(Excerpt from "Core Points of Lu Feihong's Martial Arts Thought and Theory")
Martial arts represent a national spirit of continuous self-improvement. Its spiritual connotation is closely linked with national integrity and spiritedness. To a large extent, it manifests as patriotism. Practitioners of martial arts should not only master martial arts techniques but also value martial virtue (Wu De), cultivate morality, and shape a noble soul. This viewpoint reflects the high importance attached to martial spirit and martial virtue. It emphasizes that the thought and spirit of martial arts are the inner soul of practitioners. Scholar-warrior culture is an important component of China's excellent traditional culture and a symbol of the Chinese nation's spirit and culture. The original appearance of Huaxia civilization is the spirit of "valuing civility and martial arts"—the "scholar-warrior (shi)." Its thought and spirit are the most shining part of the Chinese nation's spiritedness. They are the manifestation of the Chinese nation's wind-bone, spirit, and spinal column. "A scholar cannot but be broad-minded and resolute; the burden is heavy and the road is long." The scholar is the faithful inheritor and transmitter of Chinese culture and thought. They are the unremitting disseminator of China's excellent traditional culture. Writing "Research on the Moral Philosophy of Chinese Scholar Culture," the research on Chinese scholar culture has reached a certain height. "A scholar is devoted to the Way." Taking self-cultivation, family regulation, state governance, and bringing peace to all under heaven as one's own responsibility, possessing the noble spirit of "neither riches nor honors can corrupt, nor poverty and lowliness can move, nor power and force can bend," and abiding by the "Eight Virtues": filial piety, brotherly respect, loyalty, faithfulness, propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame—they are the faithful inheritors of the "Way" and uphold the unity of "Way" and "virtue." The thought and spirit of scholars are the inner soul of martial arts practitioners. Scholar culture is the inner core of martial arts spirit, manifesting the practitioner's character and cultivation of martial virtue. Scholar culture, as the core component of the essence of Chinese traditional culture, is the living transmission of the Chinese nation's spiritual temperament, personality, and integrity. It profoundly shapes the Chinese nation's spiritual character and value pursuit. Its independent personality, social responsibility, and familial and national sentiments provide inexhaustible Eastern wisdom for the great rejuvenation of the nation. It is the source of strength for the Chinese nation's continuous life, maintaining cultural continuity and innovative power.
Promoting scholar culture is a systematic project integrating historical inheritance and modern practice. It has important significance for reshaping the Chinese nation's spiritual soul and moral system, and promoting the revitalization of traditional martial arts culture. It needs to be advanced from multiple dimensions such as cultural connotation, education system, and social activities.
Writing "Martial Artists Should Also Be Thinkers" reflects the profound philosophical wisdom and spiritual pursuit of martial artists. It emphasizes that true martial artists are not only inheritors of techniques but should also be explorers of philosophical thought and practitioners of morality. One should take philosophy as the soul and martial virtue as the bone, injecting the brilliance of thought into the techniques, and transmitting the core values of Chinese civilization through martial arts philosophy. Only in this way can martial arts transcend the level of mere "technique" and sublimate into the realm of "Way" that carries the nation's spirit and human wisdom. This is not only the revitalization path of traditional martial arts but also the inevitable requirement of modern civilization for martial artists. Modern martial artists need to break through traditional constraints, promoting the development of martial arts through philosophical speculation. Promoting the thought and spirit of scholar culture, letting every practitioner become a practitioner and disseminator of scholar spirit, allowing scholar's thought and spirit to be advocated and promoted in the entire society. Enabling every martial arts practitioner to become a person with virtue, thought, spirit, breadth of mind, integrity, insight, courage, faith, and noble willpower; a person with patriotic thought and sentiment, with a strong sense of mission, responsibility, and commitment; a person who dares to uphold justice, a person who is brave to dedicate and sacrifice for righteousness, a person who contributes all strength to the cause of national civilizational progress. Advocating the transformation of scholar culture's thought and spirit, allowing every practitioner to become a practitioner, disseminator, and upholder of scholar spirit. Establishing a new type of martial arts ideological and cultural system with scholar culture's spirit as the core value and dominant ideology provides an important path for the revitalization of Chinese martial arts culture.
The spirit of scholars is noble spirit. The internal connection between martial arts and the cultivation of noble spirit is deeply related. The influence of martial arts on personality shaping, moral cultivation, and social responsibility highly aligns with the core of noble spirit—cultural cultivation, social commitment, and free soul, dignity, and honor. The spirit of scholars is the cultural gene that runs through five thousand years of Chinese civilization. It is the flowing cultural bloodline. Its essence is the concentrated manifestation of the intellectual class's moral ideal, responsiblity and commitment, and familial and national sentiments. If martial arts lose this spiritual foundation of scholar culture, they will shake the foundation of their cultural inheritance and social value system. The spirit of scholars has nurtured the national integrity of "neither riches nor honors can corrupt, nor poverty and lowliness can move." It has also nurtured the inclusive wisdom of "harmony but not sameness." It runs through the three levels of martial arts' techniques, principles, and virtue, becoming the soul of martial arts spirit and constituting the spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation's "vigorous action, continuous self-improvement" and "thick virtue carries all things."
The combination of martial arts and scholar spirit is a process of sublimating physical techniques into cultural orthodoxy. It is also the inevitable requirement of inheriting the martial way's spirit. It injects a living "soul" into martial arts. In contemporary society, through systematic and philosophical martial arts education, one can reshape the moral conduct and spirit of traditional scholar-officials (scholar-warriors), awaken the scholar culture gene, transform it into citizen qualities of "dignity, honor, courage, responsibility, and commitment," and promote independent personality and global vision among modern citizens. Through the modern transformation of scholar culture's spiritual core, martial arts become a civilized vehicle with cultural depth and contemporary value. This can not only continue and enhance the vitality of martial arts culture but also become a cultural bridge connecting tradition and modernity, domestic and international.