Zero Density--No Power inside the Body

One of the definitions of pure-internal power is that there is no compression or loading in the body what-so-ever. This experience or state, once achieved in motion, can be describe as zero density. Because there is no compression anywhere, every place in the body feels the same. Although one might feel a distinction between inside and outside the body, density does not define that distinction. The distinction is purely spatial. This is well established in works on Daoist inner alchemy over the last 1000 years. But as my students tend to point out, it doesn't matter whether you are a tenured scholar of Daoism or a Kung Fu child prodigy, if you don't have this specific experience these words are going to be difficult to comprehend. Somatic language requires somatic experiencing.

Where does this weird concept of zero density come from? Humans are one of the few animals that use our arms for carrying things. And we are the only animals that do a lot of carrying. We are also the only animals that make constant use of tools. This fate (命 ming) is surely related to walking on two feet. The evolution of the spatial-mind (神 shen) is linked in humans to the unconscious and automatic experience of being upright on two feet, and to our ready capacity to carry stuff. Carrying things is practical, but it is also tied developmentally and evolutionarily to status displays. All accumulation of status-objects (money, Rolexes, cell-phones, cars, patchouli oil) begins with carrying stuff. Carrying is also the most convincing way to make a threatening status display-- simply pick up a stick or a rock.

The things we carrying are tied to our sense of who we are, and what we are (性 xing). That is why pure-internal power is associated with enlightenment. This type of counter-intuitive empowerment begins with giving up ambition.

Identity markers, the qualities we "possess," create density in our bodies. Granted, it is a strange idea that the characteristics of our personality involve carrying stuff! Wilhelm Reich called this character armor. The Daoist take on it is that we carry around invisible symbolic-talisman. These talisman are a trade we make in the unseen (unconscious) world; when we seek status, we are effectively trading away some freedom of action. It is a subtle form of dis-empowerment. This is why theatrical performance is so closely linked with enlightenment. Acting is the study of how identity is socially constructed, great acting is the capacity to discard all evidence of a permanent self, and temporarily take on a new one.

How does zero density play out in martial arts?

Throws to the ground based purely on momentum can be done without any lifting or carrying. Throws based on lifting someone off the ground usually require carrying unless the opponent is tricked into jumping. Generally speaking any type of throw causes our body to become dense, but picking an opponent up off the ground creates more density. The ultimate status display is picking an opponent up over our head and roaring!

Yet I doubt that a tiger with a monkey in his mouth is engaged in a status display. One method for achieving zero density is as follows:

1. Practice emptying the limbs, like water flowing inwards toward the torso, without hardening any part of the body.
2. Release the feeling of you limbs out in all directions such that you lose proprioception.
3. Add an object (a rock or a stick), into your hand and empty it as if it were part of your body.
4. Do a set movement pattern while a partner is resisting your movement, empty their entire body as if it is part of your body.
5. Lift a partner off the ground as if he or she is part of your body.

Perhaps we shouldn't even call this gongfu, as that term implies hard work. There is nothing wrong with effort. But understanding that artificial effort comes from carrying things on two feet is key to understanding Daoism. 

Performative

Let's talk about the power of words.  Words can become stand-ins for whole ideas, even whole histories, which makes certain words really powerful.  But strangely these power-words have a half-life, a point at which they lose any actual meaning.  At that point they become simply markers of identity or tribe, if they maintain power it is the power to exclude or ridicule.

Here are some easy examples: sustainable, capitalism, embodiment, spiritual, relax. Feel free to add your own examples in the comments and to devise poems out of them.

After a word has journeyed to meaninglessness it can sometimes be reclaimed.  'Elightenment' is a good example of this.  The word got so over used that it hit the point of self-parody.  But I discovered that if I started using it to mean something real, immediate, present and available, people had to stop and try to figure out what I was talking about.  Suddenly the word had power again, not the same power it once had but at least the power to trigger a deeper conversation.

The paper I wrote last spring which is hopefully going to be published next year is called:  "Cracking the Code, Taijiquan as Enlightenment Theater."  At the same time as I came up with that title I realized the power of another word: Performative. 

The word 'performative' has been framing my teachings and arguments for about six months, it is a powerful word.  Of course I know it is going to become meaningless eventually, but while it still has power I'm trying to get as much use out of it as I can.

The word highjacked my vocabulary because the most common (and effective) argument against the notion that martial arts, theater and religion are a single subject is that performance is differnt from real fighting. 

There are many versions of this argument, for example, "The way people fight on stage is different than the way they fight in real life, therefore performing artists need to train differently than martial artists do."

My response is, no, that is a misconception, a blind spot.  In fact that mistaken view creates training artifacts which prioritize the illusion of utility.  If we start from the correct historically accurate assumption that martial arts are performative, then we won't create false answers to the "why" questions that constantly come from students who don't have experience with lethal violence.  (Another way for teachers to avoid this problem is simply to admit they don't know.  Hey, a guy can hope can't he?)

