[Buddha-l] The drug wars and Buddhism? Vancouver, BC

[Jayarava]

--- On Tue, 30/6/09, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:

> It is known for its Asian mystic-themed motto of "Honor-Loyalty-
> Respect," created by Roueche, who has a passion for martial arts and 
> Buddhism." 
>  
> Huh?

I did martial arts for a while and in those circles it is well known that the Indian Zen master Bodhidharma introduced martial arts into Buddhist monasteries to help the monks cope with doing many hours of meditation each day. Eventually the 'secret' arts were taught to the public... blah blah.

Additionally the samurai are strongly associated with Zen in popular legend - in that they used Zen techniques and ideas to attenuate their fear of death and enhance their enthusiasm for killing.

The upshot is that many martial artists are interested in Zen - in class we used to 'meditate' for up to five minutes at a time! My Kempo Master regularly travelled to China's famous Shaolin Temple where he trained in taiji and chuan-fa. Sadly in the 20th century the 'monastery' is a government run tourist attraction, although the 'monks' do some very pretty wushu (which is a martial dance form). The Shaolin temple was home to Kwai-chan Kane the famous warrior monk from the TV show Kung-fu which was first exposure to the East (well Asia was west of where I grew up, but you'll know what I mean).

I might add that having subsequently become a Buddhist I have found no evidence what-so-ever in Buddhist texts to support the idea that Buddhists secretly enjoyed a good punch up. I think the whole thing was a legitimisation myth, kind of like the King Arthur story, for what we would now call terrorist organisations engaged in insurgency.

Maṅgalam
Jayarava