The Mind in the Martial Arts & Eastern Tradition: Part One: An Introduction.

By any stretch of the imagination it would be extremely difficult to add anything new and informative to the thousands of words already written about the Internal Arts by Erle and also by many other highly accomplished instructors, such as Michael Babin. There is however, an area where much confusion and misunderstanding still exist, and this is the area of the mind. Strictly speaking we should not begin to treat the mind as if it were a totally separate function, as it normally can only operate in conjunction with our body and energy (spirit). But, we need to look closely both at the mind and consciousness, to find the connections, and to work toward total freedom from our conditioned existence. These days, everybody is teaching, writing and discussing meditation, but is it truly understood?
 

For example, who of us at some time or other has not picked up a book on Taoism, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, or some other form of esoteric Eastern Tradition and tried to wade our way through, only to be confronted with words like ENLIGHTENMENT, ATTACHMENT, EMPTINESS, DEPENDENT ARISING, KARMA, GROUND OF BEING, SAMSARA, DUALISM, ULTIMATE TRUTH, RELATIVE TRUTH ETC. And what have we done? Thrown the book away? Ignored the words we are unsure of? Carried on reading pretending to ourselves that we understand? (And if not now later, perhaps!) Or as in most cases, not looked deeply enough at what is actually being conveyed, and the main reason for this is our cultural conditioning, we simply have overlaid our conditioned mind on to all that we see and experience. And here is the root cause of all our trouble.

So what I am proposing in this series of articles is to start together to examine the most commonly occurring themes, and also to look at the different Schools and Traditions from which the ‘Internal Arts’ may have been influenced, or indeed have influenced others. A good example, (of which we can take a later look) is the Ancient Tibetan School of the BON. Books on this Tradition are only now beginning to be published, although at the moment they are mainly academic, some interesting facts are already coming to light. For example, the Pa Kua system is in the BON Tradition and also the Colours and Elements of the BON Astrological System are exactly the same as the Chinese (Five Element) Medical System. BON is the pre-Buddhist Tradition of Tibet, which claims a history of enlightened teachings dating back 18,000 years (before this time the Bon magicians were shamans, but of an unenlightened nature) if you raise your eyebrows at 18,000 years, remember that the Australian Aborigines claim a history (from the Dreamtime) of 44,000 years. Also in the series we can take a close look at CHAN (Chinese) and ZEN (Japanese) and look at the integration into Martial Arts, and in Zen especially to look at the ‘Koans’(most students have heard of the famous. ..One hand clapping koan) but what does it all mean, and what is achieved by concentrating on such an apparently inane statement? And of course at the heart of the matter we have MEDITATION, but what exactly is it? These days, everybody is teaching, writing and discussing meditation, but is it truly understood? Is there for example such a thing as a meditation technique? When we talk of the MIND, what are we talking about? Is the MIND consciousness? Where does the MIND reside? Is it out there, or only here. . . internally? There are many interesting and related subjects to Chi Kung, Taiji, Pa-Kua and Hsing-I and many of the KEYS to higher-level practice and understanding are contained within these subjects.

Not only that, but an intelligent inquiry opens up a whole new world which is as vast and varied as it is fascinating. Modern Physics and Ancient Mysticism are finding more and more parallels, and although the world is moving such an alarming pace, and with all our so called knowledge, we still can not answer simple questions, such as: Who we are, and what truly is our propose (if any) in the Universe?

So we must approach this most fascinating of subjects slowly, deliberately, and with a sense of complete openness, otherwise will be bringing along all our old baggage with us. The baggage, which is the conditioned mind. The baggage that contains all our cultural, educational, and environmental preconceived ideas. Such a mind is not free. We only have to look at the so-called religions of the world and to see the havoc, pain and misery that they caused all in the name of some fixed and rigid belief patterns that they have never questioned. A mind that is interested to be fee must become extremely sensitive and thereby intelligent. Not a mind full of self-importance, egotistical and therefore limited, but a mind that wishes to free itself for the benefit of all life. Some of the subjects that we will cover will be the ones that commonly occur throughout Eastern literature: Emptiness, Meditation and so forth, but to start this inquiry we have to first take a small step back. I have lost track of the number of times that I have see the following quotation with regards to Taiji.. . ‘The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step’ Should we not ask two questions here? First of all, is there really such a thing as this journey? And if there is, can we experience it without the one who wants to take this journey. . .in other words the SELF or should we say the CONDITIONED SELF for as long as we have this idea/concept of ourselves there can be no real inquiry. As the old ZEN story goes (I’ll quote the whole story in the next article) the usefulness of the cup is in its shape, its ability to hold and contain whatever is poured in.

Anthony Court

(Article reprinted from Combat and Healing magazine with kind permission from Master Erle Montaigue)