Daoism: Religion, History and Society

There is a new journal on the scene published out of Hong Kong you may want to check out.  It's called Daoism:  Religion, History and Society.  The current addition has an article by Terry Kleeman who does wonderful work and who bought me a mango drink in the basement of Ikea in Taipei, Taiwan two Summers ago.  He was full of reading suggestions and encouragement.

UPDATE: I haven't been able to figure out how to get past the wall, by hook or by crook.  I even looked for a way to pay!  Anyone know how to get to the text?

Watching TV is more Dangerous Than Smoking

Well, what if you watch TV and smoke at the same time? Do they cancel each other out since smoking is an appetite suppressant?  Oh dear, what about horror movies, good for blood circulation no doubt, but could too many lead to loss of sleep.  And what about the various theories of intensity?  A fast beating heart for a short period of time each day makes the heart beat slower for the rest of the day.  Texting?  Does it shorten your life?  What about Sexting?  Does muting the commercials help?  The article says that watching TV for an hour takes  twenty minutes off of your life.  Now I only watch TV on the computer and I didn't watch any TV between age 12 and 34 so I'm probably going to live forever.  However, what would happen if people visualized the process.  You know, sort of like a giant game of hang man!  You could put your life span up on the wall.  Paint in just a little bit more of that giant hang man every time you turn on the tube.  You could paint in a little bit every time you stay up late or drink single malt whiskey.  The more demonstrably visible this giant hang man was, the more talismanic it's effects would be.  Here is another idea, you could have a watch that counts down to your demise.  It could have a "bit-o-life-lost" button which you would have to push every time you got in a stressful argument.  Heck, they should bust out an app for that!  How many minutes do you have left?

Getting it Right

One of the greatest things about the study of Traditional Chinese internal Martial Arts is that when you hit on some new ability concept that is correct, you know it with great confidence. Why? Well partly because it’s testable. That’s just satisfying. You get the idea, your practice it, then you test it, and it works. Yeah. But that’s more or less true in many fields. In the internal arts you also know it is correct because it is more relaxing, because it heals you, because stress and strain just evaporate.

Waiting to Exhale, Not!

Here is a post on a Psychology Today blog by Alan Fogel, and a comment by Loretta Graziano Breuning.   Alan correctly notes that it is unlikely that any type of breathing method would directly help with shallow or constricted breathing.

Seems like this is a type of freeze, as in fight, flight, or freeze.  Rory Miller says that when a violent event happens the first thing to do is break the freeze that normally consumes us.  That is done by taking two actions, preferably actions with movement you can see.  Shouting is good too.  When people freeze, sometimes they imagine themselves acting instead of actually acting which just continues the freeze.  One action isn't enough because one could just refreeze, which might happen anyway which would mean it's time for another two actions.

Alan suggests that an increase in "Body Sense" will improve breathing.  This is partly a vocabulary problem but he is also partly wrong.  What causes a freeze, or shallow breathing, or constricted breathing is  the retreat of a persons spacial mind to their own body.  In normal social interactions the spacial mind is a bubble around the body.  The bubble is always changing, sometimes it is big, imagine a couple of cowboys smoking rollies on the front porch; and sometimes it is small, imagine polite people on a crowded subway.  Stand on a stage confidently and joyously singing the national anthem and the spacial body will get big.  On the other hand, with stage fright the bubble becomes like plastic wrap on the body.  In a challenge confrontation between two males of the same tribe, these spacial body bubbles stay close to the body in order to de-power the confrontation--because the goal is for one guy to submit to the others dominance, not to do life threatening damage.

Allow me to go a little deeper.  There are two bodies.  An inner body which is primitive, clumsy, very powerful, without memory, it has simple desires and doesn't carry around preferences.  Then there is an outer body, this is the body with muscles, and shapes and pain that most people think of and feel as a body.  When the mind sets these two bodies against each other we get all the things that only people can do, like playing baseball and writing letters.  There are tons of variations in how these two bodies can mix, but they all include some sort of retreat of the spacial mind into the physical mass of the bodies.  The mind is amazing, it can be active both inside and outside the bodies.

There is a simple difference between a male asserting a dominance challenge and a woman experiencing constricted breathing while listening to idiots rant.  They both have a shrunken spacial mind with an outer body that is constricting their movements.  In the case of the male asserting dominance the spacial mind will suddenly grow then suddenly shrink in a tit for tat dance with the other male.  His inner body will be very active, the slang for it is "chomping at the bit,"  the more he "cuts loose" the more his outer body lets the inner body act--'though he will still be self restricting.  The woman with constricted breathing is trying to force the inner body to stay still by constricting it with the outer body.  The inner body wants to go bananas but this is socially unacceptable so the mind uses the outer body to contain it by shrinking the spacial mind tight to the surface of the body.  It can be quite painful, especially in the abdominal region and around the neck and shoulders.

