life

时间回到距离此次初访四年前的1973年。当时的我在即将结束新西兰惠灵顿大学学业之前，就已经开始学习黄大师太极。我从小练习格斗术，而太极就是我的巅峰格斗术。随太极而来的，还有后来令我兴趣倍增的深奥灵修术。自十岁起，住在父母农场里的我便开始学习西方拳击和摔跤；12岁，全家搬到一个小镇，我还在学拳击和摔跤。到了16至18岁，面对高中期末考试以及大学入学准备的压力，我暂时将格斗学习放置。19岁时，我离开父母搬到了惠灵顿继续数学学位的学习。Exactly 4 years before this first meeting, while approaching the end of my university studies in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1973, I had begun training Master Huang’s system of Taiji. That in itself was the culmination of many childhood years training the fighting arts, together with a more recent interest in esoteric spiritual arts. From the age of 10, while still living on my parents’ farm, I trained in western boxing and wrestling. At the age of 12 we moved into a small town where I continued that training. From 16 to 18 my training lapsed as I completed my final exams at high school and began University. At the age of 19 I left home and moved to Wellington, where I continued with my mathematics degree.

Intrinsic motivation

打心眼里我就对个体的内修很感兴趣。生活中的人们往往会避开自身不足，偏重自身优势，这让个人的平衡承压。狭隘的大学环境令很多教授迷失自我，可我并不想成为其中的一份子。于是我去学心理学，却又发现那些肤浅的学术研究对我没有任何帮助。长时间以来，我一直苦苦思索着自己今后的人生道路。With an intrinsic interest in the inner-workings of the individual and having noticed how people oriented their lives towards their strengths while avoiding their deficiencies, thereby increasing their personal imbalance, I recognised a danger of losing myself in the narrow university atmosphere – as so many of the professors obviously had. In vain I included some courses in psychology, but the superficial academic approach negated any benefit. I thought deeply over that time on how to direct the rest of my life.

Developing emotions

很明显，我的情感部分在标准化教育体系下并没有得到良好发挥。为了解决这一困境，我阅读了大量创意类和艺术类书籍，思忖着它们能助我增强情绪状态。但坚持了近两年后，我发现它们的帮助并不大而且也过于以己为中心。再往下走的最好办法，就是要在日常生活中与周边人做更深入的情感互动。据此，我决定将方向重新确定。原来的我在大学环境下，走是纯学术化、知识型的方向；现在的我，要视一切以人类互动为前提的生活为目标，自觉激发平衡生活追寻之路上的不足。It was clear that the emotional part of myself, due to the standardised school system, had been under-exercised. As a possible remedy to this I read many books on creativity and the arts and seriously considered the potential of these fields to enhance my emotional state. But after pursuing the arts for almost 2 years, I decided that the emotional development resulting from the fine arts was in general too limited in scope and too egocentric. The best way forward, it appeared, was to involve myself more deeply in the daily emotional interactions with people about me in normal life. I decided from that point on to re-orient myself from the purely academic, intellectual direction, towards which my university experience had been pushing me, to a life where human interactions came first and all other things second, consciously invoking my weaknesses in pursuit of a balanced life.

Continued…….

克利 Patrick A Kelly

began Taiji with an experienced student of Master Huang Xingxian in 1973. In 1977 he moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where he studied full time in Master Huang’s school. In 1979, following tradition, Master Huang accepted Patrick as his personal disciple – the only non-Chinese to ever enter Huang’s inner-school. From that time Patrick Kelly travelled and taught beween Asia, Australasia and Europe while continuing to learn personally with Master Huang untill his death late 1992. Simultaneously Patrick worked closely both with the Naqshibandi Gnostic Sage Abdullah Dougan for 14 years until Abdullah’s death in 1987 and for 30 years with the Raja Yogi Mounimaharaj of Rajasthan who died in 2007 at more than 105 years old.

1973年，派瑞克利开始向黄性贤大师的一位资深学生学习太极。1977年，他来到马来西亚吉隆坡，在黄性贤大师的学校全日制学习太极。1979年，遵循传统惯例，黄性贤大师收派瑞克利为徒，他成为了黄性贤大师唯一的非华人入室弟子。自那时起，派瑞克利往来于亚洲、澳洲及欧洲教拳，同时继续私下向黄性贤大师学习，直至大师于1992年末去世。同一时期，派瑞克利还跟随纳什般迪派和诺斯替派哲人阿卜杜拉多安学习十四年，直到1987年阿卜杜拉去世，跟随拉贾斯坦的胜王瑜伽大师穆尼玛哈拉吉学习三十余年，直至穆尼大师在2007年以105岁高龄去世。