Internal martial arts, theatricality, Chinese religion, and The Golden Elixir.
Books: TAI CHI, BAGUAZHANG AND THE GOLDEN ELIXIR, Internal Martial Arts Before the Boxer Uprising. By Scott Park Phillips. Paper ($30.00), Digital ($9.99)
Possible Origins, A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater and Religion, (2016) By Scott Park Phillips. Paper ($18.95), Digital ($9.99)
Watch Video: A Cultural History of Tai Chi
New Eastover Workshop, in Eastern Massachusetts, Italy, and France are in the works.
Daodejing Online - Learn Daoist Meditation through studying Daoism’s most sacred text Laozi’s Daodejing. You can join from anywhere in the world, $50. Email me if you are interesting in joining!
Daoism and Martial Arts
/There is another precept which is really interesting: Daoists were forbidden to fight in the army, but if they were forced (threatened with the extermination of family) than they were forbidden to serve in a subordinate position--Meaning they had to command troops.
Other important precepts are cultivate: weakness, softness, stillness and non-aggression. There were also prohibitions against wasting qi or jing, or loosing your qi (i.e., getting angry to the point of self injury).
The vast number of Daoists were house holders, married men and women, priests whose job it was to regulate or manage local cults and the rectification of the unresolved dead.
Daoist thinking is important in the creation of internal martial arts, but the connection is not easy to make.
Kristofer Schipper who I mentioned in an earlier blog, says that there were two types of Daoists, black hat and red hat. Red hat were aloud to practice martial arts and black hat were not. The distinction between these two is not a simple one, but red hat's are usually transmediums or shaman (wu).
The idea that certain internal martial arts (taijiquan, xingyiquan, baguazhang) are Daoist or Daoist influenced may not predate the 20th century. It very much depends on what we think Daoism is, and what constitutes an "influence."
I intend to deal with this subject in depth in the coming months, but I thought I might give my readers a head start on the reading.
Three Daoist Paths
/1. Taking a step and putting your foot down with out any agenda or plan. (Like in Bagua zhang)
2. These pictures and videos of the Goddess Mazu, in Taiwan.
3. The Chinese word for fist: quan. (By linguistic extension it also means a martial arts routine which can be performed.)
The answer is they are all different parts of a processional religious tradition. This tradition of performance and ritual cuts deeply across western conceptual categories of meaning.
A few days ago I wrote about Paulie Zink, and the difficulty I had making sense of his monkey style Daoist religious performance training. When we think of African religion, a dancing ritual expert is not so hard to imagine. How about a Chinese dance that is so full of unseen power that if word spreads it is about to be performed, people run home and lock their doors?
Kristofer Schipper in his brilliant work The Taoist Body, explains that people trained in monkey gongfu also played the monkey god (who steals the peach belonging to the Queen Mother of the West) in ritual performances which had a strong religious function for Chinese communities. Such performances were part of religious celebrations, festivals and processions associated with local temples and sacred history. He also talks about Daoist puppet masters:
"Puppets are rarely called in just for the show; their power is such that they are considered invaluable aids in the battle against evil influences. A troupe is called on to exorcise these influences in the event of disaster such as fire, flood, drought, or epidemics. They also come to purify newly built houses and temples or to consecrate important offerings, either to the gods or to the orphan souls. This is because the puppets do not just represent the gods: they are the gods."
"As a rule, a marionette ensemble consists of thirty-six bodies and seventy two heads. Together, these add up to 108, which corresponds to the total number of constellations. The puppets, therefore, represent all the essences of the universe. Before the play begins, the marionettes are consecrated in the same way as the statues of the gods and the tablets of the ancestors. They are thus infused with the spiritual force of the gods they represent. So fearsome is their strength that when they chase away demons with their chants and dances, and assail invisible devils with their miniature weapons, no one dares to look. The orchestra plays, the master puppeteer recites sacred formulas, the puppets move about, but the place in front of the stage remains empty and the common people stay home behind closed doors afraid that , in a panic, the demons might take refuge in their homes, or even it their bodies."
When a puppet god puts his foot down, does he have an agenda? Or is his foot embodying the Daoist idea of wuwei: nothing is done, yet like water, nothing is left unnourished?