Daoism and Sex (part 1)

Daoism's doctrine on sex and sexual practices is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Daoism.

I recently dove into the debates about gay marriage on some political blogs. I'm not going to link to them because I was just goofing around. But in the process of considering some of the strange and desperate arguments put forward against gay marriage, it suddenly struck me that many people actually don't know what sex is. Wow, what a shock.

So I thought I would try to shoot two pheasants with one arrow, and exposit both subjects.

The Daodejing has a phrase,

"If Heaven has a reason, nobody knows it."

I think this is a good place to start. We don't know why life exists. We are capable, however, of recognizing that there are two categories, "alive" and "not alive," and that we belong to the category, "alive." (I have talked about the blended categories of ghosts and other such "part alive, part not-alive" entities in previous posts--so I'll skip that part of the argument here.)

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the "alive" category is that we are capable of reproducing ourselves. The substance, force, and function which reproduces itself in all life is called in Chinese: Jing. The word therefore includes English words like, sperm or eggs, and underlays English functions like scabbing, and regenerating.

All living things ingest qi (air/water/nutrients/light) and transform some of it into jing. Plants and animals which reproduce themselves sexually also differentiate themselves (to some degree) into male and female genders (or parts of themselves in some cases such as worms and slugs). Sexual reproduction requires that the two genders of a particular species combine their jing.

All living things produce way more jing than they actually need for sexual reproduction to be successful, and way more jing than ever gets used in the sexual reproduction process. In other words, sex is very inefficient, A plant or animal can be extremely potent in its production of jing, and still not produce offspring.

Here are some examples. Some chickens lay eggs everyday. Cockroaches and mosquitoes produce eggs in the millions, with very low survival rates for individual eggs. During certain times of year, the grass and trees are constantly trying to have sex with my eyes and nose (pollen). Dogs hump people's legs.

You can fit a million sperm on the tip of a pin.

The process of transforming qi into jing has two basic routes it can follow:

1. Qi can transform into jing which regenerates and heals the individual living entity.
2. It can produce sperm, eggs, pollen or ovules.

Some Daoist practices seek to gain some volition over this process so that less qi will go down the sperm and egg producing path and more qi will go towards producing jing used for regeneration or healing.

Many plants produce beautiful flowers which take advantage of animal desires to help them combine their jing (pollen with ovules). Animal behavior which can lead to the combining of the jing of two animals of the opposite gender is, like jing production, incredibly inefficient in every species.

According to Joseph Needham in Science and Civilization, the three basic sex hormones were recognized and isolated into pure substances in China during the 5th century CE.

Daoist practices aren't concerned with hormones directly, but they recognize that certain foods, exercises, activities and even uses of the mind, can effect how much a person is concerned with or even obsessed with sex. More importantly, they recognised that no matter what we do, we are likely at any one moment to be transforming way more qi into jing than we actually need for producing a few viable offspring.

This natural inefficiency is inseparable in animals from the thorny issue of desire. Daoist practices can be divided into two categories.

1. Leaning how stop ovulation so that you ovulate only when you have decided to attempt reproduction.
2. Reducing or limiting desire.

Desire is a physiological part of our survival apparatus. It is also incredibly inefficient. When desire builds we become totally focused--to the exclusion of other information. To quote the huainanzi, "We run rough-shod over subtlety."

Thus, for Daoists, the physiology of efficiency takes on a moral dimension. Inappropriate behavior is not considered unnatural, it is simply excessive or deficient--misdirected or too strong.

The primary methods through which Daoism engages with desire, are the making of commitments and the refining appetites.

This always begs the question: How can we tell an appetite from a desire? There isn't a simple answer. Appetites generally include assessment and evaluation phases, they are more reflective and experimental-- less driven.

However, it would be a mistake to think that either appetites or desires are somehow rational. I guess you could say that appetites are to desire what reproduction is to sex.

Since all human sexual activity--from putting on lipstick to bumping chests with your male competitors, to vaginal intercourse itself--is naturally inefficient and rarely results in offspring, the desire to have sex with someone of the same gender, with a tree, or with a consenting gorilla, is all just part of this wild inefficiency and abundance we call life.

But if you've ever contemplated a rushing river pouring over a cliff, you already know this.

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Break a Leg, means Break a Leg

Before a performance I told a group of my 3rd and 4th graders to "Break a Leg." One of the students said to the others, "He means good luck." I said, "No, Break a Leg means Break a Leg."

