not many folks now days know , that I use to be crazy about martial arts. spent about 35 years in them. my last art was jujitsu, which I dearly loved until I got too old to do the fancy high altitude kinds of throws, and such. I originally moved to our little place in northern Colorado over 30 years ago to study with a tai chi teacher. My tai chi teacher was the only person I ever met who could really demonstrate chi, or prana. no, he was not some inscrutable Chinese person, but a little Jewish guy from Chicago, who had a school out of his home, and did not advertise. when he pushed me, all I felt was his fingers lightly touch me, and I was instantly accelerated into a wall 20 feet away. the acceleration was like getting caught in machinery, no give at all. just pure energy. if he pulled your arm, you got a whip lash from the force, yet you felt nothing grab your arm. the reason I bring up ancient history is because of the metaphor it brings to my current path of so called non-duality. you see, my teacher had about 40 students, and most were intellectuals, very bright and educated folks who worked in education, or engineering or research of some kind. very sharp minds. they took tai chi because it seemed to be the intelligent martial art. yet, they keep talking and talking, asking questions about application, and how to use chi, and debated among themselves. my teacher would always answer there questions by saying just do tai chi . nothing more. nothing wise or astounding to the intellect. most of them, who respect my teachers ability just smiled and kept debating among themselves about all the theory and application of this ancient art. I suppose that is what attracted me to Zen. the answer to most questions in Zen is just sit. nothing more. one does not get much of an argument form a Soto Zen teacher, at least one who is traditionally trained. fact of the matter is, that the first lesson, (and in mystical schools, it is said that the entirety of the path is told in the first lesson), the Zen roshi says that sitting in the proper way IS the path. while this does no make one lick of sense to our western rational mind that has to talk a thing to death, it makes perfect sense if you just sit. something to not think about. :) happy sitting zp
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 10:19:17 +0000
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