Yoga & Tai Chi in the West
I'm no expert on either of these disciplines but I practice them daily with devotion and humility. They have served as great tools on the path of my spiritual quest and advancement and will continue to serve as a beacon of light for the road ahead for the rest of my life.
Both of these subjects enjoy certain amount of popularity in the West, but sadly to say, in a somewhat distorted way. The problem is, they've been both commercialized, pretty much like everything else in the west. Yoga has been reduced to a system of gymnastic exercises performed in high-tech studios by beautiful women wearing leotards. It's even possible to obtain a certificate to teach through a short on-line course these days! Tai Chi has been adapted to two extremes - either as a set of super-powerful fighting techniques which enable the learner to strike an opponent down with 'Chi disrupting techniqe' (you'll be able to check this out on the YouTube), or, on the other end of the spectrum, some gentle and easy stretching exercises coupled with breathing techniques which are beneficial to the elderly only or those who are too weak and unwell to perform any other form of exercises. The driving force behind all these hype or distortion is, of course, money. Some deluded learners of Tai Chi are led to believe that they will be good enough to teach after a weekend course which issues them a 'teaching certificate'!
I have no intention of criticising the standards of teaching and practice of either Yoga or Tai Chi in the west. What I wish to point out is that they should be practiced and taught with due respect for their historical origins. The opening passage of Patangali's Yoga Sutras, the oldest treatise on the subject of Yoga, states that ''Yoga happens when there is stilling of the movement of mind'' [This, of course, is only one version of translation from the original Sanskrit]. The entire treatise is devoted to discussing the nature of mind and its relation to mental afflictions and ways of lifting veils and illutions created by the mind to gain unity with the cosmic consciousness (Yoga). The other important Sanskrit classic on Yoga, Hatha Yoga Pridipika, points out at the beginning that the aim of Hatha Yoga (yoga postures or physical yoga) is to prepare the aspirant or spiritual seeker for Raja Yoga (royal union with the Divine or the Ultimate Reality. As Swami Venkatesananda said in the Introduction to his version of translation of the Yoga Sutras, "... the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Maharishi are meant to elevate the spirit of every man, not to teach him how to levitate''. Even if a man can learn to levitate in the air through his yoga practice, I don't see how that's going to help him to gain liberation from the wheel of life and death.
Tai Chi, sadly enough, hasn't achieved even half of the success of its' Indian brother (Yoga). Yoga, commercialized or not, has been made widely avaible to the general public in the forms of regular classes run by individual instructors or teaching institutes, residential retreats or courses run at various centres or ashrams around the world, vast amount of literature in English and all other major European lanaguages either translated from Sanskrit or written by Swamis or yogis both Indian and western. Tai Chi, on the other hand, is being taught only by some individual instructors and a few schools at hired venues such as sports hall or community centres, and the teaching itself is often presented in a sporadic, fragmented, dilluted or even distorted manner. The English literature on the subject of Tai Chi from the ancient Chinese teachers is very rare due to the difficulty in translation. The limited volumns available by modern western teachers either only sratche the surface or are presented in a fragmented, distorted way, often completely neglecting the spiritual tradition of Tai Chi.
Taoist sage Chang San Feng who is commonly known as the progenator of Tai Chi Chuan (Tai Chi boxing) was originally a Confucian scholar who was born towards the end of Yuan Dynasty. After middle-age Chang started travelling around the country before meeting an enlightened Taoist sage called Firy Dragon who initriated him into Taoist alchemy. He finally settled down in Wu Tang Mountain to practice Taoist alchemy and meditation until he was elevated to a 'Real Man' (title given to Taoist adepts who's attained the Tao or Enlightenment). It was during this period that he was said to invent Tai Chi Chuan as a form of internal martial art. However, most of his written works touch on the subject of spiritual and philosophical issues such as the concept of Tao, meditation, nature of mind and how to tame it, how to gain spritual immortality through the refining of 'golden elicir' (Taoist alchemy). His aspirations were clearly to elevate humans out of suffering so that he may break free from the constant cycle of life and death. For example, he opens his 'A Treatise on the Great Tao' with the following passages:-
The Great Tao is what gave birth to Heaven, Earth and Humanity. It is both the mechanism to cause constant alteration between Yin and Yang, activity and inertia, and the principle governing the mystries of creation and destruction.
Yin and yang constitutes Tao (the Way). An aspirant of Tao cultivates the Way of Yin and Yang. Yin is a man's life and Yang his essence... The priority for cultivating the Tao is cultivating one's Self; self-cultivation starts from purifying the mind and having sincerity. Once the mind is purified and good faith established, the foundation work may begin.