The expression comes from the 2000 year old Indian text known as the Natya Shastra, also sometimes called the fifth Veda. I have a copy on my shelf. It's pretty cool, they talk about how auspicious it is if the performers on the stage get so rowdy and out of control that someone breaks a leg.

Update:

In response to the comments.

My copy of the Nâtyašâstra was translated into English by Dr. Adya Rangacharya, and published by IBH Prakashaha, in Gandhinagar, Bangalore, 1986.

It has been a while since I've read it cover to cover, I believe there is more than one reference that would be relevant to the martial artist/performer, but here is the quote I was thinking about:

Illumination of the stage (lines 90-93)

Holding the lighted torch one should run about the stage roaring, and cracking the joints of fingers, turning round and round, making loud noises and thus, illuminating the entire stage, should come to center of the stage.  Battle scenes must be enacted to the resounding accompaniment of conch, drum, Mrdanga, and Panava etc.  If in the course of that, things are broken or are cut or torn, with blood showing on the wounds, then it is a good omen indicating success.

A stage properly consecrated will bring good luck to the king and to the young and old of the town and country.

--Natyashastra, "Worship of the Stage and of the Gods (chapter 3)."

Ritual Blogging

Religious Daoism recognizes ritual as a something essentially human.

Earlier this year I sat next to a Nigerian named Obi while traveling by plane. We were discussion ritual and commitment. He invoked the metaphor of expectation being a piece of yarn. When you think of it as an infinite piece of yarn, expectation is less of a burden.

He objected to my use of the word commitment because he said commitment is work, effort. And he is right, not all of our commitments require work, in fact most commitments probably come to us quite easily.

Daoists created book length lists of all the various types of entities one could make a covenant with. They viewed the ability to make commitments as part of the definition of humanness. A covenant is a type of commitment.

Ritual is time. I think I read something like that in Lagerwey.

All human conduct can be viewed as ritual. This leads to a social thought perspective because it recognizes the non-spontainious, gigantic group action of millions of people bathing or drinking coffee, or practicing gongfu. Describing human conduct as ritual exposes that all types of action can be divided into smaller units of action, or time (perhaps measured by ritual itself), and linked to other simular actions by other people.

Obi is really optimistic. He said that his optimism comes his world view.

I ask the question: which is the more important enlightenment institution, the coffee shop or the University? And why? The accumulation of knowlede verses It’s free exchange. The predictable environment verses the spontainious one.
I use the term coffee shop in its historical sense, the current institution where ideas are exchanged freely and spontaneously is the internet.

Yagli Gures: What Not to Wear to a Fight

Perhaps all the self-reflection I see around the blog-o-sphere on the topic of how different rule sets create completely different martial arts will also lead to some self-reflection on clothing designs.

Leather pants and olive oil are pretty good in the warm weather, very hard to get a grip and keeps away mosquitoes too.

You people into Olive Oil and Tea will want to check out Divine Tastes blog.
And there are some more masters techniques at Turkish Wrestling .

Yagli Gures is a traditional form of wrestling from Turkey. Obviously you can see why I'm a traditionalist from the pictures. Actually, the Ancient Greeks didn't bother with the leather pants, they just wore the olive oil. One of my local informants told me that, "The way to get a Russian woman is to wear lots of leather." I think I'm starting to understanding.

Oil as a commodity was not big in China until sesame oil and trees were brought from Persia during the Tang Dynasty (~600-900CE), so I doubt that oil was used in fighting there.

Matched fighting may be natural, but religions have spent a lot of time trying to regulate it. Wrestling would obviously be more entertaining if it was truly "no holds barred!"

Shaolin Monks: Ballet

Last night I saw a wonderful sold-out performance of Alonzo King's Lines Ballet company doing their smash hit Shaolin Monks. Watch a clip here.

Much to my relief, the performers from Shaolin Temple USA were a pretext to show some great dancing, not the main attraction. It was a vehicle for exploring a theme.

The choreography is pure modern, in the sense that its single purpose is to display virtuosity. What I personally love about ballet is perfect technique, and these dancers have it. Their bodies exquisitely reveal the heights of muscular agility. The dancers muscles draw the torso inward and upward; creating a dense yet highly mobile structure for the expression of line and shape, time and gravity.

