Enlightenment Through Martial Arts - HOW?
- Thread starter Psilent Knight
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_Simon_136 167
Grandmaster
I still maintain that many facets of martial arts (some arts moreso perhaps but hard to quantify) lend itself to and encourage spiritual development. Zen in particular stresses direct experience and the state prior to thought (which also contains it), but also a great deal of emphasis on the body, and in not separating meditation from daily life. Particularly how I'm personally exploring spirituality within martial arts:
-Goju has a strong emphasis on being grounded, breathing, being connected through the body, moving from your centre, nuance of technique, not resisting, and a big focus on "feel". This demands awareness to stay within the confines of what you're directly experiencing. You feel things on a different level and become so present in experience that stuff just falls away. It becomes common practice to "pay attention" and that stays with you in daily life.
-Kyokushin which I'm revisiting approaches this and enters from a totally different direction. Its methodology explores deep pressure, pain/intense sensation, exhaustion and pushes you beyond where you thought you could go. There's no room for thought, and it brings up immense doubts which you directly confront head on. It's a different type of spirituality that reminds me of Vipassana meditation. A different internal practice, and even though many see Kyokushin as an "external" art, it uses that to explore the internal in a different way, right into the psyche in which you transcend so much fluff so to speak.
I think that's important, we can get very caught up in generalities but looking directly at how each art approaches what we might call "spiritual" is important. Of course the definition we hold of spiritual enlightenment is unfortunately pretty varied.
Whether the MA are more geared towards this I can't say (ie as compared to other sports), and to me it doesn't matter. The MA hold enough that can nurture this development if someone is sincerely interested.
-Goju has a strong emphasis on being grounded, breathing, being connected through the body, moving from your centre, nuance of technique, not resisting, and a big focus on "feel". This demands awareness to stay within the confines of what you're directly experiencing. You feel things on a different level and become so present in experience that stuff just falls away. It becomes common practice to "pay attention" and that stays with you in daily life.
-Kyokushin which I'm revisiting approaches this and enters from a totally different direction. Its methodology explores deep pressure, pain/intense sensation, exhaustion and pushes you beyond where you thought you could go. There's no room for thought, and it brings up immense doubts which you directly confront head on. It's a different type of spirituality that reminds me of Vipassana meditation. A different internal practice, and even though many see Kyokushin as an "external" art, it uses that to explore the internal in a different way, right into the psyche in which you transcend so much fluff so to speak.
I think that's important, we can get very caught up in generalities but looking directly at how each art approaches what we might call "spiritual" is important. Of course the definition we hold of spiritual enlightenment is unfortunately pretty varied.
Whether the MA are more geared towards this I can't say (ie as compared to other sports), and to me it doesn't matter. The MA hold enough that can nurture this development if someone is sincerely interested.
And became resistant to hyperbole
And modest too. We look forward to seeing this ābetter personā
ā¦noā¦canāt see it yet
Iām pulling your leg! Itās good to be proud of your experiences and tell everyone about them without virtue signalling. Thatās a very fine line youāve trodden.
There are a few strands that requiring drawing together to try and understand what the TMA are attempting to do with regards ākokoro no shugyoā (spiritual training).
The samurai were literate but not eloquent so when the wanted to transcribe subtle martial principles, they would often turn to the best educated to write these idea down on paper; monks. The monks would use the vocabulary with which they were most familiar to get those ideas across. Zanshin -> from Zen, Mushin -> from Zen, fukushiki kokyu/tanden soku (breathing pattern techniques) -> from Zen and many more. Whether samurai were actually attempting to lever Zen and spiritual training into the methods of killing other innocent human beings or is a consequence of one set of very specific terms being used to describe something very different is debatable.
Many of the ideas of spiritual training started becoming popular in Pax Tokugawa (1603-1868) when samurai progressively became pen pushers in castle offices; how to keep samurai ābattle readyā when there are no opportunities to fight or indeed, need. In some extremely clever thinking the idea became to simply suggest that martial training will make them ābetter peopleā, ādevelop characterā and turn them into super humans of moral, Confucian virtue! I think youāll agree this is simply not the case. If an arrogant, virtue signalling show off of person takes up the TMA, they become an arrogant, virtue signalling, show off who can fight! If an introspective kind, humble person takes up TMAā¦you get the idea.
These events have filtered down to the modern martial arts, colouring them considerably plus the addition of attempts at absolution for post-WW2 crimes.
Iāve recently found a Youtube channel that beautifully expounds the spiritual aspects of swordsmanship.
I donāt think the physical aspects of the TMA have anything particular special about them that induces awakening or spiritual health. For example, I know of a (Rinzai) Zen monastery that uses the chopping of logs with an axe as a spiritual exercise. What I do think is that TMArtists of long standing tend to be more introspective and interested in āimproving themselvesā. Then again, others are just c**ts
The samurai were literate but not eloquent so when the wanted to transcribe subtle martial principles, they would often turn to the best educated to write these idea down on paper; monks. The monks would use the vocabulary with which they were most familiar to get those ideas across. Zanshin -> from Zen, Mushin -> from Zen, fukushiki kokyu/tanden soku (breathing pattern techniques) -> from Zen and many more. Whether samurai were actually attempting to lever Zen and spiritual training into the methods of killing other innocent human beings or is a consequence of one set of very specific terms being used to describe something very different is debatable.
Many of the ideas of spiritual training started becoming popular in Pax Tokugawa (1603-1868) when samurai progressively became pen pushers in castle offices; how to keep samurai ābattle readyā when there are no opportunities to fight or indeed, need. In some extremely clever thinking the idea became to simply suggest that martial training will make them ābetter peopleā, ādevelop characterā and turn them into super humans of moral, Confucian virtue! I think youāll agree this is simply not the case. If an arrogant, virtue signalling show off of person takes up the TMA, they become an arrogant, virtue signalling, show off who can fight! If an introspective kind, humble person takes up TMAā¦you get the idea.
These events have filtered down to the modern martial arts, colouring them considerably plus the addition of attempts at absolution for post-WW2 crimes.
Iāve recently found a Youtube channel that beautifully expounds the spiritual aspects of swordsmanship.
I donāt think the physical aspects of the TMA have anything particular special about them that induces awakening or spiritual health. For example, I know of a (Rinzai) Zen monastery that uses the chopping of logs with an axe as a spiritual exercise. What I do think is that TMArtists of long standing tend to be more introspective and interested in āimproving themselvesā. Then again, others are just c**ts
Prince_Alarming74 10
Senior Master
The student asked his master one day
"If we are pacifists, why do we train to fight?"
The master took a long drag of his cigar and a mouthful of beer and replied:
"That's just what we tell the punters. We're actually just beating the snot out of each other for fun, and it's necessary to have some sort of gloss so that society will allow us to do it"
He paused a little for effect, took another little puff and added:
"Don't ruin it."
"If we are pacifists, why do we train to fight?"
The master took a long drag of his cigar and a mouthful of beer and replied:
"That's just what we tell the punters. We're actually just beating the snot out of each other for fun, and it's necessary to have some sort of gloss so that society will allow us to do it"
He paused a little for effect, took another little puff and added:
"Don't ruin it."
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