Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

[joshbrown]

I recently read a book, The Complete Book of Zen, in which the author stresses the fact that practicing kungfu and chi kung is essential to cultivating your Zen experience and eventually realizing your cosmic reality. While I could see the benefits, I have not heard this before, and have to wonder is there actual merit to this claim, or is it simply a skewed viewpoint, given that he is in fact a grandmaster of both Shaolin Kungfu and Chi Kung.

Any thoughts?

[Rev R]

Re: Zenm kungfu, and chi kung

since "kung fu" can be translated to "hard work", I'd say kung fu is absolutely essential to practice.

[Risho]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

From the description on amazon:

Allow inspiring glimpses of cosmic reality


Yeah, ok. What does that even mean? :roll:

[Hoyu]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Rev R wrote:
since "kung fu" can be translated to "hard work", I'd say kung fu is absolutely essential to practice.

Good one!

[natezenmaster]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Hmmm... well I think you (Josh) are right in the sense that since he is a master in kung fu then he believes kung fu to be zen like or zen enhancing experience. I believe anytime you do any activity in which you do the activity.. without preoccupation, distraction or mental wondering.. that is meditation. Just like Brad Warner in his Sit Down Shut Up book (or perhaps the first book Hardcore Zen) refers to playing the guitar or bass as meditation or zen like because there is no Brad, no thought of playing a bass and I need to hit this note and then that note.. instead there is just the playing of the notes. The same with kung fu.. IMHO... if you are thinking - do this, do that then do this... then it is contrived and awkward and distracted.. when you just do then it is...

That said, there's only one zazen.. but all things being meditation.. if you just do then what isn't a cultivation of zen or zen itself? Similarly, what's cosmic reality or not reality? If we are deluded then that delusion is part of reality until such time as its not.. : P so while I know plenty about delusion as I continue to suffer from a plethora of them, I can't attest to cosmic reality but to reality...

_/_ Nate

[Rev R]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Rev R wrote:
since "kung fu" can be translated to "hard work", I'd say kung fu is absolutely essential to practice.

Good one!

You may enjoy this even more.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... losophers/

[Hoyu]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Rev R wrote:
since "kung fu" can be translated to "hard work", I'd say kung fu is absolutely essential to practice.

Good one!

You may enjoy this even more.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... losophers/

Thanks, that was very interesting article!

Gassho,
John

[Jundo]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

I recently read a book, The Complete Book of Zen, in which the author stresses the fact that practicing kungfu and chi kung is essential to cultivating your Zen experience and eventually realizing your cosmic reality.

Well, it is certainly true.** It is also true about washing dishes or mowing the lawn. All constantly really realize our "cosmic reality" ... whether we realize it or not. 8)

Of course, Kung fu folks wish to realize the special connection of Kung fu to Chan/Zen practice. Why not? Master Bodhidharma ... who brought Zen to China and sat in a cave at Shaolin temple for 9 years ... is said to be the same "Bodhidharma" who brought Kung Fu to Shaolin temple. IT'S TRUE! (I mean, it's true that folks say that ... cause actually little is known about the historical Bodhidharma, and most of the stories and legends about him in the Zen world too are later inventions!) Here is a Bodhidharma Kung Fu action figure that's around ...



But the legend of a Bodhidharma/Kung Fu connection only developed many hundreds of years after Bodhidharma had lived. As Andy Ferguson writes in "Zen's Chinese Heritage" ...

"[S]tories linking Bodhidharma to Chinese martial arts, or gongfu, have no historical basis. No evidence exists of any relationship between Bodhidharma and Chinese Martial arts beyond their common connection with Shaolin Temple. A millenium separates the time of Bodhidharm's residence a that temple with the first mention of his supposed link to the martial arts. Thus, the story of this relationship must be seen as a relatively modern invention"

But as I said, that does not mean that martial arts ... like tea or flute playing, diaper changing or cooking soup ... cannot be intimately practiced together as Zen practice, all reality realized really!

Gassho, J

** (it may also be a good claim to make if selling books about Kung Fu!)

PPS - Here is more historical information on the origins of the Bodhidharma-Kung Fu connection ... or lack thereof:

http://www.historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/218-shaolin-bodhidharma.html

[6yx]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

The article was really good, thanks.

When it comes to the idea that Kung Fu and Chi Kung are necessary to Zen I would have to disagree. The only necessity to Zen ... a question I can't answer. An example though:

I practice Tai Chi, and at one point in my life was able to go to Tai Chi classes. After about 4 months I experienced what I can only describe as a "high". I won't say I was enlightend or any other rubbish, but I felt really damn good, accepting, blissful, joyous, etc.

The class was in the morning and in the afternoon 1 day I had a doctor's appointment. The Doctor's receptionist is really nice and means well: But bitches and complains near endlessly. Her complaining started to affect my "high" which I was in no mood to loose (shocking So I started to chant to myself "I accept, I accept, I accept" to seemingly keep the "high" going.

The "high" remained for awhile but did start to fade and I let it. Because I remembered some of the stories I read about The Buddha years ago when I had started reading about Buddhism. The story that stuck out was of Siddhartha's early exploration of spirituality and had become quite adept at certain skills and techniques that would make him "other worldly" for lack of better words. But Siddhartha walked away from this because it was not the goal of his quest. His goal was to find out where suffering comes from. As is my understanding.

