Australian Labradoodle Phoenix

LI JING - The Greeting Ritual

Like all animals including humans, to be understood by his peers, is expressed with gestures. In the course of civilization man has codified its gestures. Some actions will was inserted into the rituals and even eliminated. The coded gestures of everyday life, are also imbued with a deep symbolism. The fact of saying "hello" and to reach out with a smile, more or less a façade, is in presenting an empty hand and disarmed. Or, the little hand sign to the head, as if to lift a visor of a helmet, he aims to prove his good faith.

The gesture and the sincere thoughts have always been inextricably linked. The greeting, if done with "sincerity" is an attitude that translates body the attitude of our minds turned to someone when you meet or leave of you, who wants to express friendship, respect, affection or sympathy ... The word derives from the Latin greeting healthy "wish health and dictionary of the Italian language defines it as: "... word or gesture aimed at anyone; event, homage, reverence, respect rigidly formalized ..."

The greeting, as we have seen, expresses a demonstration of friendship, but also a gesture of respect and homage of a certain "rituals." And it is this conception of ritual that gives to greet the function to open (and close) all the moments of martial arts and practices of the Tao. As a rite (LI - 礼 Ricci 3040) sets the greeting a measure, put the rules within which business takes place, a discipline. Without these precepts of human activity would take place without the "limits". The rite is the limiting factor moderating the excesses and ensure harmony. Without the ritual remains only arrogance and failure to obey the rules, but also strictly observe the rules, leads man to unhappiness. In the words of Confucius, the father of the ritual, "in ... every circumstance should keep fit. "

The greeting used when there takes leave or we meet, is the gesture that marks a separation, a transition from one state to another. Esoterically can we define it as a rite of passage structure, in which there is a before and an after, a shift from a secular space into a sacred space. The passage of man "vulgar" man "started."

"The martial art is lost when it strays from the greeting" (George Charles). The salute is a sign of extreme respect for every tradition, is the essential key practices of the Tao. The symbolic richness of the greeting ritual (LI JING - 敬礼 Ricci 967 and 3040) encompasses the various aspects of the practice. The first step in the practice of greeting the School SAN YI QUAN is related to the relationship with the Earth, so the roots, by extension to the past, those who have preceded us in practice and that they have given us their legacy. The second step is related to relationships between people, between those who continue this tradition. The third step is related to the relationship with heaven, so in the future, those who receive the tradition and their commitment to keep it alive.