You might find more than you ever dreamed

Most of us who were drawn to kung fu, over the other disciplines, were looking for something very special.  Some of us have never found that extra magic. Others of us may have stumbled on some of it by accident. Very few of us have achieved what they started out to look for. Not that we didn’t find much to cheer about.  Not that we haven’t enriched our lives in wonderful ways. But, the dream somehow has escaped most of us.

Kung fu is not just a way to defend yourself, or even to increase your confidence or get strong. It’s a way of examining the nature of The Cosmos with your fingertips. You learn how things fit together. What works and what doesn’t. The shortest distance between two points, which isn’t always a straight line.

The old phrase about joining the mind and body is just the beginning. I’m shy about laying down rules or trying to tell people what’s right and what’s wrong in any area, but if technique is all you can get out of The Art, you’re not scratching the surface.

When Bodhidharma arrived at The Shaolin Monastery, way back when, he found monks who were highly spiritually evolved. They were steeped in the Taoist teachings of Lao Tsu, and those of his star pupil, Confucius. They had the I Ching to guide them, and a huge knowledge of herbs and healing nostrums. They were physically weak, yes.  And Bodi taught them the Hindu Temple Dancing he’d learned in India, along with the teachings of Siddhartha, The Buddha, which he’d picked up along the way. But, let us not forget the truly ancient wisdom that they had to give him. So much so, that he needed eight years of meditation in a cave to assimilate it all.

It’s said that these monks could levitate and do other things that any competition fighters of today would know were far beyond them, if they didn’t simply scoff at it all. Well, don’t scoff!  Know, and revel in, how much more there is to learn, how much farther there is to go. Rejoice in the knowledge that there are mysteries so deep that you’ll probably never plumb their depths. And continue scratching at the surface. After all, sometimes there are bits of gold and precious gems just lying around, next to your path, needing only an awake mind and a keen eye to be discovered. So, keep your eyes open. Listen to your inner voice.

Buddha, kung fu and its derivatives, sisters and brothers, are paths. The Tao is a Way. That’s what ‘Tao’ means, literally: “The Way.” When you’ve found The Way, you no longer need The Path. My old master, Sifu Kam Yuen has given up teaching the moves. He’s now interested only in healing. And in teaching others to heal. Not just the body, not even just the mind, but the spirit. And that’s the key: the spirit. When a student really gets going, you say, “That’s the spirit!”  Take it literally, and go for it.

This higher knowledge, this fantastic wisdom of the ages has watered itself down through the centuries.  Even at the Shaolin Monastery it’s hard to find a monk who has grasped the essence of the deeper stuff. Hard even to find one who wants to, or even knows about it, or believes in it if he does. I tried to talk to a Captain, a master of The Art, about The Tao, during my pilgrimage to The Monastery a few years ago he clammed right up. Said they were Buddhists and were forbidden to speak about The Tao.  Like saying, “Nature is not allowed here.” And this from someone right at the source. You’d think (I did) that there, among those ancient stones you’d find wisdom that was beyond the intramural games, beyond secular limitations.

There was one old monk, though, the oldest Shaolin alive today, who, his eyes twinkling, told me that Sha O Lin meant “The Shining Stone in The Stream.” Supposedly, after the white rocks that line the river there, at the foot of The Shangshong Mountains, but really, I suspect, his real meaning was the shining light of the Shaolin philosophy. This old man (he wasn’t sure how old he was: there were no records) seemed to have a greater knowledge than the Abbot, who was more of a politician: a nice enough guy though. He told me to continue my work. That it was important.

Even so, to get back to the fighting skills (and these higher disciplines are an important part of the more esoteric aspects of them, as well), throughout the trials and troubles that heaped themselves on the Shaolins, the pogroms by the various emperors, the domination of The English colonists, the opium wars, the iron fist of Mao, through all this and more: famines, a couple of world wars, a bloody revolution which massacred millions, the Monasteries prevailed. The Cultural Revolution has come and gone, and the old guys are still dancing in their temple courtyards. This stuff works.

Once, years ago, when I was heartbroken and in despair (we won’t go into that right now), I asked Sifu, “What am I going to do?”  He answered simply, “Strength, patience, fortitude, David.”

Bottom line.