A Blink of Zen Ted Mancuso

[Bob]

http://www.plumpub.com/info/Articles/ar ... oblink.htm

To the Chinese “Chan”, to the Japanese “Zen”. But whatever you call it, there has been a tie between meditative method and martial studies for over a thousand years. Ancient records indicate that at least one style--Shaolin Kung Fu--was even instrumental in the birth of Zen.

The stories about Zen and Kung Fu wrap around an irony. The often repeated legends state that Bodhidharma brought martial arts to China; that he showed the monks a method of meditating developed in India and that they were so weak he had to show them special exercises to maintain their strength. These exercises were said to become the foundation for Chinese martial arts.

Untrue.

The martial arts in China date back hundreds and hundreds of years before the arrival of the Bodhidharma. Turn-around may be closer to the truth. In this scenario, Kung Fu is the mid-wife of Zen; mid-wife because the parents are known. In fact it’s an old adage that Chinese Chan (Zen) is the “child of Buddhism and Taoism”. Taoism--taken at the level of method--is so similar to Buddhism that the Chinese often thought they were the same religion. When emphasis shifted from metaphysics and reading to that of method, the philosophical differences of the two beliefs shrank in importance. Like the belief in the efficacy of “good works” the philosophical subtleties take second seat to the actuality of charity itself. Of course the Indian method of Dhyana (called Chan in Chinese) was practiced long before the Patriarch brought it to China. But in China it was coupled with Taoist insights and developed a somewhat different face. This Chinese version inspired an age of method-based meditative exploration that was equivalent to geographical exploration. Chan made its way outward to Korea and Japan. Often it went paired with martial experience and experimentation.

The lone monk practicing in the pine forest still straightens his back. He recalls the glare of his meditation teacher. Posture, posture, posture. This is the first taste of aligning yourself with the infinite. Both martial arts and meditation put the frame, the posture, forward as fundamental. Both also rely on direct experience where “the teacher is the one who leads the student to the field but its up to the student to practice.” And both attempt to sit the student down on the thin edge of life and death.

The mind plays a major role in Zen (Chan) methods. But it is a mind stripped of some notions so inbred in Western consciousness that their absence is a hunger in the bone.

Take the act of breathing. Just count n+1 for each successive breath. There you have it. But who can count to 100 without boiler plate resolution? The problem is a sort of structural slippage built into human consciousness. Amazing amounts of energy might be spent just to keep awareness alive for two whole minutes. And yet this slippage is so constant, such a second nature, that we notice it as little as fish are aware of the water around them. Inside this little slip, this tiny nap, this nondescript eyelid flutter of the mind is a dark kingdom of primeval life.

The book BLINK (a must-read for the martial enthusiast) explores the eye blink rapid moment of recognition (or its opposite) as a source of intuitive knowledge. It tells of people who identified forgeries and fakes, laboriously planned and manufactured, when no one else could, and all in a fraction of a second. It talks about unhappy decisions made by cops who “misread” a crucial moment in time. . But long before that book came out I often reminded my students of what I called “the blink”. In my case I referred to something quite different: to that moment where the mind sneezes and the consciousness hangs out a “gone fishing” sign. For my students “the blink” was the little death that preceded action.

This snoozing right as the arrow is released is endemic to martial artists. It is found everywhere and fought everywhere by good instructors. It underlines, at least on one level, a real and fruitful resonance between the martial and the meditative: the moment is there, your partner signals you and you launch your thunderous technique without hesitation... but you don’t quite make it because there was a blink at the transition point. The wheels spun but no traction--at least for a fatal instant.

The hardest thing about this break, this blip, is admitting it’s there. We are almost constitutionally unable to see it. In other words we blink about our blink.

When we were all living under the umbrella of Bruce Lee I would do an experiment in Advanced Class. I would set up my partner with his front arm held at about shoulder level parallel to the floor. Then, just as Joe Lewis had taught us, I would launch a front hand strike that was in and out face high before the other guy could raise his protective forearm. My arm traveling over thirty inches would beat his reaction of two inches.

Don’t ask me the mechanics, they don’t matter here. But the foregoing just wasn’t enough. Next, I would continue to fire front hands while glibly predicting which he would “catch” and which would get through. The interesting thing was that the audience could easily see those actions of mine which were telegraphed or not: in other words, the “tell”. And the helper would block all the right ones and miss all the others without being aware of his own method of perception; in essence without knowing why he blocked some and not others.

The are a lot of lessons in this demonstration. But it shows first that you can control the “stutter” as I did on some of the strikes. Secondly, I have watched students blocked over and over in the same game without realizing at all that they were stuttering each time they threw a punch. The funny thing there is that in this case one student throws and the other successfully blocks and neither can see why this is happening. But the blink never lies.

Of course one way to counter this tendency is to have a personal trainer willing to stand there toe-to-toe with you can correct each action.

