Martial Arts

While I was at LEAF a week or so ago, I took a class on basic Thai Chi.  The instructor of the class said something that has stuck with me and has made me really think about my martial arts training.

I took Taekwondo (TKD).  Due to scheduling conflicts, I have stopped taking TKD.  I did get my black belt before I quit going to class.  I still practice the form and the moves somewhat, but I digress.  TKD is martial arts that is focused on using your force to counter and attack.  You expend your energy to block and counter the person coming at you.  TKD teaches discipline and patience and the understanding that this is not to learn fighting. This is only to be used if a physical fight can't be prevented.

The Thai Chi instructor had TKD, Judo and Thai Chi.  All from the same master.  And he said his master taught them all in order.  You learned TKD first, to learn the basics of the moves, to learn how your power works.  After you have mastered TKD, he then moves you to Judo.  Judo teaches you how to reserve your own power, and use the power of your attacker against him/herself.  It is still about force, but in Judo you maintain your reserve while depleting the force of your attacker.  After mastering that, you move to Thai Chi which is about slow movement of energy.  It is not an art of force, it is an art of will.  Thai Chi is about control and movement conscious placement of power so that not only are you minimizing the use of your own power, you are diminishing the power of your attacker.

This is a very intriguing idea to me and one that has a lot of comparisons for me in my own spiritual life...sort of.

Early on, my idea of spirituality was all about this personal God who listened to and heard my prayers.  I didn't always get what I wanted.  Sometimes I got exactly what I asked for (which is not always a good thing) and sometimes I was blessed and got exactly what I had wanted.  But this idea of God was based solely on my desire, my spirit, my wishes and wants.  Certainly I realized the broader world and recognized that God was accessible to everyone, and it is far more complicated than this very simplistic notion I present, but the general idea was that God was there for me.  It was my power that called Him to me.  My desire was to fit Him into the world I knew and understood.  This is all very clear in my head...not so clear as I try to write it out, I think.

The idea being not that God was mine to control, necessarily, but His presence, His response, His being in my life was quite dependent on me and my being open in my communication.  Yes I needed to listen and follow directions, but my practice, was about what I wanted to include and what I thought was best.  It was about control and my own power.

After a while my being in control got tiring and I lost interest and focus.  Expending my energy to build a spirituality that I want without paying attention to myself and to the call of God was only succeeding in making me feel tired and indifferent.

With that I started investigating alternative methods of practicing my spirituality.  I started meditating.  I did yoga.  I read a million books and started to look deeply into the metaphysics of religion rather than the religion itself.  And what I discovered was that I didn't need to expend my energy.  I could tap into the energy of those around me and build a spirituality that fit.  Only that didn't work all that well either.  I was expending minimal energy, but I was only copying the practices of others, not really investigating myself or tapping into the Divine.  It was still about force.   I lost the motivation to build a formative practice.  What I did, was continue to investigate without really deepening.

I started learning about Shamanic Journey and found that I loved being able to go to the guides and to the Divine and ask them what to do.  And I would use their energy and just build myself with that rather than developing my own roots and delving into a practice that required openness.

And now, here I stand looking at the world around me and realizing that I have gotten a lot of great ideas listening to God.  I am in some ways a prophet and I can hear that still small voice telling me what the world needs to hear.  We can save our planet, ourselves and our economy.  But what I discovered was that knowledge meant nothing if I thought I was outside of having to live it.

Seeing the truth and living the truth are two different things.  What I have discovered is that my spiritual practice isn't meant to be about the tools for listening to God.  It isn't about deepening prayer or journeying to see the manifestations of God in my guides.  My spiritual practice isn't about taking the time to block out parts of my day for contemplation.  My spiritual practice isn't about what I want, or about using the power of God to work for Himself.  My spiritual practice is about living my entire life with every breath as the person that can make a difference and shift our world.

I have reached the point where my spiritual practice has to be about complete awareness.  Slow focused movements that do not use force, but use power.  In order for me to feel fulfilled, I must walk the life that I know will manifest healing for the world.  I can't just preach about ending suffering, I must end my suffering.  I can't just preach a life that says, Love your neighbor, I must love my neighbor.  I cannot just say that simplicity is the answer, I must live simply.

I have said many times over the last several months that I am going to be the change I want to see in the world.  And while I always meant it, I don't think I really understood just how freeing that would be.

I recently really gave serious consideration to biking to work.  Today is the second day I have done that.  It adds a little time to my commute.  It is definitely more stressful on a bike because you are much more open target for a car to hit you and many cars seem to be pretty irritated that you are on "their" road.  But in a way biking is almost meditative.  I am getting my heart moving,  and the wind around me feels almost like flying.  I am constrained by road rules and I have to be constantly aware of traffic, but I have more freedom about where to chain up my bike.  I get in exercise without really adding a lot of additional time to my day, which opens me up for more time to do other things that have been getting ignored.   Plus, it adds to my spiritual pursuit of simplicity.