zen-and-the-martial-arts.pdf

ZEN AND THE MARTIAL ARTS

Ming Zhen Shakya

(Formerly Chuan Yuan Shakya)

First published as a ten-part series on the World-Wide

Web by the Nan Hua Chan (Zen) Buddhist Society.

Part l: Introduction

They seem as immiscible as oil and water: Zen, the peaceful practice of tranquillity, and the

martial arts, the deadly techniques of hand-to-hand combat. Yet tradition insists that when

Bodhidharma introduced them to the weary priests of Shao Lin Ji he presented them together - a

solution to the problem of enfeebling Samsara, a compounded tonic for the spiritually ailing.

The priests of Shao Lin Monastery were keeping a stale, orthodox regimen when Zen's

formidable "Blue Eyed Demon" arrived from India. They were following the "polishing" way of

inactivity and removal, the way which claims victory over bodily temptations by avoiding other

bodies, which claims victory over contentious thoughts by erasing all thoughts. Too much

sitting had numbed their brains and let their physical condition

languish, yoked in the sluggish pace of spiritual ennui. They gave the stranger from the West

plenty to work with.

Bodhidharma taught them how to be still with purpose and how to be active with meaning.

Relentless, he sat before the whitewashed walls of Shao Lin Ji and demonstrated Ba Guan (wall

gazing) meditation, the effective alpha-generating method psychologists today call the Ganzfeld

Technique. As such, it became Zen's only original contribution to meditation's vast catalog of

methods. But it was a good one.

And when Bodhidharma got up from his cushion he taught the monks how to put Mind into

muscle: he taught them the choreographed combat calisthenics of Gong Fu.

Or so legend has it.

Whatever the facts of origin are, one thing is certain: for centuries... from the Sixth to the

Twentieth... in stunning proof that opposites attract, this unlikely pair, these two disciplines

as counterpoised as peace and war, swayed together in a graceful embrace; and in every Asian

country into which Chinese Zen Buddhism spread, generations of monks joined the spiritual

dance in celebration of their union.

Z EN AND THE M ARTIAL A RTS

Nobody thought the dance would ever end. Nobody imagined that there could ever be a force

strong enough to stop the music and sunder the bond. There was. The cataclysm came in the

form of the surrender of the largest American fighting force in the history of U.S. warfare. The

fission-event had a name: Bataan.

To understand the strange chronicle of union and dissolution we must retreat far into history

and explore hidden places on the spiritual path.

In succeeding sections, we'll explore the origins of Gong (Kung) Fu. We'll discuss some of the

physiology and psychology of the martial arts and the reasons why the combined regimen of

meditation and physical skill is able to produce true mastery. We'll examine the Code of

Wushidao (Bushido) that was formulated to guide and to sustain the true

martial artist; and we'll review the reasons why the martial arts were separated from Zen and

suggest ways in which we might reunite the estranged pair.

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

http://www.HsuYun.org/

Z EN AND THE M ARTIAL A RTS

Part 2: Origins: A synthesis of cultures

Of all the oriental martial arts, Chinese Gong (Kung) Fu, which means "masterful", is the oldest.

All of the other schools - Korean, Japanese, and other Chinese varieties, grew out of it.

But Gong Fu did not originate in China. It was an Indian import which, legends

notwithstanding, had no doubt entered China long before Bodhidharma contemplated Shao Lin

Ji's walls.

By the time the founder of Zen arrived, the imported "art" had already been refined, expanded,

and in many ways perfected by Daoism's genius for elegant simplicity.

But neither could the "masterful" martial art be said to originate in India; for it actually arrived

there by way of the Aryan invasions which had begun as far back as l500 B.C.

The Aryans were an east-european people who loved to fight and, judging from the spread of

their language - a sure sign of conquest - did it rather well. Sweeping around the world from

Ireland to India, variants of their proto-indo-european idiom such as Gaelic, German, Latin,

Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit testify that life to these happy warriors was one long and satisfying

Blitzkrieg. As victors are wont to do, they thought of themselves as superior persons. Erin,

Iran, and Aryan as well as the English cognate aristocrat all mean "noble".

True aficionados of destruction, they extended the work of conquest into leisurely pursuits, their

fascination for warlike games and sport being mirrored in the Olympic contests of their Greek

cousins, contests in which martial discipline was emphasized... throwing discus, hammer and

javelin, boxing, wrestling, and especially an event called the Pancratium, a sport which combined

boxing and wrestling and a peculiar ability to turn the force of an attacker's thrust back against

him. In this event, no weapons or protective clothing was permitted. Hands and feet sufficed as

instruments of engagement.

With no military force able to halt their advance, the Aryans swept eastward across Afghanistan

and Pakistan, joyously demolishing every civilization in their path. But in India their irresistible

force finally met an immovable object. In India they encountered that stolid monument to

Spirituality, those amazing yogis, those peaceful men who were indomitable mental warriors.

The Aryans were awed.

Without the slightest hint of condescension, yogis demonstrated their imperviousness to pain.