So to answer Loretta's question, basically you want something that will literally lift your spirits--making your spacial body big.  An action that will get your spacial mind outside your body.  A big loud socially rude sign could work.  Aaaaggghhh!  Bleachhhhh!  Going to a window sticking your head out and shouting something silly at the birds.  Running for the door?  Basically action trumps inaction.  Throw your arms to the sky and say in your deepest rumbling atheist voice, "Oh God Almighty!"  Whatever it is you do, it has to be inappropriate.  It has to be rude.  Maybe get right in between the ranters, grab them around the waist or the shoulders and say in the most May West voice you can muster, "Heeeeyah, can we talk about SEX NOW?"

Entertainment Therapy

Could it really be this simple?  25 Million Type 2 Diabetes Cases Cured.  The drive to eat and store food we inherited from our ancestors is having trouble adapting to our perfect world, a world where commerce has given us unlimited food, as entertainment-therapy.

The way modernity has come to define exercise is largely based on eating.  A routine which stimulates appetite to grow muscle mass would have been immoral for most people for most of history--because it would have meant that the people around you wouldn't have had enough food.  'Over eating' as a form of 'fitness' would have been incomprehensible.

The traditional popular movement arts, the village arts, may be a mixed bag.  After all, if you only do a certain dance for one week out of the year, and that week just happens to come with a major feast, then perhaps its purpose was to stimulate appetite, and help resolve the constipation a sudden increase in food intake would likely create.  On the other hand, if the art was practiced year round it would in all likelihood have to be based on training efficient movement, not strength; training endurance, not surge.  Of course, wrestlers sponsored with copious amount of food by a king trained for surge, not endurance. But heck, it's all speculation.  Eating, dancing, fighting, the reasons are beyond reason.

In all humbleness, it seems that in this era most of us are looking for an ethic of conscious eating.  It's hap hazard out there.  Opinions abound.  Strategies multiply.  Knowledge mixes with whim and whimsy.  The simple answers get wind behind them and sally forth, for a while.  We seem intrinsically to know that the answers must be simple, but what seemed to work for a while now degenerates into folly, cant, or personal preference.

Taxis, hair cuts, moving furniture and hot food.  The four things we tip for.  (I tried to tip the new accounts guy at the Bank of America the other day, it didn't go over that well.)  There must be something about food, something so deeply irrational about how we view it, that we are all blind.  Like insects that keep flying into clear glass windows.

_____________________

In the interest of full disclosure, here is what I ate yesterday:

4 Barrel Coffee, Yogurt, Nuts, Banana.

Salad with both pickled and raw cabbage, pickled bamboo shoots, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, hard boiled egg, raw carrot, raw daikon (shredded), and left-over slow cooked soy sauce pork shoulder.  Miso, lemon, sesame oil dressing.

Lamb stock with slow simmered shiitake mushrooms (dried), celery, carrot, leek, shredded cabbage, parmesan cheese.

Stuff on my Mind

Here is a woman in Australia who, like me, understands that "core strength" is a big mistake:  Edgecliff Physiotherapy.

I learned about her from Josh Leeger who also turned me on to Exuberant Animal.

Also from Josh I got to Philip Beach's site describing Meridians as Emergent Lines of Shape Control.  Here is a pdf of a paper which explains the theory.  This made me think that meridians don't really "exist" they are trained reactions which disappear the better your internal practice gets.  Which explains why Medical Qigong is the lowest level of qigong, the meridians are most apparent in sick or dying people.  It also corresponds well with the Daoist notion that the meridians are lines of fate, lines (and points) which provide a window into either freedom, or robot-zombie-like predictability.

Speaking of fate, here is a rationalist approach to Astrological Horoscopes!  I think the author nails it in his own quirky way.  My own experience following a Daoist Auspices Calendar for several years taught me a whole bunch of unexpected lessons.  Like that their is a lot of freedom in letting an external force (in this case words on a page) decide for me whether to go out and party or to stay home and study.  When you're free, you can waste a lot of time and brain power trying to pick a day and time to get a hair cut, or buy new shoes, or work in the garden.  Just looking at the Daoist Calender externalized all that strategizing and weighing of options--which freed up a lot of time and energy.

I've been reading Gustavo Thomas' blog and watching his videos, great stuff!

Look at all the stuff canceled in Tokyo.  We have found lots of stuff to do here anyway and people are happy to see us.  I had very fresh raw pork liver the other night, with beer, yum.  I'm happy to report that Tokyo is still full of great deals on delicious food, especially lunch.  For example at a sushi boat restaurant, if I eat as much as I possibly can it only costs about 8 dollars US.

We went to a Kabuki show.  My main comment is that the actors have to practice a whole lot of stillness!  How anyone could miss the connection between stillness in the theater and stillness in martial arts I do not know.  Oh, and the costumes are amazing.

Check out Akira Hino, Jazz Drummer, martial arts teacher, dancer.  Here is his Video Channel.

Japan is so fashion conscious, it is impossible to be here and not think a lot about clothes and shoes.  I hope I can find some time to work on making my own because that seems like the only really satisfying way to stick my head down that well.

Daniel Mroz published a book on martial arts and theater, check it out!  Now I really have to work on getting mine in to print.

I got the book Impro to Rory Miller at Chiron and he loved it.  We are still awaiting a review.

Check out Tokyo Probe. Beer.

