HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COSMIC SHOWER
One-finger Shooting Zen
Question
Can Sifu please tell us more about the origins of Cosmic Shower?
How has Sifu learned or attained the skill of Cosmic Shower?
Is the Cosmic Shower learned at the course the same like we do it at the end of our Small Universe practice?
Sifu Leonard Lackinger
Answer
Cosmic Shower, known as “Opening of Five Flowers”, is a very advanced Taoist chi kung exercise. It is performed while sitting in a lotus position, and is usually for spiritual cultivation.
I did not learn Cosmic Shower from any of my sifus, but read about it in Taoist Chi Kung classics. I also read about the necessity for a healer to cleanse himself of negative chi which he might have picked up from his patients, and also to replenish himself if he channelled much chi to his patients.
In my early years of healing I used to flick my fingers, like flicking off water and unlike Flicking Fingers of Sinew Metamorphosis, after healing work. I usually replenished myself by performing “Lifting the Sky”. It was much later that I used “Lifting the Sky” or “Carrying the Moon” to induce a cosmic shower to cleanse myself.
Except in One-Finger Shooting Zen, my chi flow was little when I learned “Lifting the Sky” and other Lohan Hands from my sifu, Sifu Ho Fatt Nam. Earlier when I learned from Uncle Righteousness and Sifu Chee Kim Thong, I had no concept of chi flow.
Even in One-Finger Shooting Zen, the chi flow was different from the concept of chi flow in our school. Now when we talk about chi flow, we think of our body swaying gently, and sometimes vigorously. In One-Finger Shooting Zen, it was more of internal force, but the internal force was flowing. I had the concept of chi flow in One-Finger Shooting Zen much later, when I had started teaching chi kung to the public.
My first experience of chi flow inside my body, a sensation of electric current flowing along my arms, was from a set of mobile chi kung I learned from a chi kung master in Alor Star where I taught for a few years as a school teacher. I cannot recall his name now. He was very impressed with my Shaolin Kungfu and proposed to exchange his set of mobile chi kung with combat applications from me.
This came about from a little incidence. He wanted to have some friendly sparring with me, which I gladly accepted as I was still looking for people to spar with at that time. He gave me a low punch, like “Precious Duck Swims through Lotus”, which I stopped with a “taming-hand”.
It was a feint move. He swiftly changed his low punch to a hanging fist, like “Reverse Hanging of Golden Lotus”, striking his back-fist at my face. But I was ready for him. I “thread’ away his hanging fist quite effortlessly, using “Golden Dragon Plays with Water”. I could have hit him, but I didn’t, and he probably sensed it.
I can still remember he was shocked at my spontaneous response. That movement must be his specialty, and he must have expected to hit me.
At that time I had not composed our 16 combat sequences of Shaolin Kungfu. I also had not composed their fore-runners, the 12 combat sequences I taught at Shaolin Wahnam Association in Sungai Petani. If I had, I would have taught him these combat sequences because they are an excellent introduction of combat application. I can’t remember what I taught him, most probably it was some combat applications from the legacy of Wong Fei Hoong.
Although he taught me only one set of mobile chi kung, and I taught him many combat applications, I believed I gained more from this exchange, not because I held back my teaching but because, as far as I knew, he did not make full use of what I taught him.
On the other hand, I made full use of what he taught me. There was no special name for his mobile chi kung set. The set was unnamed. There was also no special name for his type of chi kung. It was just called chi kung. I practiced this set every day, or every night. When I first experienced electric currents flowing along my arms and legs after a few months of daily practice, I was fascinated. It was considered by me then, and my most chi kung practitioners in general, as very high-level. It is just ridiculous that our students now have more powerful results in a few days!
The set consisted of about 36 patterns, but most of the patterns were repeated. The most frequently performed pattern was what we now call “Green Dragon Charges at Face”, but it was performed without any force, not even internal force, and certainly without any muscular strength. Another pattern that was frequently repeated was “Swallow Flies through Clouds”. In fact, I took these pattern from the mobile chi kung set to be included in the Eighteen Lohan Art.
This experience of internal chi flow from the mobile chi kung set later led me to have more noticeable chi flow manifested as swaying and as vigorous movements when I taught the Eighteen Lohan Hands.
As mentioned earlier, when I first learned some patterns of the Eighteen Lohan Hands, I did not feel chi flow. But later when I taught chi kung to the public, I could feel chi cascading down from my head to my feet, especially when I performed patterns like “Lifting the Sky” and “Carrying the Moon”. In my Intensive Chi Kung Course, I taught students to tap energy from the Cosmos, and let the energy cascade down their body. This was the first manifestation of Cosmic Shower.
When organizers requested me to teach more advanced courses, I taught the art of Cosmic Shower. At first it was called Golden Shower because I perceived that the energy coming down from heaven and passing through us was golden in colour.
Riccardo Salvatore told me that “golden shower” had a different connotation for some people. When senior students forcefully placed the heads of junior students in a water-closet, an act of bullying that we strongly oppose, and flashed down the water, it was called “golden shower”. So I changed “Golden Shower” to “Cosmic Shower” as we literally let cosmic energy shower down our body.
I read from classics that blockage was not only physical, but also emotional, mental and spiritual. So, as my teaching methodology progressed, I taught students to clear not only their physical blockage but also their emotional, mental and spiritual ones using cosmic shower.
In a moment of cosmic inspiration, I suddenly realized that God, or whatever term we call the Supreme Reality, is all compassionate, and gives his blessings to all people. If some people do not receive God’s blessings, it is not because God does not give them, but because they block themselves from God’s blessings. Their blockage can be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. Cosmic Shower is an excellent way to clear all the blockage. This realization and teaching has benefitted a lot of people.
As I practiced Cosmic Shower, I discovered that cosmic energy not only cleanses but also builds. So the next step in my teaching progression was to teach students to strengthen themselves physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
Cosmic Shower and Small Universe are different arts. Both are wonderful. After practicing the Small Universe, practitioners may experience a cosmic shower or other wonderful benefits they have learned from other courses.
If one has not attended a Cosmic Shower course before, it is possible, especially if he is advanced in chi kung training, for him to experience a cosmic shower. Cosmic energy or God’s blessings are there all the time. If he opens himself, he can receive the cosmic energy and God’s blessings.
But by attending a Cosmic Shower course, a student will be transmitted the skills and techniques of Cosmic Shower. He will not only learn a rare and advanced art in just a few hours, but also benefit from my more than 30 years of chi kung development and crystallization.
Carrying the Moon is an excellent technique to activate a Cosmic Shower
The above discussion is reproduced from the thread 10 Questions on Cosmic Shower in the Shaolin Wahnam Discussion Forum.
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