Awakened?/Enlightened?
Awakened?
I don’t trust the meditators.
It’s not their spacy expressions
It’s their “me” centered vocabulary.
Deep breathing and yoga asanas
Are good for you, I learned that
Long ago; and I know how to
concentrate but I don’t call that
meditate, not the currently fashion-
able kind taught far and wide.
The “golden age” “dreamland”?
We had it a hundred thousand years ago.
Then our brains grew complex.
Zen seems to say wordlessness
Is enlightenment? Are all infants
And animals enlightened? Do you
Try to kill off your chattering
Monkeys to get to that thoughtless
Space? My monkeys nap and relax
While I breathe and do tai chi;
But they wake me at midnight
With insights, maybe a poem.
Full of thoughts, I go about my
Chores, doing what I need to do,
Enjoying the world and others
As worthy of attention as I am,
Often smarter and more fun,
Most are not self-satisfied, self-
Conscious meditators. We have lives
To live. We fill our days with little
Joys and various kinds of worries.
Meditation -- Vojtech Preissig
Patanjali lived sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 4th century of the current era. A scholar of the enumerationist Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy that accepts only perception, inference, and the testimony of reliable sources as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge. His "Yogasutras" is the foundation of classical yoga and has been translated into 40 Indian languages. He defined "asana" as "to be seated in a position that is steady but relaxed." The body posture was originally associated with sitting for meditaion but was eventually expanded to also include reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, or balancing poses. In the 11th century Gorakhnath founded the Nath Panth, a Hindu community that incorporated Buddhist, Shaivite, and yoga traditions; the "Goraksha Sataka" asserted 84 asanas. In the 20th century Tirumalai Krishnamacharya introduced a new system of asanas that incorporated exercises into traditional hatha yoga, a system of physical techniques that were derived in part from tantric practices. His students included Pattabhi Jois, founder of Ashtanga vinyasa yoga, and B.K.S. Iyengar, founder of Iyengar yoga, who added hundreds of new asanas, revived the popularity of yoga, and introduced it to the West. After photographing himself in 1,300 asamas, the Brazilian-American yogi Dharma Mittra edited the pictures to produce the 1984 "Master Toga Chart of 908 Postures," which became a teaching tool in ashrams and yoga centers worldwide.
ReplyDeleteIn 1669 Huang Zongxi composed an "Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan," in which he made the distinction between internal and external martial arts; the former type focused on spiritual and mental aspects, while the latter on physiological aspects. His son Huang Baiji, who had learned martial arts from Wang, compiled the earliest extant manual of internal martial arts, the "Neijia quanfa," in 1676. In the 1850s Ong Tong, a scholar at the imperial court in Beijing, watched Yang Luchan demonstrate the art and coined "tai chi" as its name in a poem ("Hands holding Tai chi shakes the whole world, a chest containing ultimate skill defeats a gathering of heroes.") Yang, who had trained in the Chen style developed by Chen Wangting in the 17th century, developed 1 of the 5 major modern tai chi styles; he and his 2nd son Banhou both taught imperial cavalry officer Wu Quanyou, who developed the Wu style with his son Jianquan; Yang also trained Wu Yuxiang, whose extensive writings on the subject are influential in other schools; his nephew Li transmitted the teachings to his own nephew Hao, leading to the Wu-Hao style. Hao Weichen in turn taught Sun Lutang, who founded the Sun style. Wu Jianquan, Sun Lutang, and Yang's grandsons Shaohou and Zhengfu were among the 1st to teach the techniques to the general public; Zhengfu was responsible for emphasizing a smooth, evenly paced "large frame" (Da Jia) form with expansive stepping movements and large circular arms motions. His student and collaborator Zheng Manqing introduced the art to the US in 1964, and his disciples have chiefly been responsible for spreading tai chi around the world.
and is directly acknowledged by the other 4 as having indirectly transmitted the art to them. His
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Su Lutang
Ta chi is an internal martial art --