Japanese Culture and Earthquakes

This is a must see blog post from Pink Tentacle about Japanese religious culture and earthquakes.

In November 1855, the Great Ansei Earthquake struck the city of Edo (now Tokyo), claiming 7,000 lives and inflicting widespread damage. Within days, a new type of color woodblock print known as namazu-e (lit. "catfish pictures") became popular among the residents of the shaken city. These prints featured depictions of mythical giant catfish (namazu) who, according to popular legend, caused earthquakes by thrashing about in their underground lairs. In addition to providing humor and social commentary, many prints claimed to offer protection from future earthquakes.

Namazu with construction tools, portrayed as the legendary warrior Benkei

Xu - Fake - False

The term xu is a key concept which ties together daoyin, the ritual body, trance, and all types of martial arts.  The first definition my dictionary gives of xu is “empty” or “hollow” but this is misleading as the term kong is generally used to describe emptiness in martial arts, meditation or ritual.

The second definition in my dictionary is more helpful, “fake;” interestingly, the fourth definition is “virtual.”

The radical for the character xu, is hu (tiger).  When a tiger stalks, he forgets his body, he thinks only of the prey.  Xu is the character used by Chinese Medicine in the expression shenxu (kidney depletion). When we go without food or sleep our bodies often become deficient and depleted, we lose fine motor control, the ability to focus, and concern for the flesh.

In the context of internal martial arts, xu is the fruition of the whole body moving as a single liquid unit.  Xu is a description of the physicality of an “I can sense what you are doing, you can not sense what I am doing” situation.  A body which is xu is unstoppable because it doesn’t apparently respond to resistance.

I know what you are thinking, zombies are xu. That’s right, if zombies could talk they would be like, “Yo, I don’t care if you chop off my arm, I’ll still eat you.  Shoot off my leg, no problem, I’m still coming...” I hesitate to say that xu is a form of disassociation because it is not necessarily a psychological problem.  However, the first time I bang my body or my leg against the ground teaching daoyin, people wince.  They think, “Are you crazy?”

Xu is external martial conditioning.  Xu is the result of pounding and slapping the outside of ones body as a way to be comfortable with heavy contact.

It is also what allows self-mortifiers to pierce and pummel themselves.  There is a long history in China of using a ritual trance initiation to induce xu.  Often it involves a ritual emptying, as in nuo theatrical exorcism where the hun and pö spirits are removed from the performer’s body and placed in jars using talisman and mantras.  But it is also a quick way of training troops.  During the Boxer Rebellion (1900) each boxer went through an initiation process which made him immune to pain and of course (he believed) bullets.

In trance the mind is totally preoccupied.  The boxers would invoke their personal deity and they would become, for instance, the Monkey King.  By preoccupying the mind with all the attributes of the Monkey King the individual boxer must have been able to disassociate from any injury to his own body.  He may also have been hungry and been entranced by the idea that he was purifying the country of evil Christians.

Other examples of training troops quickly involve group chanting.  Qawwali music from Pakistan, for instance, is all about invoking love.  It is the idea that while you are butchering your enemy you feel intense love for them, as you send them to god, you also make them one with god.  Because you are so focused on love, you disassociate from your own body.  Intense anger, revenge, and envy work too.  As Laozi says, “When we are possessed by desire, we experience only the yearned for manifest.”

Many spiritual traditions think of xu as a form of transcendence.  Putting on my rational 20th Century hat, I’d say that xu is the result of two forces; hormones (probably adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin, epinephrine) and mental focus.

(While mentally focusing on an idea, a goal, or an object outside the body can create an experience of xu, "focus" is a really bad word choice because the more spatially expansive (capacious) ones awareness is, the more xu the body can become.)

For those who practice internal martial arts xu comes about simply through relaxation.  In fact I would tentatively say xu is relaxation. When every sand sized particle that makes up your entire body is relaxed it is xu.  (Xu is used in the Chinese character for atom.) A body which is xu does not intentionally respond to resistance.  It is heavy, liquid and unified.  Actually it does respond to resistance, but it does so in an unconditioned, unconscious, uncontrolled automatic way.

Everywhere I look these days people are abusing the poor word “embodied.” Everything needs to be “embodied” these days, if you want to sell it--it better be embodied with some awesomeness.  Exercise, politics, education, shampoo, coffee, even the truth is supposed to be embodied.  But I’m telling you people, if you take this ride to the top of the hill, it ends with a totally disembodied experience.  But words are misleading, truly internal martial xu should be both embodied and disembodied at the same time.  When all the controlling, micro-structural, 'I own this body,' 'this is me,' 'this is me-ness,' voices get turned off what is left is xu.  Xu and emptiness (kong), of course.

I’m not exactly describing an ego-free experience here.  The ego just becomes bigger, it lifts off of the body and becomes spacial.  One experiences a lively, dynamic form of perceptual-motor spacial awareness.

Everyone is at least a little bit xu all the time.  And everyone is capable of getting really xu in short order.  Most of the drugs you can name off of the top of your head increase ones experience of xu.

What inhibits the experience of xu? Only one thing: Feeling in possession of your own body--believing that what defines you is limited to this empty bag of flesh.