Interestingly, from a martial arts point of view, dancers don't move around their center. This is funny to me because I myself studied for two years with Alonzo King (20 years ago) and like all dance teachers, he teaches his dancers to "find their center." But in dance, one's center is the center of mass or the center of gravity. Ballet dancers are sometimes even more perceptive about space than martial artists are, but they don't differentiate qi and jing, they don't move qi around the body.  They spin like a dynamic top which can change its shape in motion, not like a gyroscope.

Alonzo is a wonderful teacher, encouraging and funny, he taught me to appreciate classical music with every cell in my body. Although I was always a jumper who loved jumping, my favorite part of class was Adagio, big and slow. (Small wonder that I ended up putting most of my eggs in the internal martial arts basket.) During the very last class I took with him, we were doing balance work at the barre (leg extensions and port de bras). I remember I was having a really good day, my balance was on, I was on my toe with my leg in an arabesque and my hand off the barre. Alonzo noticed, walked over, and whispered in my ear, "Great, but you look like a zombie."

It was very funny, but I thought to myself, "Ballet is turning me into a zombie!" My long term readers will probably remember that I love zombies; however, at that time I didn't want to become one. I realized that I didn't care enough about how I looked to be a ballet dancer, and I still needed to find out what I did care enough about.

Yesterday afternoon a group of about 25 of my Northern Shaolin students performed at their school. These 3rd and 4th graders rocked the house. One of the things I'm most proud of is that I've been teaching a number of Special Education students with autism and other disabilities. They have improved so much that you would not have known which students they were just from watching the show.

A few of my students are getting so good that I was disappointed. I wanted them to be more professional, I wanted them to put on the best possible show. They don't yet have the consistency of a professional, even if they do some things as well, or dare I say it, better than the "monks" from Shaolin Temple USA!

In a way it is not fair to compare them because Shaolin Temple USA is not authentic Shaolin. It's wushu. It lacks the weight of true Shaolin. (You may be thinking, come on man, who are you to say that? But remember, I started studying Shaolin in 1977, before Shaolin Temple was reconstituted.) The "monks" are at their best when they are in the air or rolling on the ground and doing tricks. Near the end of the piece a few individual "monks" did some elegant soft choreography that I would love to see again.

Forgive me, I'm too tough to be a proper critic, I care too much. I'm too inspired! If this show is coming through your town definitely check it out! It will inspire you too.

I also hope that this is the beginning of a trend--where dancers and martial artists see their common goals, aspirations, and history.

And Alonzo, if you are reading this-thank you.

Are Some Ideas About the Heart Trash?

In chapter eight of the Neijing Suwen we have the saying:

The heart holds the office of lord and sovereign.

The radiance of the spirits stems from it.

That translation is from Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat, The Secret of the Spiritual Orchid. Often called the Inner Classic of Chinese Medicine, this 2000 year old text is referenced occasionally in the modern teaching of Chinese Medicine. It is used more often when teaching esoterica because it isn't all that specific.

The expression translated above as "radiance of the spirits," is actually a common martial arts term--mingshen.

Mingshen is mentioned in the taijiquan classics as the fruition of practice. I think it is what I see in a young student's eyes when they are ready and eager to learn. It is also that quality you see in a great fighter's eyes which is capable of ending the fight before it has even started.

Mencius said: If a ruler has mingshen, when he and his army invade a country, its people will lay down their arms and join him. Now that sounds like either a really good reputation or very potent shamanic prowess.

Descriptions of mingshen in the martial arts deal with perception, consciousness, proprioception, and kinesthetic awareness. These descriptions often sound mystical. Mingshen is the ability to wield forces that seem to be outside your body, outside your opponent's body too. This "space power" gives liveliness and dimensionality to our movement, it is the main subject of the highest level martial arts.

You can't really be a "modern" person and not ask the questions with regard to pre-20th century ideas, "What should I keep and what should I discard?" "What can I use, and what will just hold me back?"

Everyone has to answer these questions for themselves. Are useless acts good for the heart? Does extraordinary martial prowess have any real utility?
Hardly any country in the world has done as much discarding in the 20th century as China has. But it hasn't always been honest or well considered discarding. Now they are looking through the trash to see what can be salvaged.

