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enough to have received Tibetan teachings for many years, and today I have direct access to the pre-Buddhist Tibetan culture through my root teacher Lama Khemsar Ripoche who, currently, is the only Bon-po Lama resident in Europe. Taoist Sages on the other hand are not so easy to find outside of China, and Taoist literature is very often heavily hidden in symbolic language.
It is said that conciseness is aware of its self, and by being aware, sees itself as separate from the rest of life. This very illusion of separateness, is the root cause of all problems, as the mind then starts to create the “Ten Thousand Things” it then separates, divides and names things, so that it feels permanent and in control, but it is not so. The mind creates countries, politics, language, religions, philosophies, and labels everything in the Universe, and then thinks that they are real. This is called “relative truth”, true only in the sense that when we call a “table” a “table” we can communicate with each other, but ultimately there is no such thing as a “table” it is simply a label of convenience. This can be understood by analysis, such as, is the table the top, or the legs? If you take one leg off is it still a table? Is the table the sound or the word table? And so on. So how does this relate to the Martial Arts? Actually it is very important, because the mind thinks in concepts, we must understand that the conceptual mind cannot have a relationship with an object. An object can only be understood by the senses. For example, if we take Taiji as the object, then it cannot be understood by the intellect, by academic thought, by the
conceptual mind, in other words you cannot learn Taiji by thinking, only by practicing. Today we see Science and Business destroying our planet simply because the intellect is valued more than the senses. A child can sense what is wrong and what is right with our world, but the agendas of politics, religion, science, business, and idealism, have no sense of how things really are, they think that they know. So in the Martial Arts our practice should be effortless, without thought, spontaneous, so that we avoid even thinking of ourselves as Martial Artists. A Martial Artist with a mind that is conditioned (ego) has no ability to ever reach a high level of accomplishment, because of the very limit that he places on his or her understanding.
Author Steven Harrison in his book “Doing Nothing” about the spiritual search has a wonderful story of how our minds become conditioned by our culture, and how some cultures can see things as they are. He tells of a scenario where two people live in New York. The first person works lumber futures, earns a six figure salary, and is highly respected in the community. The other man walks down the street while talking to the Gods. He is considered by the community to be mad, and should be locked away. Now lets take this scenario to the South American rain forest. The man who sells lumber futures would be considered crazy, and the other man would now be the Shaman, to whom the people would bring their troubles.
So we can see here how our outlook and attitude can become conditioned. With Martial Arts training how ever it is possible to condition the mind even further. I’m sure we all know the importance so people put to grades, badges, uniforms and titles; unfortunately this only adds to our confused state. Retaining the beginners mind is so essential. Yet another Zen story illustrates this A Buddhist scholar had an interview with an old Zen Master. The scholar was determined to impress the Master with his knowledge of the sutras and teachings of Zen. They met, exchanged greetings, and sat down around a low table. Immediately the scholar started talking, expounding his views, and opinions. On, and on, he went proudly displaying the knowledge his academic training had given him. After a while the old Zen master (by now rather tired) stopped him and asked. “Would you like some tea?” To which the scholar replied that he would. So the old master started pouring the tea into the scholar’s cup, but when it was full, instead of stopping, he carried on, until the tea ran all over the table and into the scholar’s lap. “Stop!” cried the scholar “What are you doing?” “Well” said the old man of Zen, “you see, just like this cup your mind is so full of it’s own self importance, that, to understand anything at all, you must first empty your cup”
When the mind wishes to feel important it invents things. Competitions are a good example. Why do we need to be competitive, if not for “ego?” Look again at ancient Tibet. Where is the Tibetan Olympic team? And despite all the suffering at the hands of the Chinese, where are the Tibetan terrorist groups? As the Dali Lama said, “Violence only brings more and more problems”. People who panned for gold in Tibet were thought to be crazy, when the real gold is in our natural enlightened state. There is a very famous saying in the Dzogchen tradition. It says, “Do not be distracted” but our lives are nothing but distraction, we are surrounded by distraction, and we are addicted by distraction. No wonder that the mind finds silence, emptiness and space threatening. And herein lies the answer to our neurotic monkey mind, we need to create some space in our lives, through our internal arts, meditation, yoga or formal spiritual practice, such as Ngondro, or Tantra (but not the New Age kind, which has nothing to do with Tantric practice at all) seeing in nature a reflection of ourselves, and not some thing to be conquered. Mount Everest is a sacred place for the people of that region, not a rubbish dump for Western climbers. The conditioned mind sees nothing as sacred, the environment, the animals, the landscape, because it is fractured and not whole. The late Zen Abbot D.T.Suzuki addressed a gathering of many faiths from around the world, in Switzerland some years ago, He began with these words:
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