Philosophy and Spirituality in the Arts

[Kacey]

So... the title of this post is the same as the title of this subforum - and for a reason. How do you include philosophy and spirituality in the art(s) you practice? How do you define philosophy and spirituality in terms of the art(s) you practice? Do you include them at all? Why or why not?

 

[Xue Sheng]

I train CMA and it is intrinsic not additional not extra and not really discussed just there. Chinese ideas on just about everything do not generally seperate things like westerners do. Yin and Yang is everywhere in CMA and from my experience it has never been discussed by any CMA Sifu I have ever trained with from China or trained by someone from China it is just part of the theory behind it, not seperate.

From my point of view in CMA (and the JMA and KMA I trained) and from my time when I taught some CMA as well; If you want long discussions Taoism, Buddhism, or Legalism or Confucianism go to a Taoist or Buddhist Temple or read a book on the topic and start a discussion group it is not really up to the Sifu to teach you or show you any of it since it is already there. And there is not enough time in a class to train the students what they need to know in their chosen style to sit down and discuss spirituality

Outside of class I read a lot of books on Taoism and Buddhism as well as various other Eastern Religions and eventually I imagine I will get around to more in depth study of the religion that is indigenous to that country I live in. But for now any spirituality for me is individual and self study.

 

[Andrew Green]

I think that in terms of martial arts philosophy and spirituality are a result of doing, much more then any concious sit and think about what we are doing sort of approach. We train, we sweat, we bleed, and we take our partners safety into our own hands, and put ours into theirs.

Hard training tests your limits, it tells you who you are. If you have the internal stuff to keep going when you are beat up and exhausted, or whether you curl up in a ball in the corner.

There is growth there, learning that if you fall down you can get back up. That if you get hit in the face it's really not that bad.

But one of the most important things I think that people can get out of there training is the ability to fight fair. We go in as friends, we fight as friends, and we are still friends afterwards. When someone is hitting you in the face and you can press on, without anger, and with respect for that person, and do so fairly, that's something to be reached for.

I think that goes a lot farther then memorizing creeds or codes, and reciting koans. Anyone can think about what it should be like to be a good person, but to actually be a good person under fire is a much harder thing.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I fall into the same boat as Xue, philosophy is so much a part of my art that it is ever-present. Even more so than taiji, bagua is based almost completely on fundamental Taoist concepts (the gua, taiji and constant change). Because of this I do have to explain some of the concepts from time to time so that what we are doing makes sense. I also sprinkle training session with quotes from Laozi and Zhuangzi, for colour more than anything else.

There is, however, a formal requirement to understand some of the basic concepts of Taoist philosophy. As part of the testing for the second highest grade we have (we only have five remember) there is a written and oral test on Taoist philosophy including a knowledge of Laozi, Zhuangzi and the poet Li Bai. Its not hard and is more about understanding than being right or wrong.

 

[exile]

I am, I suspect, going to be very much the odd man out. But spirituality plays no more part in my MA training than it did in my ski racing training when I did that.

I take as my models MAists such as Bushi Matsumura, Chotoku Kyan, and Choki Motobu, who made it clear in both their words and deeds that their MA was, for them, first and foremost a set of fighting skills. A set of physical actions which had a particular kind of physical result.

I went to junior high school and high school with a disproportionate number of aggressive bullies who make Dudley Dursley look like the bookies' favorite for this year's Nobel Prize in physics, and to university in a very dangerous, unpredictable city where many nice, ordinary people, people much like me, travelled armed to the teeth for personal self-protection. So, many decades before I started studying MAs, I was in the market for any kind of self-defense system which would allow me to defend myself effectively and—this is a little hard to explain concisely—elegantly, in the sense that a forced mate in chess is elegant. I wanted a technique set that I could apply to a variety of violent attacking moves that would, all other things being equal (no weapons, equal shares of luck, etc) give me heavy odds-up on my attacker and force him out of the fight, badly injured most likely, regardless of what he did after throwing the first punch. I also had weapons at hand, but those were for situations where I had lead time to deploy them prior to an attack and very likely scare it off (as happened on several occasions—it's remarkable how fast the sight of eighteen inches of inch-long motorcycle chain link in your would-be victim's hand convinces you to that the path of virtue, arduous though it is, is definitely the better path! ).

When I finally started formal MA training, many decades later, my views and expectations hadn't changed. MA = CQ H2H SD. For many people it has other dimensions, I know, and that's fine; I do calligraphy, and used to know calligraphers who viewed calligraphy as a spiritual exercise. And there are probably ski racers who think of ski racing that way... and if you think it is, then, in a sense, it is. It's just... I don't, and so for me, it isn't.