There is a lot packed into that last paragraph, let me try to unpack it a little.  What is the basic structure of martial arts, be they from Chinese theater or (to take an outlier example), Japanese operant conditioning for living in a castle where assassination is a regular threat?  The basic structure of martial arts is that we train the body to be able to perform certain operations which can be executed under extreme stress (be it the immediacy of a threat or the rigors of physically staying in-character for six hours at a time).  A prince living in a castle has to learn highly specific ritual responses with his body, when to bow, how to bow, what to do with his eyes,  what to do with his sleeves, how to walk into a room.  In Japan, operant conditioning was simply integrated into these exacting protocols.  If someone draws a sword from the left while you are sitting, you do this.  If you both draw at the same time you do this.  If the attack is at this distance you do this, if it starts closer in, do this instead.  It is performative.  It is exacting.  It is all in response to specific "what if's." But it is also part of a much larger performance.  It is the basic training for performing a prince.  

My favorite "why-question" training artifact to make fun of is "the chambered fist!"  This is the idea that the reason people pull their fist back to their hip is so that it will be cocked and loaded, ready to fire!  The real purpose of that whole body posture with the fist at the hip is performative.  As operative conditioning it is a position one fights to, not a position one fights from. As theatrical training it is the base for performing a character.  The core skill one needs to be able to physically stay in character is the ability to keep returning to the same exact body shapes but with specific communicative variations, like context specific walks, mimed actions, or altered facial expressions.  

Enlightenment is perfromative too.  One of the big misconceptions about enlightenment is that it is some sort of process, some type of reactive or responsive way of seeing the world and then acting in it.  I would even argue that the most important element of enlightenment is its performative nature.  Enlightenment is immediate, that is, it is completely un-mediated by any process, it is instantaneous.  

The same is true for gender.  Gender is completely performative.  I can perforom as a woman or a man if I practice those gender norms.  Performing like a woman won't actually change my sex or my biology but it can be liberating to question what is performance and what is biology.  

Identity isn't real; performance is.  "Reality-Based" martial arts aren't real; performance is.  Earthly hierarchies of superiority aren't real; performance is. 

__________________

Now for fun try replacing various subject words from the classic "mystical" chapter 6 of the Daodejing with variations of the word "performance":

The Valley Spirit is Deathless,

It is called the Dark Mare,

The door of the Dark Mare is the root of heaven and earth,

Lingering, it only seems to exist,

Yet in use, it is inexhaustible.  

--Laozi, Chapter 6

Translation by Ellen M. Chen, In Praise of Nothing; 2011: p. 93.

How I became Enlightened

So if you have some time for entertainment watch the video of this 11 year old kid's TED talk.  His story is here! and worth a quick read too.  He is not actually a kid, he is an emanation of the Dao!  The take away from his talk is very simple, STOP LEARNING!

Of course the obvious corollary to this kid's video is: stop teaching.

The common response to someone who says, I'm not interested in learning, is, you're so arrogant everyone can benefit from learning.  Not true.  In learning, as in fighting, time is damage.

Particularly when it comes to meeting new experts or masters, everyone will tell you to show up with an empty cup. How can you learn if your cup is already full? they say.  The propagators of upright conduct will tell you that if you show up with an agenda it will obscure your ability to see what is there.

But I say nay! show up with a full cup and if you are lucky it will get spilled! The purpose of a class is to compare what is in your cup to what is in the cups of other people in the class, including the teacher.  It is a place to compare notes, to test your experiences against the experiences of others.  Who wants to teach people with empty cups?  That's boring.

I've spent the last three months working on a book while staying and clearing brush at a Buddhist Retreat Center.  There is a substantial library here and I've had a chance to interact with lots of people on the subject of enlightenment.  But actually I already had incredible resources among my friends and family.  

One of the many arguments spinning around is whether one needs to be subordinate to a teacher in order to pick up enlightenment skills.  The best argument is that the default relationship in our society is equality and friendship.  But to become enlightened your teacher may need to tell you that you are an idiot, a blind fool and a moral disgrace, for example.  In our cultural milieu of equality as a default, those kinds of words would end the relationship, so you need to be subordinate to the teacher.  Interestingly however, all of these enlightenment traditions come from Asia where hierarchy is the default relationship.  This creates all kinds of confusion.  They obviously have to overcome the hierarchy thing to become enlightened.  So my conclusion is that whatever ones default relationship to a teacher or a teaching is, has to be overcome.  It has to be overcome because it is an illusion and illusions take an enormous amount of effort to maintain.  However, if it is a default illusion, one everyone else in your culture shares, than that effort is a BLIND SPOT, and you won't even know you are exerting that effort!

The other interesting argument spinning around is about how you might know if someone is enlightened.

Here is a talk by the Buddhist Geek Society about the science of enlightenment:

http://www.buddhistgeeks.org/audio/Episode266_Mindful_Binge_Drinking_and_Blobology.mp3

What a mess!  What a mess!  Here is my take.  The only test we have for enlightenment that has any meaning has to do with how a person handles change.  Particularly changes to ones identity.  So to test for enlightenment we have to confront a person with a direct challenge to their world view.  We push them past their limits and see how they adapt.  Facing death head on would be good but perhaps impractical.  We could perhaps have them talk to a rapist who not only loves raping but thinks it is the funniest thing he has ever done or will ever do in his life.  It kind of depends on the person, I can think of a lot of things that would shock other people into an identity coma, but it's much harder to think of such a thing for myself.  Anyway, once we solve the sampling problem (from the mp3 talk) and the control problem (also from the mp3) then we can come up with a list of things likely to knock someone's identity into next Thursday and see if they react differently then people who have not had 5+ years of enlightenment hazing.

That's all folks!