While my son was battling through a year of intense chemotherapy I began to explore avenues of
self-realization that I had been interested in all my life. I believe the world would be well served to adapt some of the tenets I have discovered.
My search led me to
Tai Chi Chuan, which is one of the three so-called “internal” martial arts of
China. They are considered internal because the core of the disciplines is to
guide the body’s energy with the mind. Meditation is an integral part of these
disciplines.
I was already
meditating. My wife has obtained certification to teach meditation so it is part of
our lives. I felt as if I needed the fighting aspect though. I was
psychologically abused by a violent alcoholic as a child. Escaping into the Navy
led me into a another violent world of harsh realities.
So I fought. I have
fought all my life in one way or another. It’s as if it was an engine by which
I was driven. Argument, anger, fists and fright evolved into a personality of
aggression that was only tempered by a fierce love of God.
I took Krav Maga, Punching and kicking and wrestling were
fun I was like a kid at Christmas. I thought I had found myself. The
thing is I began to have injury after injury until finally I blew out and old
shoulder that had been surgically repaired a few years back. I had to question
my process. Though the fighting seemed to release the germs that confounded me
the repercussions were unacceptable and obviously not intelligent for a man in
his late fifties.
The slow forms of
Tai Chi Chuan and the qi gong that go hand in hand were healing. I dodged the
orthopedic surgeon and began to look at options. Tai Chi is sometimes called
“moving meditation”. I was steadily drawn deeper into the reflection of yin and
yang. In my mind’s eye peace lay resting at the end of a forest trail.
This deep conflict
of fighting versus peace had torn me asunder until I surrendered to God yet I
continued in many ways to fight. Moving into the martial arts I became aware
once again that they are not about fighting. They are about not fighting. To
protect and defend means to do what is necessary to neutralize violence. Often
the best thing to do is dissolve that violence with reason and love.
As I continue to
ponder this issue I can’t help but wonder what the world would be like if its
leaders could make this core shift of perspective. That is to say, if the
primary motivation of all the peoples of the earth were to “do no harm” … where
would we be?
You see I have come to realize that it takes no courage to
fight back. It is instinctual and motivated by fear. What if one’s goal were
simply to protect life and promote justice doing as little harm as possible to
the antagonist?
What if we sought
to wage peace rather than war?
What if we saw
ourselves in the eyes of every person? We are all part and parcel of the same
bouncing molecular universe. Our worst enemies are no less than an extension of
ourselves. Call it brothers and sisters in Christ, Sangha, community or any of
the infinite number of names; we are all from the same seed at some point. We
are as leaves on a tree … grains of sand … stars of the eternal prescience that
is boundless reality. If we were of sound mind, why would we visit violence
upon ourselves?
But that is another
matter entirely.