Chang calls on people to take up self-cultivation with utter-most urgency with the following words:-
Between Heaven and Earth, the most valuable the most spirited creature is man. That which passes with the greatest speed is time; that which is big and most permanent is golden elixir. Such a shame it is that man is ensnared by name, fame, wealth, lust and passions, greedy as wolves and blind as moths. When their time on earth is up, they can do nothing but accept death as their destiny. Is it not a great pity that they never heard of the formula for immortality and the panacea of golden exlixir!
Is it not compassion for the entire humanity that we detect in the words of the sage? Can even a single trace of such compasion be found in the claim by many a western self-styled masters of Tai Chi as pocessing power to strike down their opponent with one Chi disrupting strike? Or in the incessant arguments among different schools or styles or lineagues of Tai Chi on wether Tai Chi is a fighting skill or healing technique?
Both of these subjects enjoy certain amount of popularity in the West, but sadly to say, in a somewhat distorted way. The problem is, they've been both commercialized, pretty much like everything else in the west. Yoga has been reduced to a system of gymnastic exercises performed in high-tech studios by beautiful women wearing leotards. It's even possible to obtain a certificate to teach through a short on-line course these days! Tai Chi has been adapted to two extremes - either as a set of super-powerful fighting techniques which enable the learner to strike an opponent down with 'Chi disrupting techniqe' (you'll be able to check this out on the YouTube), or, on the other end of the spectrum, some gentle and easy stretching exercises coupled with breathing techniques which are beneficial to the elderly only or those who are too weak and unwell to perform any other form of exercises. The driving force behind all these hype or distortion is, of course, money. Some deluded learners of Tai Chi are led to believe that they will be good enough to teach after a weekend course which issues them a 'teaching certificate'!
 |
| Patanjali who wrote Yoga Sutras |
Tai Chi, sadly enough, hasn't achieved even half of the success of its' Indian brother (Yoga). Yoga, commercialized or not, has been made widely avaible to the general public in the forms of regular classes run by individual instructors or teaching institutes, residential retreats or courses run at various centres or ashrams around the world, vast amount of literature in English and all other major European lanaguages either translated from Sanskrit or written by Swamis or yogis both Indian and western. Tai Chi, on the other hand, is being taught only by some individual instructors and a few schools at hired venues such as sports hall or community centres, and the teaching itself is often presented in a sporadic, fragmented, dilluted or even distorted manner. The English literature on the subject of Tai Chi from the ancient Chinese teachers is very rare due to the difficulty in translation. The limited volumns available by modern western teachers either only sratche the surface or are presented in a fragmented, distorted way, often completely neglecting the spiritual tradition of Tai Chi.
Taoist sage Chang San Feng who is commonly known as the progenator of Tai Chi Chuan (Tai Chi boxing) was originally a Confucian scholar who was born towards the end of Yuan Dynasty. After middle-age Chang started travelling around the country before meeting an enlightened Taoist sage called Firy Dragon who initriated him into Taoist alchemy. He finally settled down in Wu Tang Mountain to practice Taoist alchemy and meditation until he was elevated to a 'Real Man' (title given to Taoist adepts who's attained the Tao or Enlightenment). It was during this period that he was said to invent Tai Chi Chuan as a form of internal martial art. However, most of his written works touch on the subject of spiritual and philosophical issues such as the concept of Tao, meditation, nature of mind and how to tame it, how to gain spritual immortality through the refining of 'golden elicir' (Taoist alchemy). His aspirations were clearly to elevate humans out of suffering so that he may break free from the constant cycle of life and death. For example, he opens his 'A Treatise on the Great Tao' with the following passages:-
The Great Tao is what gave birth to Heaven, Earth and Humanity. It is both the mechanism to cause constant alteration between Yin and Yang, activity and inertia, and the principle governing the mystries of creation and destruction.
 |
| Sage Chang San Feng |
Chang calls on people to take up self-cultivation with utter-most urgency with the following words:-
Between Heaven and Earth, the most valuable the most spirited creature is man. That which passes with the greatest speed is time; that which is big and most permanent is golden elixir. Such a shame it is that man is ensnared by name, fame, wealth, lust and passions, greedy as wolves and blind as moths. When their time on earth is up, they can do nothing but accept death as their destiny. Is it not a great pity that they never heard of the formula for immortality and the panacea of golden exlixir!
Is it not compassion for the entire humanity that we detect in the words of the sage? Can even a single trace of such compasion be found in the claim by many a western self-styled masters of Tai Chi as pocessing power to strike down their opponent with one Chi disrupting strike? Or in the incessant arguments among different schools or styles or lineagues of Tai Chi on wether Tai Chi is a fighting skill or healing technique?
Comments
Post a Comment