 

[Andrew Green]

and if you think it is, then, in a sense, it is. It's just... I don't, and so for me, it isn't.

That's a very important piece, trying to force your own sense of "spirituality" on someone else is always a big mistake IMO.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I am, I suspect, going to be very much the odd man out. But spirituality plays no more part in my MA training than it did in my ski racing training when I did that.

I take as my models MAists such as Bushi Matsumura, Chotoku Kyan, and Choki Motobu, who made it clear in both their words and deeds that their MA was, for them, first and foremost a set of fighting skills. A set of physical actions which had a particular kind of physical result.

I think you are, in fact, voicing the opinion of the vast majority of MA practitioners in the world. Martial arts is something they chose to do to give them fighting skills. Its why I started studying, and there was no philosophical content at my first school (a very practical JKD-based school).

A lot of the old masters, especially in Japan, re-invented themselves after they became established. the image of a rough and tumble fighting man was no longer appropriate. As a result, Karate became an art designed to enhance perceptions and grow the spirit, not an art designed to put an opponent down as fast as possible.

In the Japanese, and by a certain extension the Korean, arts one can study an entire system of combat with no reference to philosophy at all. Philosophical concepts do not intrude into the content of the system unless you want them to. One does not need to know about Zen in order to learn kata.

In the Neijia, internal arts of China, one simply cannot avoid philosophy. It is at the very core of the arts. Most only skim it however, taking just what they need to understand the combat system. I like to go deeper with the hope that a better understanding will give me a greater grasp of my art. I don't know if it is working. Its Daoism, you just can't tell most of the time :idunno:.

 

[Lisa]

I don't think I could take spiritual leadership from someone that I pay to teach me a skill. It just doesn't work that way for me.

 

[exile]

That's a very important piece, trying to force your own sense of "spirituality" on someone else is always a big mistake IMO.

I've seen it lead to some very negative and inappropriate value judgments in both directions... sometimes xtrmshock) on the pages of MartialTalk!

This is one area where 'live and let live' absolutely must rule.

A lot of the old masters, especially in Japan, re-invented themselves after they became established. the image of a rough and tumble fighting man was no longer appropriate. As a result, Karate became an art designed to enhance perceptions and grow the spirit, not an art designed to put an opponent down as fast as possible.

Absolutely. Check out Rob Redmond's take on Funakoshi's pre- and postwar about-face in this respect.

I don't think I could take spiritual leadership from someone that I pay to teach me a skill. It just doesn't work that way for me.

I feel the same way. Your tennis pro, golf pro and Gojo-ryu instructor are all equally entitled—not!—to knee-jerk guru status.

I think the MAs can be a spiritual path for people, just as I believe any human activity can be. That's the key thing: there isn't anything specially privileged about the MAs. Ethical considerations loom large, sure, but that's a different story, I think.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I am, I suspect, going to be very much the odd man out. But spirituality plays no more part in my MA training than it did in my ski racing training when I did that. .

:duh: And you’re ALLOWED to post on MT!!!:tantrum:

:uhyeah:

Actually you are not the odd man out, it is not thought of as anything separate in any of the CMA styles I have trained anymore than it is thought about in skiing that you are wearing socks in your ski boots.

It is just part of it, It is there and that is all.

 

[Doc_Jude]

Personally, I don't feel that spirituality has much of a place in Martial Arts. Ethics and Self-empowerment, certainly. Knowing when and how to use such violent physical force, and having the willingness to use such force to protect yourself or your loved one is paramount.
Besides, true spirituality requires training and study, and few if any of the martial arts instructors I have met or trained with have the requisite expertise to guide anyone spiritually, specifically since the coupling of both positions of martial arts master and spiritual advisor bring too much temptation from both student and teacher for ego abuse.

 

[Monadnock]

In the animal kingdom, animals will fight to defend themselves and their young. It's sort of programmed in all creatures. Are humans no different? What sets us apart from them -- oh yeah... that ability to reason.

For the Buddhists:
"Does a dog have a Budda nature?"

For the Christians:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Something tells me that if you're a human, you are above the animals. Hopefully over the past few thousand years we have developed some sort of philosophy on how to conduct ourselves. I think these philosophies and ethics extend to the martial arts as well. Many were developed out of the need to preserve life - a spiritual decision IMHO. But it is too easy to misuse them. Without some sort of guidelines on how, when and why to use these skills, they may as well be for the animals.

 

[exile]

Besides, true spirituality requires training and study, and few if any of the martial arts instructors I have met or trained with have the requisite expertise to guide anyone spiritually, specifically since the coupling of both positions of martial arts master and spiritual advisor bring too much temptation from both student and teacher for ego abuse.