That's why I let the "high" go. That wasn't living, that was me, going to try to stay "feeling really damn good" all the time. That is not life.

And that is why I don't think Kung Fu or Chi Kung is necessary to Zen. I can't do Kung Fu with a broken leg, and I can't do Chi Kung sick, laying on my couch watch the Bourne series. (Which always helps me feel better

I can have a broken leg and want to do Kung Fu. And I can be sick and want to not feel sick and do Chi Kung. That sounds more like Zen to me: Accepting what is and living with it.

Thanks for posting your question, made me think. Thanks.

[Jundo]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

I practice Tai Chi, and at one point in my life was able to go to Tai Chi classes. After about 4 months I experienced what I can only describe as a "high". I won't say I was enlightend or any other rubbish, but I felt really damn good, accepting, blissful, joyous, etc.

The class was in the morning and in the afternoon 1 day I had a doctor's appointment. The Doctor's receptionist is really nice and means well: But bitches and complains near endlessly. Her complaining started to affect my "high" which I was in no mood to loose (shocking So I started to chant to myself "I accept, I accept, I accept" to seemingly keep the "high" going.

The "high" remained for awhile but did start to fade and I let it. Because I remembered some of the stories I read about The Buddha years ago when I had started reading about Buddhism. The story that stuck out was of Siddhartha's early exploration of spirituality and had become quite adept at certain skills and techniques that would make him "other worldly" for lack of better words. But Siddhartha walked away from this because it was not the goal of his quest. His goal was to find out where suffering comes from. As is my understanding.

That's why I let the "high" go. That wasn't living, that was me, going to try to stay "feeling really damn good" all the time. That is not life.

Wise.

Hard to practice Zen or Kung Fu, I imagine, if preoccupied with clinging to some fixed state.

Gassho, J

[Rev R]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Thanks, that was very interesting article!

The article was really good, thanks.

glad you fellas liked it.

When it comes to the idea that Kung Fu and Chi Kung are necessary to Zen I would have to disagree.

I don't really find there is a disagreement. What I see is a real world case of simultaneously true perspectives (which I'm surprised Master Jundo didn't jump on this). You state that kung fu is not necessary, and I think it is. Both are correct from a certain point of view.

If we look at kung fu under the definition of Chinese martial arts (arguably the definition the author of Josh's book takes), you are right. It is not necessary to practice kung fu alongside Zen. If we look at kung fu under the definition offered by Peimin Ni or defined as "hard work" it is also true. Under the latter, Zen practice is kung fu but it is not necessary to call it such.


Rod

[Kyonin]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Practicing Aikido I can vouche for the fact that you indeed get into what sports guys call "The Zone".

It's that place in your mind you reach after 1 or 2 hours of training and that you simply forget your body and suddenly you are on this dimension where everything flows. You no longer feel tired or pain and you just keep on moving, practicing until Sensei calls yame!

I never tried Kung Fu in such a way, but I reckon it must work the same way.

When sitting I can reach the same place I reach while training. So I guess that's what the author means that it's necessary to train Kung Fu.

At any rate, I also think that everything in life is Zen.

[Saijun]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Hello Morelos,

When sitting I can reach the same place I reach while training. So I guess that's what the author means that it's necessary to train Kung Fu.

Perhaps it's just me, but characterizing Zen practice as hinging on Gongfu (at least as it is synonymous with Wushu rather than "skill cultivated through hard work," though that seems to miss it a bit too) seems to sell it short, and indulge in the stereotypical exoticism that plagues all things "Eastern" (I've heard, as an aside, that if you go far enough west, you'll make it to China ). To be sure, when one is training the body and mind, there are states that can be entered sometimes, but the "state" that we non-try to attain in (this branch) of Zen is...whatever is, no? Still, I remember from my racing days that place, where all there is is...this. No road, no bicycle, no pain, no sweat. No headwind, no victory, no defeat, no rider. Cyclists call it the "pain cave." And it is Zen, but then again...

everything in life is Zen.

Including Wushu if you do it, and whatever one's own Gongfu happens to be (sewing, sitting, cycling, etc.), and even the things that one isn't skilled in (I never did well racing)!

Just my thoughts, and not very good ones at that.

Metta and Gassho,

Saijun

[Hans]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Hello,

just my two opinionated and to-be-taken-with-a-pinch-of-salt novice cents here.

Once we say everything is Zen, it follows that the term is completely devoid of any specific meaning. "Zen" has had a distinct meaning as a particular Buddhist school for almost a thousand years and has only begun to be properly divorced from Zen-Buddhism in a major way since the early years of the twentieth century. Japanese scholars, plagued by inferiority complexes brought about by the "forced" opening to a modern west, bent over backwards to de-mystify the religious aspects of their own tradition and to find ways to align it with young disciplines like psychology in many cases. Add to that mix a handful of books like Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery (which is a great book but has next to zero to do with Zen Buddhism...written by a man who spoke almost no Japanese).... and fast forward first to the dharma bums and then to the hippie period where we David Carradine and Alan Watts, who IMHO was a wonderful and inspiring writer but was not in any way representative of traditional Zen.

