Hit and Run Posts
/I consider myself an expert on human sexuality. I grew up at the center of the sexual revolution. I have always been friends with strippers and prostitutes. I had been to so many naked massage parties by the age of ten that I was shocked to find out that isn't normal. I attended safe-sex-consent parties in the early 90s which typically had a vanilla room and a rocky-road room. If I were to give my opinion about the current hysteria it would be rejected as madness. I have seen the world end several times, while the people around me carried on as if nothing had changed. I don't expect people to be rational. I don't expect people to see things as they are. Human nature is flawed, and that is that.
Here are two articles I wrote on Sex and Daoism from 2008. Part 1, Part 2.
In part 2 of Daoism and Sex I mentioned that Liu Xun's work hadn't been published, but now here it is. He is a wonderful scholar.
Meanwhile, I've been reading about eunuchs because there are some questions I need to answer for the Baguazhang section of my next book on the 'History of Internal Martial Arts Before the 20th Century.' It occurred to me that the expression, "The Sick Man of Asia" commonly used to describe China, probably came about because foreign diplomats and traders around the capital were constantly dealing with eunuchs. And, if I'm right, eunuchs trigger a disgust reaction in most people. They smell bad, they sound terrible, and they look creepy. It is so weird it is difficult to wrap my head around. Now-a-days when people talk about a third gender, they would do well to study the past.
People say to me, "Scott, I'm not interested in Chinese literature or religion. I'm interested in martial arts skills and the insights I get from training. I'm interested in how martial arts changes the way we see the world we live in, how it relates to truth, doing right, competence, coherence, and awareness."
My answer, "You just described the main subject of Chinese theatrical literature and a fundamental purpose of Chinese religion. Chinese literature is about what would happen to you if you had the coolest fighting skills ever. Daoism, more than any other religion I have studied, is about the felt experience of being. It is a non-journeying quest for an unmediated experience of human nature, in nature. Is that not the subject of martial arts too?"
The reason Zhang Sanfeng is credited as the author of the first two Tai Chi Classics is to make it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the subject is Jindan, the golden elixir. Zhang Sanfeng was a great Jindan teacher, that is what he was known for. The text begins from that assumption and describes some of the pitfalls, error, and types of fruition. It even hints at some preliminary methods which are markers along the way. But everything is meant to be understood as part of the larger practice of Jindan--a practice the text assumes readers already know since it was such a common subject in theater and art.
Invulnerability is the basis for all comic fight scenes. There are many types of invulnerability, un-hittable, un-hurtable, un-killable, un-touchable, un-flappable, un-liftable, un-moveable, un-sqeezeable, un-seeable, and un-cuttable. There is a close connection between the martial arts skills of rooting, iron-t-shirt, golden-bell, avoidance skills, yielding skills, and drunken skills. They can all be played as comic forms of invulnerability.
Kung Fu Hustle