Sichuan Earth Quake

I wish to extend my deepest sympathies to the victims of the Earthquake in China.  I lived and traveled around Sichuan for two months in the Summer of 2001.  The people I met were wonderful.  Compared to the loss of life I'm reading about everyday, the two reports below are minor, but I thought my readers would like to know.
I visited Sanxingdui when I was there, I just saw this brief report:

Sanxingdui Ruins Museum, the age-old heritage site, became one of the victims of the Monday earthquake in western China.

I also received this email from a local Chinese herb importer, Emmanuel Segmen:

It's worse than we had imagined. If you follow the map north to Ganus
Province near to the Ming Xiang Mountain village where our dang gui
root comes from, you'll find the highways in ruins and the
communications lines down. I don't know how far that is, but it's at
least several hundred miles to the north by northeast from the
epicenter. We can't get our container of herbs down any road. The
agronomist in Gansu can not communicate with us. The people in
Lanzhou City think that maybe the roads will be passable by fall, but
no one is sure. Amazingly the land is crunched up quite badly up to
about 5 miles away from Lanzhou City. Good luck and good essence to
those living in Lanzhou. Amazing that infrastructure is wrecked 300
miles from the epicenter.

There are a lot of main growing sites that are out of touch right now
and possibly out of commission. Dang gui, gou qi zi, huang qi, huang
lian, tian qi and dang shen just to name the most obvious. We had to
go to those very mountains in western Sichuan Province to find clean
haung lian. It may be a long time before we see that herb again in
it's better format. It takes seven years to grow it.

My thoughts are with you Sichuan.

Hunch Back Masters

When Taijiquan was still new to Westerners, a few Masters claimed that the reason they had pot bellies was because they had so much qi.

We are wiser now. Relaxing the abdominal muscles and breathing into the the lower dantian is quite a change for some people, it may make some people feel fat, or even reveal a little extra flesh that was previously "sucked in." But needless to say at this point in history, cultivating qi will not give you a pot belly. Eating too many greasy donuts is and has always been the most likely cause of that.

But if you look at videos of old masters on, for instance, DPGDPG's Youtube page you'll see quite a few with hunch backs. Age itself causes bone degeneration, and no doubt some of these masters have suffered from starvation, spinal injuries or worse. Still I'm suspicious.

Could the hunch back be from bad training they participated in at some time in their lives? If that is the case, I would hope they let their students in on their errors so that these mistakes don't get passed on to future generations.

I've seen a lot of martial artists who take the weight of their arms in their upper spines. With higher level martial arts it is important that the practitioner takes none of his own weight in his or her joints. All the weight of the arms and head should pour down through the body so that there is no pressure on the joints or the bones.

Update: I wrote this blog about three months ago. I thought it was too mean so I hid it. But now that it resurfaced on it's own (I gave it a date way in the future) I think it's good food for thought--even if most masters don't actually have hunched backs.

How do Kids Learn?

Because I perform several different sword forms I've gotten in the habit of explaining a little bit about dueling.  It is a nice tie in with History and teachers appreciate it.  The funny thing is, students already know what a duel is.  They often don't know it by name, but when I describe the type of thing a duel would be fought over, namely honor, and that every duel needs to have seconds (to enforce the rules and to fight themselves if the rules are broken)--elementary school students all recognize the "fair fight" so common on the school yard.

Students also know the difference between a matched or a fair fight and bullying.  Why do they know this? How do they learn it?  Is there something in our DNA?  Is dueling as natural as mothering?

I loved this book.

A Simple Question

I have a simple question for which I don't have a good answer.

Is brutality part of the art? Most, if not all, of the old masters used or experienced brutality in their training. Is it necessary or were they just crazy.

Buster Keaton, one of the greatest physical performers of the 20th Century, got his start with his parents in Vaudeville, which had a fair amount of slapstick. As a child aged 3 to 5 his father would drop kick him all the way across the stage. He would land on his butt facing down stage and make a face. The audience loved it.

A Korean martial arts master I knew described his early training this way.

I was a precocious child, so my parents sent me for a year to study martial arts with a group of monks. My training began in the mountains in the early Spring. After my parent had dropped me off one of the monks took me back out to the front gate, gave me a rag and told me to get down on my hands and knees and rub the ice off of the road. The ice was three inches thick. Periodically a monk would come outside to see how I was doing, offer criticism, and then kick me around on the ice a few times.

The thing is, none of us would choose this kind of brutality for ourselves, but this master was so fast he could catch a bullet with his hand--from behind!