This ties in with Lisa's point exactly. MA skill, teaching skill, and spiritual knowledge—whatever that may be—are three quite different things. For societies in which spirituality is a persistent theme in the culture, it is something you pursue in a disciplined fashion over decades.

In fact, I think this is one of the major pitfalls that people studying the MAs need to be very careful about: these TMAs come from societies in which spirituality is highly respected, and explicitly linked to concrete human activity: labor in the fields is sometimes identified in Vedic literature, for example, as an act of worship. But the flip side is, there are strict paths and disciplines which are considered to be necessary to fully detach oneself from the distortions of the material world in order to reach a vision of a deeper level of Being, and those disciplines are just that—tough, demanding and spartan. You train them, as hard as our top MAists train their skills, and over the same kind of time frame: decades. It's that kind of severe training—both physical and mental—that is supposed to be a prerequisite for enlightenment.

How many spiritual leaders of any stripe in our society carry out that kind of discipline? There are members of the professional clergy who can, but not that many others. Yet the cultural associations of the TMAs with cultures in which that sort of authority clings to teachers can lend a false spiritual authority to someone in our own western/urban context who wants to claim such authority and has learn how to talk the talk. It's not a problem people with my own view of the MAs strictly as combat technique sets are faced with, but for people looking for something beyond that... caveat emptor with a vengeance, eh?

Hopefully over the past few thousand years we have developed some sort of philosophy on how to conduct ourselves. I think these philosophies and ethics extend to the martial arts as well. Many were developed out of the need to preserve life - a spiritual decision IMHO. But it is too easy to misuse them. Without some sort of guidelines on how, when and why to use these skills, they may as well be for the animals.

There's a lot of truth in this—but the same thing applies to how, when and why to use a gun in self-defense, to inform law enforcement agencies of suspected abuse of your neighbor's kids, to inconvenience yourself by showing up in court to provide testimony in the case of a hit-and-run accident where you don't want someone to have been able to get away with criminal negligence... in other words, ethics, period. Sure, the violence inherent in the use of MAs raises very tough ethical issues, requiring careful thinking about the consequences of our actions... but so does a lot of the rest of life. I think (though I know I could be dead wrong about this) that Kacey's question was about some particular aspects of spirituality that are specifically connected to the activity of doing MAs even if you don't ever intend to use them for self-defense purposes.

 

[Steel Tiger]

This ties in with Lisa's point exactly. MA skill, teaching skill, and spiritual knowledge—whatever that may be—are three quite different things. For societies in which spirituality is a persistent theme in the culture, it is something you pursue in a disciplined fashion over decades.

In fact, I think this is one of the major pitfalls that people studying the MAs need to be very careful about: these TMAs come from societies in which spirituality is highly respected, and explicitly linked to concrete human activity: labor in the fields is sometimes identified in Vedic literature, for example, as an act of worship. But the flip side is, there are strict paths and disciplines which are considered to be necessary to fully detach oneself from the distortions of the material world in order to reach a vision of a deeper level of Being, and those disciplines are just that—tough, demanding and spartan. You train them, as hard as our top MAists train their skills, and over the same kind of time frame: decades. It's that kind of severe training—both physical and mental—that is supposed to be a prerequisite for enlightenment.

How many spiritual leaders of any stripe in our society carry out that kind of discipline? There are members of the professional clergy who can, but not that many others. Yet the cultural associations of the TMAs with cultures in which that sort of authority clings to teachers can lend a false spiritual authority to someone in our own western/urban context who wants to claim such authority and has learn how to talk the talk. It's not a problem people with my own view of the MAs strictly as combat technique sets are faced with, but for people looking for something beyond that... caveat emptor with a vengeance, eh?

There is no doubt that some of us, because of the art we have chosen to pursue, must embrace philosophy and spirituality more than do others. It simply cannot be avoided. That being said, I think you are right. Many people are taking advantage of the philosophical cultural baggage carried by many MAs to gain power over others. They use their hodge-podge, new age understanding of associated philosophy and spirituality to create small kingdoms for themselves. In the process completely missing the point of the philosophy they are so abusing.

As I said earlier, we have a testing requirement for knowing something of Daoist philosophy, but I simply cannot imagine myself as some sort of martial arts god-king imparting to my followers the distilled wisdom of the cosmos. That all sounds just a little too stuck up for my taste. I would rather see my students fascinated by qinna than waiting for me to attempt to enlighten them with quotations for Laozi (and yes, I did say I do occassionally drop such quotes in class, I don't think anyone pays too much attention most of the time though).

