5 ms·

Waking up early is just the beginning. There are also heavy chore responsibilities, 10+ hr full day of training, frequent beatings. And the physical disciplina

by dssu 8y ago

Waking up early is just the beginning. There are also heavy chore responsibilities, 10+ hr full day of training, frequent beatings. And the physical disciplinary punishments are brutal. Oh and you have to keep this up for 5-10 years. Very reasonable to see why someone would not want to commit to this. Many of the warrior monks were trained as very young children so they had not much say in the situation and just had to deal with it.

hangonhn 8y ago
The literal translation of "kung fu" means skill through effort. In fact in some parts of China, the words "kung fu" is used to mean skill in general. To say a practitioner of some art has "no kung fu" means he or she is lacking in practice/skill. The more correct term for Chinese martial arts is "wu shu" -- "military/martial" and "art". This idea of skill through practice is one of those values that I am very grateful for because it was sort of drilled into my head at an early age and has been enormous beneficial to me throughout my life. It's become more valuable now that I'm older and don't absorb new information as quickly or easily.
- kinleyd 8y ago
  Thanks. "Skill through effort" is wonderfully worded - a perfect value to pass on to the young ones.
scythe 8y ago
Tõzan came to study with Unmon. Unmon asked, "Where are you from?" "From Sato," Tõzan replied. "Where were you during the summer?" "Well, I was at the monastery of Hõzu, south of the lake." "When did you leave there," Unmon asked. "On August 25" was Tõzan's reply. "I spare you sixty blows," Unmon said. The next day Tõzan came to Unmon and said, "Yesterday you said you spared me sixty blows. I beg to ask you, where was I at fault?" "Oh, you rice bag!" shouted Unmon. "What makes you wander about, now west of the river, now south of the lake?" Tõzan thereupon came to a mighty enlightenment experience.
- diegoperini 8y ago
  Can someone explain?
  - lnanek2 8y ago
    Sounds like his new master was criticizing him for not sticking with his training, and instead going around searching for a new master.
  - ashrk 8y ago
    Pretty sure it's from The Gateless Gate (I recognize it, which means it's probably from there). Zen tales tend to present a couple major challenges to the reader: 1) Going into them cold isn't exactly intended. The characters are usually named for a reason, and it's expected that the reader/hearer will already know some things about the historical persons in the story, possibly some other tales about them, from reading histories and lineages, and so on, providing more context than is apparent at first if you take the stories per se. 2) There's often at least one relatively easy-to-pick-out though rarely explicitly stated lesson in them, but also one or more metaphorical or allegorical readings, at least one of which will be a "canonical" reading, i.e. your teacher will expect you to come up with it after some consideration before moving on to the next koan/tale—they don't expect that every student, or even many, will come up with a totally new and valuable metaphorical/obscure insight to the koans they present them, as that's just not realistic and no-one would ever advance if that were the expectation. An easy example of 2 is (from memory so this wording will suck compared to the real thing) the "what should I do now?" "have you eaten your rice" "yes" "then clean out your bowl" one from (IIRC) Gateless Gate—simple surface reading of first-things-first and the importance of routine-following, but one available deeper reading of this as a Zen "challenge" (many of the koans/tales are) where the question "have you eaten your rice?" is actually asking, as understood by both characters, "have you attained enlightenment?" or similar, and "then clean out your bowl" has to do with banishing hubris or something along those lines. Point 2 especially fairly speculative and arrived at purely second hand—I've not practiced Zen Buddhism—though I'm confident enough in it to present it here. Take that for whatever it's worth. [EDIT] further, the point of their contemplation is in taking the journey to the answers, in part for the value of the journey and (one supposes) in part to train in the kind of lateral thinking that's so vital to these "zen battles". So just having a list of "answers" alongside the text kind of defeats the purpose, though they're definitely not intended to be as obscure and hard to follow as they are if you go into them with no background on (basically) Buddhist historical trivia.
coldtea 8y ago
So basically the Navy SEALS is where people go if they can't stand this regime?

by dssu 8y ago

hangonhn 8y ago

The literal translation of "kung fu" means skill through effort. In fact in some parts of China, the words "kung fu" is used to mean skill in general. To say a practitioner of some art has "no kung fu" means he or she is lacking in practice/skill. The more correct term for Chinese martial arts is "wu shu" -- "military/martial" and "art". This idea of skill through practice is one of those values that I am very grateful for because it was sort of drilled into my head at an early age and has been enormous beneficial to me throughout my life. It's become more valuable now that I'm older and don't absorb new information as quickly or easily.

kinleyd 8y ago
Thanks. "Skill through effort" is wonderfully worded - a perfect value to pass on to the young ones.

scythe 8y ago

Tõzan came to study with Unmon. Unmon asked, "Where are you from?" "From Sato," Tõzan replied. "Where were you during the summer?" "Well, I was at the monastery of Hõzu, south of the lake." "When did you leave there," Unmon asked. "On August 25" was Tõzan's reply. "I spare you sixty blows," Unmon said. The next day Tõzan came to Unmon and said, "Yesterday you said you spared me sixty blows. I beg to ask you, where was I at fault?" "Oh, you rice bag!" shouted Unmon. "What makes you wander about, now west of the river, now south of the lake?" Tõzan thereupon came to a mighty enlightenment experience.

diegoperini 8y ago
Can someone explain?
- lnanek2 8y ago
  Sounds like his new master was criticizing him for not sticking with his training, and instead going around searching for a new master.
- ashrk 8y ago
  Pretty sure it's from The Gateless Gate (I recognize it, which means it's probably from there). Zen tales tend to present a couple major challenges to the reader: 1) Going into them cold isn't exactly intended. The characters are usually named for a reason, and it's expected that the reader/hearer will already know some things about the historical persons in the story, possibly some other tales about them, from reading histories and lineages, and so on, providing more context than is apparent at first if you take the stories per se. 2) There's often at least one relatively easy-to-pick-out though rarely explicitly stated lesson in them, but also one or more metaphorical or allegorical readings, at least one of which will be a "canonical" reading, i.e. your teacher will expect you to come up with it after some consideration before moving on to the next koan/tale—they don't expect that every student, or even many, will come up with a totally new and valuable metaphorical/obscure insight to the koans they present them, as that's just not realistic and no-one would ever advance if that were the expectation. An easy example of 2 is (from memory so this wording will suck compared to the real thing) the "what should I do now?" "have you eaten your rice" "yes" "then clean out your bowl" one from (IIRC) Gateless Gate—simple surface reading of first-things-first and the importance of routine-following, but one available deeper reading of this as a Zen "challenge" (many of the koans/tales are) where the question "have you eaten your rice?" is actually asking, as understood by both characters, "have you attained enlightenment?" or similar, and "then clean out your bowl" has to do with banishing hubris or something along those lines. Point 2 especially fairly speculative and arrived at purely second hand—I've not practiced Zen Buddhism—though I'm confident enough in it to present it here. Take that for whatever it's worth. [EDIT] further, the point of their contemplation is in taking the journey to the answers, in part for the value of the journey and (one supposes) in part to train in the kind of lateral thinking that's so vital to these "zen battles". So just having a list of "answers" alongside the text kind of defeats the purpose, though they're definitely not intended to be as obscure and hard to follow as they are if you go into them with no background on (basically) Buddhist historical trivia.

coldtea 8y ago

So basically the Navy SEALS is where people go if they can't stand this regime?