Anything definitive and even mildly authoritarian was anathema to the highly hedonistic and individualist hippie culture, which embraced and helped spread a view of Zen that mirrored exactly what they (and the public at large) wanted it to be.

Fact is that non-violence was a key feature of almost every single Buddhist school across the board, and it is another fact as Jundo pointed out that the whole Bodhidharma and Kung-Fu connection is historically speaking baloney. The "extreme compassion" stories of the Jatakas make it pretty clear that normal ideas of self defense in combination with martial arts were never at the center of the hisotrical Buddha's teachings.

Yes, we can make this free-for-all-term Zen into whatever we want it to be, but Martial Arts occupy a slightly problematic position in the overall historical scheme of Buddhist things and are definitely not more closely related to the practice of Zen Buddhism than any other daily activity like chopping wood and carrying water.

Gassho,

Hans

[Saijun]

Re: Zen, kungfu, and chi kung

Hello Hans,

I agree with most of what you say, but monks have always been allowed to defend themselves.

74. Should any bhikkhu, angered and displeased, give a blow to (another) bhikkhu, it is to be confessed.

The factors for the full offense here are three.

* 1) Object: another bhikkhu.
* 2) Effort: One gives him a blow
* 3) Intention: out of anger.

Object. A bhikkhu is grounds for the full offense here; anyone unordained, grounds for a dukka?a. According to the Commentary, anyone unordained includes animals as well as human beings.

As under Pc 42, perception as to whether the person receiving the blow is ordained is irrelevant to the offense.

Effort. This factor is fulfilled whether one gives a blow —

* with one's own body (hitting with a fist, jabbing with an elbow, kicking with a foot);
* with something attached to the body (e.g., a stick, a knife); or
* with something that can be "thrown" (this includes such things as throwing a rock, shooting an arrow, or firing a gun). According to the Vibha?ga, this last category includes throwing "even a lotus leaf," which shows that the blow need not be painful in order to fulfill this factor.

Such actions as twisting the other person's arm behind his back or wringing his neck are not mentioned under this rule, but the act of grabbing his arm prior to twisting it or grabbing his neck prior to wringing it would fulfil the factor of effort here.

Intention. If one gives a blow for reasons other than anger, the action does not fall under this rule. Thus, for instance, if one thumps a fellow bhikkhu on the back to help dislodge something caught in his throat, there is no offense. And as the Commentary notes, if — impelled by lust — one gives a blow to a woman, one incurs the full penalty under Sg 2.

For some reason, the Commentary says that if one cuts off the nose or ear of a fellow bhikkhu in order to disfigure him, one incurs only a dukka?a. As the Vinaya-mukha points out, though, there is no basis in the Vibha?ga or in reason for this statement. It is hard to imagine anyone doing this unless impelled by anger, and the act of cutting another person would come under the factor of giving a blow with something connected with the body.

"Result" is not a factor here. Whether the other person is hurt — or how badly he/she is hurt — does not affect the offense. If one intends simply to hurt the other person, but he/she happens to die from one's blow, the case is treated under this rule, rather than under Pr 3. In other words, the penalty is a p?cittiya if the victim is a bhikkhu, and a dukka?a if not.

Non-offenses. According to the Vibha?ga, there is no offense for a bhikkhu who, trapped in a difficult situation, gives a blow "desiring freedom." The Commentary's discussion of this point shows that it includes what we at present would call self-defense; and the K/Commentary's analysis of the factors of the offense here shows that even if anger or displeasure arises in one's mind in cases like this, there is no penalty.

Summary: Giving a blow to another bhikkhu when impelled by anger — except in self-defense — is a p?cittiya offense.


"Buddhist Monastic Code I: Chapter 8.8", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 8 July 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... h08-8.html.

Also,

21. On Violence and Vengefulness
A disciple of the Buddha must not return anger for anger, blow for blow. He should not seek revenge, even if his father, mother, siblings, or close relatives are killed -- nor should he do so if the ruler or king of his country is murdered. To take the life of one being in order to avenge the killing of another is contrary to filial piety [as we are all related through the eons of birth and rebirth].
Furthermore, he should not keep others in servitude, much less beat or abuse them, creating evil karma of mind, speech and body day after day -- particularly the offenses of speech. How much less should he deliberately commit the Seven Cardinal Sins. Therefore, if a Bodhisattva-monk lacks compassion and deliberately seeks revenge, even for an injustice done to his close relatives, he commits a secondary offense.
"Bhrama Net Sutra," translated by TBTTS, 8 July 2011, http://www.purifymind.com/BrahmaNetSutra.htm

So even in the Bhrama-net Sutra, it deals specifically with vengeance (which would, I believe, necessitate anger), and is silent on the issue of defending oneself.

That having been said, it may be that training in a martial art is suspect when looking into the spirit of the rule.

Just what I was able to find, and I'm certain there is more that would disprove this point. My apologies for any missed citations or incorrect interpretations.

Metta and Gassho,

Saijun

Edited to increase the size of the citations