When it comes right down to it, martial arts is not, in and of itself, about understanding philosophy or developing spirituality unless you want it to be. If that's your choice, explore to your hearts content. If it isn't, that's good too. I expect both camps are happy and content with what they are doing.

 

[Doc_Jude]

In the animal kingdom, animals will fight to defend themselves and their young. It's sort of programmed in all creatures. Are humans no different? What sets us apart from them -- oh yeah... that ability to reason.

For the Buddhists:
"Does a dog have a Budda nature?"

For the Christians:
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Something tells me that if you're a human, you are above the animals. Hopefully over the past few thousand years we have developed some sort of philosophy on how to conduct ourselves. I think these philosophies and ethics extend to the martial arts as well. Many were developed out of the need to preserve life - a spiritual decision IMHO. But it is too easy to misuse them. Without some sort of guidelines on how, when and why to use these skills, they may as well be for the animals.

Actually, philosophy in martial arts doesn't teach you how to conduct yourself so much as it justifies, after the fact, the prudent use of preservation instinct.

We don't act much better than insects, let alone higher mammals.

 

[Xue Sheng]

One more thing, if I look at this from the POV of Taiji and even Xingyiquan it is intrinsic.

Form my little exposure to Wing Chun and what I have read about it tends more towards Confucianism which I would not exactly call spiritual but philosophical

However if I look at it form the POV of Sanda it is non-existent there is no spirituality just self defense and self preservation.

 

[Kacey]

Sure, the violence inherent in the use of MAs raises very tough ethical issues, requiring careful thinking about the consequences of our actions... but so does a lot of the rest of life. I think (though I know I could be dead wrong about this) that Kacey's question was about some particular aspects of spirituality that are specifically connected to the activity of doing MAs even if you don't ever intend to use them for self-defense purposes.

Actually, I was just trying to start a discussion... which seems to have worked quite nicely!

While I believe that I, as an instructor, have a responsibility to teach moral/ethical use of the physical/mental skills I teach, I work hard to keep spirituality out of my class - first, because, being Jewish, I am not the a member of the same spiritual persuasion as any of my students (I've had Jewish students in the past - but none at the moment).

Philosophy, however, is a different issue; I use philosophy, in the sense of historical examples and discussions of scenarios, to teach moral/ethical use of the physical/mental skills I teach in class. Whether or not others consider that philosophy is up for discussion as well.

 

[exile]

Actually, I was just trying to start a discussion... which seems to have worked quite nicely!

While I believe that I, as an instructor, have a responsibility to teach moral/ethical use of the physical/mental skills I teach, I work hard to keep spirituality out of my class - first, because, being Jewish, I am not the a member of the same spiritual persuasion as any of my students (I've had Jewish students in the past - but none at the moment).

Philosophy, however, is a different issue; I use philosophy, in the sense of historical examples and discussions of scenarios, to teach moral/ethical use of the physical/mental skills I teach in class. Whether or not others consider that philosophy is up for discussion as well.

This rings true for me.

Ethical considerations are going to loom large when any skill that has the potential to do harm to someone else is involved, because the instructor, by virtue of teaching those skills, is in effect empowering students to put themselves in positions where they can do harm and therefore are, in my view, implicated, even if indirectly, in the way those skills are applied. A number of people on this board have stated, at one time or another, that they would not teach martial arts to someone who they had reason to believe would use them for criminal or gratuitously destructive purposes. At bottom, the reason for such statements always seems to be a recognition by the instructor that they share, to some degree, ethical responsibility for how the skills they teach are applied.

This doesn't mean that it's necessarily your failure as an instructor if a student does something ethically irresponsible with the training s/he's received—we don't get provided crystal balls when we start teaching—but it does seem as though there's an inherent obligation to explain to the student just how destructive the MA techs you're teaching can be, and emphasize that the force you apply shouldn't exceed the danger you believe you're facing in defending yourself. Those kinds of moral assessments do rest on certain assumptions about the balance of rights and responsibilities amongst individuals living in civil societies that need to be discussed explicitly, I think.

 

[Monadnock]

Actually, philosophy in martial arts doesn't teach you how to conduct yourself so much as it justifies, after the fact, the prudent use of preservation instinct.

We don't act much better than insects, let alone higher mammals.

I think there is an equal emphasis on what you do to prevent an attack. If not, it's time to leave the mall dojo for something a little deeper.

 

[morph4me]

I'm of the opinion that spirtuality has no place in the martial arts, however philosphy is intrinsic. I don't believe that a teacher can help but let his or her philosphy come through in their teaching. It is up to the student to decide to accept, reject or amend the philosophy of their teacher.