Another way is to put your intent where the audience is standing: to objectify and de-personalize the exercise. Even, if need be, to see everything not from you or the opponent’s perspective but from that of the audience. In all of these methods the audience could easily see the slight stutter preceding the act. Developing that kind of objectivity is called “Guan” and also lies in the realm of Zen.

Yet another way- one that links with our concerns-is to feel inside. The blink always leaves some evidence if only a single track in the mud. The state which detects and corrects is so like the state of meditation that they share music and fragrance. This bring us square into the paradox. Even if you can beat everyone else in the field, the real skill lies in a state of self-monitoring so intense, so truthful and so unrelated to beating the other guy that it can only be called a bit of Zen. As my friends who meditate tell me, they don’t do it because they want to deny the world. They are greedier than that, they want to capture the world and take it in.

Marital arts can cover this up with shouts from the audience and your team mates; fireworks; high fives; boom boxes and other distractions but the core of the practice remains silence and sweat. There is something very honest in this practice while being very personal yet universal. It’s like the Zen world in a single petal.



TM

Ted Mancuso is the head of Plum Publications and this web site. He runs a school in Santa Cruz, California. He is currently working on a Qigong instructional text

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Thanks Ted! Interesting insights!

[gretel]

just wow

gretel

[Walter Joyce]

I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea for about 5 years now. It explained a lot when I found out and I thought I understood it. But I found out recently when I started a new job and had to sit through hours of passive training that I fall asleep with no awareness that I have much like I constantly wake while sleeping with now awareness of it. It really stunned me. I see this as an extreme example of the "blink" phenomenon.

I am starting the 90 day extreme fitness program soon, but my recent experience has motivated me to add standing and seated meditation to my routines somehow.

[D_Glenn]

Ted's description of "the blink" is basically the same, actually a little less, then the achieved state or level that is already described in the IMA's called 輕靈 'qingling'. In the IMA's it has a lot of descriptions as it is complex, one is that 'you know what the opponent is going to do before they move', which is beyond 'tingjin' as far as skill goes. It's all tied in with the daoist cultivation practices 修養 'xiuyang'.

.

[ashe]

i couldn't finish the article when the author suggested that zen is the foundation of daoism.

the laozi is like 2000+ years old, which is at least 500+ years earlier than bohdidamma's trip to shaolin.

it's more like the reverse is true. the fusion of daoist thought with the dhamma resulted in zen.

[chud]

I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea for about 5 years now. It explained a lot when I found out and I thought I understood it. But I found out recently when I started a new job and had to sit through hours of passive training that I fall asleep with no awareness that I have...

Walter, I used to have sleep apnea too, and would drift into sleep (or out of sleep) without knowing it, the way you describe. You should consider going to an ENT doc and having the UPPP surgery, it improved my quality of life immensely. That, and qigong. I sleep like a baby now.

[ashe]

i couldn't finish the article when the author suggested that zen is the foundation of daoism.

the laozi is like 2000+ years old, which is at least 500+ years earlier than bohdidamma's trip to shaolin.

it's more like the reverse is true. the fusion of daoist thought with the dhamma resulted in zen.

I think you're right, ashe, but I don't think Ted Mancuso wrote that zen is the foundation of daoism. He wrote, "In fact it’s an old adage that Chinese Chan (Zen) is the 'child of Buddhism and Taoism'."

Zen in Japan likes to point to a mind-to-mind transmission beyond the sutras, but the influence of Daoism on Ch'an, Zen's precursor in China, seems pretty substantial. There is an interesting philosophical ramble--not historical scholarship--by Ray Griggs on the topic that is a good read, called "The Tao of Zen"--http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Zen-Tuttle-Library-Enlightment/dp/0804819882/ref=ed_oe_p

whoa!

i totally read that in reverse...

[Walter Joyce]

i couldn't finish the article when the author suggested that zen is the foundation of daoism.

the laozi is like 2000+ years old, which is at least 500+ years earlier than bohdidamma's trip to shaolin.

it's more like the reverse is true. the fusion of daoist thought with the dhamma resulted in zen.

I think you're right, ashe, but I don't think Ted Mancuso wrote that zen is the foundation of daoism. He wrote, "In fact it’s an old adage that Chinese Chan (Zen) is the 'child of Buddhism and Taoism'."

Zen in Japan likes to point to a mind-to-mind transmission beyond the sutras, but the influence of Daoism on Ch'an, Zen's precursor in China, seems pretty substantial. There is an interesting philosophical ramble--not historical scholarship--by Ray Griggs on the topic that is a good read, called "The Tao of Zen"--http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Zen-Tuttle-Library-Enlightment/dp/0804819882/ref=ed_oe_p

whoa!

i totally read that in reverse...

You must have blinked.

[ashe]

You must have blinked.

i was sleepy...