They could walk on fire or withstand bitter cold. They could stay awake for as along as they

wanted or sleep standing up. They could go without food for days and, using only the power of

their minds, they could even staunch the bleeding of their wounds. Aryan generals rubbed their

eyes and thought that they had entered Heaven's War Room. This kind of power was worth a

good, long look. The Blitzkrieg ended. The blonde bullies settled down. The yogis were

certainly a different breed of heroes. They desired little and lacked nothing. Through the simple

expedient of becoming emotionally unattached to the people, places, and things of this world,

they conquered and reigned, independent and invincible.

Practicing Raja (royal) Yoga, the kingdom over which a yogi so imperiously ruled consisted of

only himself. But what a powerful state it was.

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

http://www.HsuYun.org/

Z EN AND THE M ARTIAL A RTS

A yogi mastered his mind by meditative exercise, spiritual discipline, devotional observance, and,

of course, by adhering to a strict ethical code. He mastered his body through the rigorous

practice of Asanas, postures which promoted extraordinary balance and flexibility.

The Aryans took the spiritual techniques of Indian religion and combined them with the

Pancratium event of Olympic sport and called this new synthesis Vajramushti which means

Thunderbolt Fist.

Culture spreads along waterways, and the few hundred miles between India's Ganges delta and

China's port city of Canton is filled with great rivers... the Irrawaddy, the Rouge, the Mekong,

the Si Jiang. South China Daoists learned Vajramushti and then improved it by choreographing

its movements and giving them fluid grace and by adding the powerful techniques of breath

control which Chinese pearl divers had developed. They called the new version Tai Ji Quan

which means Great Ultimate Fist. In its pure martial arts form it was called Gong Fu, the

masterful art.

News of the new improved Chinese version traveled up and down the rivers' information

highway. Centuries later in 325 B.C., when Alexander the Great in another Aryan incursion

invaded India, he was stunned by the daunting abilities of even second-rate Vajramushti

practitioners. (Even today India's martial arts' masters are second to none.)

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

http://www.HsuYun.org/

Z EN AND THE M ARTIAL A RTS

Part 3: Bodhidharma, the alien Aryan

The great rivers which crisscrossed Indo-China carried more than information about self-

defense techniques. Ideas and inventions also traversed these waterways. The people who

occupied the area, though often racially and linguistically unrelated, were farmers, hunters,

fishermen, housekeepers, and craftsmen who enjoyed the bounty of similar natural resources

and suffered from the same dependable pestilences and unreliable weather. Their clothing,

buildings, and implements of work and war differed in style but not in basic design. Form

happily follows function but tradition drags its heels.

Naturally they placated gods of similar temperament. The philosophical principles of Yoga were

well known in South China: Brahman and The Dao were virtually interchangeable concepts. The

One. The Indivisible. The Union of Opposites. But Chinese genius had refined the concept;

and Daoism was a cooler, more elegant version of its Indian counterpart. The heated and often

overwrought methodologies of Kundalini Yoga were refreshed and moderated when presented

as Daoism's Microcosmic Orbit meditations. Additionally, Daoism subsumed the entire body of

Chinese medicine: the knowledge of physical anatomy, the comprehensive pharmacology and

the pain relieving procedures of acupuncture and acupressure. Daoism's pragmatic approach

also expanded and enriched Indian appreciation of Prana.

To the Indian, Prana was more than just the breath of life... the vital force or "inspirit" which

God had used to vivify clay. It was the core discipline of the science of Yoga. Daoism's no frills

approach to spirituality simplified the science and made it more accessible to practitioners. The

beneficial distribution of Prana (called Qi (Chi) by Daoists) to every part of the body, became

Daoism's singular obsession. Study of the meridians, the psychic nerve channels through which

Qi was delivered and circulated, gave rise to the knowledge of dozens of particularly sensitive

pressure points, points which the martial artist would later exploit. The human body's

vulnerability to acute pain or to muscular paralysis at these points would make them the prime

targets of a combatant's strikes.

It so happened that when Buddhism was about a thousand years old a certain fatigue, if not

rigor mortis, began to set in. Tons of sutras and shastras began to press the life out of it.

Desiccated old men haunted Buddhist libraries while younger, more adventurous devotees left

to merrily pant the oxygen rich atmosphere of Tantrism. With so much Buddhist energy being

drained away in pseudo-spiritual sexual hemorrhage, the religion found itself in desperate need

of more than the usual dose of Mahayana rectitude. It needed a transfusion of Daoism's

practical, holistic power.

Bodhidharma, who, as Indian Prince and Buddhist priest, was well-educated both in

Vajramushti/Tai Ji Quan techniques and in philosophy and theology, wanted to bring Buddhism

out of the libraries and lecture halls of esthetes and pedants and into the everyday minds of the

common man. His Indian temperament, camouflaged amidst China's "southern" thinkers,

accorded him a nearly native claim to Daoism's methodology. He therefore combined Indian

Buddhist philosophy with Daoist methodology, and came to orthodox China to preach his new

synthesis: Zen.

And what was this "Zen"? The word simply means meditation. In Sanskrit the word is "dhyan";

the English cognate of which is "dwell". Dhyan and Zen appear to be unrelated words, but in

Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

http://www.HsuYun.org/

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: