Does Wing Chun need a “spiritual” center? Is it Confucianism? - Interesting read

[Xue Sheng107 24]

Does Wing Chun need a “spiritual” center? Is it Confucianism?

I recently read something by a somewhat prominent writer on the martial arts that made me sit up and take notice. The author (who remains nameless as I am about to criticize him) noted that a large number of traditional martial arts have a close association with a spiritual tradition (Buddhism, Daoism, Shinto etc.) and that those which do not are missing something essential because they provide no ethical framework to regulate the exercise of the deadly skills that they pass on. This comment was more of an aside than anything else and the author proceeded on with his main point without explaining his observation or offering any suggestion to those poor benighted martial artists (all of whom presumably occupy American MMA gyms) who aren’t getting regular spiritual edification.

 

[APL765 4]

Does Wing Chun need a “spiritual” center? Is it Confucianism?

I wonder if there is a bit of a disconnect between what people who have, for a few generations, lived in the 'disenchanted' (usually Eurocentric) countries call spiritualism, and what people in most other parts of the world don't really separate as spiritualism on the one hand and simply cultural practices and ethics on the other.

For example, both my Sifu, and his Sifu, Sum Nung, are decidedly not spiritual or religious in any way. Though my Sifu still is, and from what he tells me Sum Nung was, strongly guided by traditional Chinese cultural norms and Daoism in particular.

In other words I think you can defiantly have an ethical framework without the spirituality, but then I guess, you have to get if from somewhere.