The Tao of Grasshopper

On the back of the box containing the complete Kung Fu television series on DVD, there is a blurb that says, “the adventures of the Old West’s most unusual hero are yours to enjoy in this bonus-filled DVD set of the complete, trend-setting series.”

Indeed, Kwai Chang Caine is a most “unusual” Old West hero; but sadly, the Kung Fu series was not in any but the most superficial way, “trend-setting.” Would that it were.

It is true that Hollywood — with both television and film — attempted further martial-arts oriented work after Kung Fu was cancelled in 1974. But the heart that made the series live and glow within the minds of viewers, the idea of teaching the Tao and everything it embodies — humility, non-violence, a connection with and reverence for Nature, and the individual’s commitment to peace, self-discovery, and inner truth — none of these things was allowed to become a “trend.”

So we must rediscover this deep vein of the Kung Fu series by re-experiencing its significant moments. This page is a small contribution to that end. The major focus of this page will be the sayings of Master Po, whose character was so beautifully drawn and acted (by Keye Luke) in the series. I will be borrowing video excerpts from the Yinyangnature page at youtube, and adding a few of my own, along with commentary drawn on my experience as a student of the Tao, the I Ching, and the poems of Lao Tzu. I’ll be adding one every so often, so check back now and then to see what’s new; and post a comment with any suggestions or criticisms you may have to offer.

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The Door at the End of the Corridor

Last modified on 2009-09-25 13:36:16 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

“Life is a corridor, and death, a door,” teaches Master Po. Perhaps young Caine can be forgiven for not being quite so sure. Ego’s voices — the voices of the cultures among which most of us are raised — tell us that there is no door, only a wall of termination.

This is the dull, throbbing, mindless fear upon which all our discourse about death is based. We heard it all summer long, and we felt the shrieking pulse of its undertone, like Basho’s cicadas:

soon they will die –
yet, showing no sign of it,
cicadas screech

Idiots with no awareness of life and therefore no knowledge of death ranted that the government would become a euthanasia machine after the passing of a national health care plan. Yes, it was maddening, but also revealing — it showed us how far we are from understanding the simplest and clearest truths; how fixed is our culture’s obsession with death as the wall of darkness at the end of life’s corridor. It would be comical except for one thing: this abysmal and blind certainty about death proceeds from an equally dismal understanding of life; thus, we fail to value or truly experience either.

By the time Caine grew and became a teacher himself, he had discarded his childhood fears and stilled the voice of ego and its schoolboy chatter about the “corridor of death.” Indeed, what he discovered was that the only thing that must die is that inane obsession with the most superficial appearances — that because you cannot see someone anymore, his life has been forever terminated.

In killing that vapid belief and its feeding fears, Caine realized that death is an ending “as waking is an end to sleep.” He rediscovered what Lao Tzu wrote so long ago:

Life is never exhausted –
It is only delusion that dies.

The Way of the Stone Mason

Last modified on 2009-10-23 04:31:50 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Our culture teaches us that we must strive to be great, to do great things. The way of Nature teaches us that a lot of little makes for great, that small effort, undertaken with perseverance and creativity, makes for big and enduring results. Thus Lao Tzu said, in Chapter 39 of the Tao Te Ching:

Soft and small, the deepest roots
By which the greatest tree is nourished:
Humility within completes greatness without,
For they are not by Nature separated.

The stone mason chips away at the mountain that stops the cloud, which in turn blocks out the sun that exhausts the strength and life of the wealthiest mandarin who lords over the stone mason, who in his humility sees only his work and not the greatness of its destiny. True greatness is not a goal; it is a gift.

Why strive for what is already within you? The stone mason strives neither to bring down the mountain nor to stand on its summit. He needs the mountain’s substance to further his art, and so he takes from it, yet without disturbing its balance or making a claim of lordship over its height. Pursuing the art of living is precisely this: the interaction of small effort, directed energy, with matter and form, with no claim of ownership or subjection between them. People in our culture have not learned this lesson any more than the people of ancient China had; thus Lao Tzu warns us at the end of Chapter 39:

Do not presume to gleam like jade
When you live among the humble stones.

Natural Abundance and Lao Tzu’s Three Jewels

Last modified on 2009-09-11 03:03:26 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Here’s a neat little message for our time of 10% unemployment and a legion of workers who have given up the job search entirely. As always, this is not a practical recommendation: I don’t want anyone thinking it would be a cool idea to wander the countryside “grubbing roots” and working for food after their unemployment runs out. Again, think metaphorically: Caine’s idea of wealth is food, a place to sleep, and work to do. His wealth is already within himself, and he feels that keenly. His new “employer” is as much a drifter as Caine, but still has a more mundane concept of wealth as gold and a Lotto-style windfall. The message here is the penetration of appearances: “smell the gold” within yourself. Lao Tzu wrote a poem in the Tao Te Ching about his “three jewels:”

People think the Tao is special:
They tell me, “what magnificence you have made!”
Magnificence is a fantasy,
The vapid delusion of a fool.
When the Tao is coated with the gild
Of empty privilege,
Its luster dies within you.

I have but three jewels
That I keep and cherish:
The first is love,
The second is moderation,
The third is modesty.

When these three lead, the true self follows.
Love can thereby be fearless,
Moderation can thus be generous,
Modesty can therefore lead the world,
And help its life force to endure.

But today the ego has renounced pure love,
And elevated empty chivalry;
It has wasted moderation
By exalting lavishness;
It has abandoned modesty
For the sake of renown.

This is to walk the path of death.

Enter a conflict with love still alive,
For its defense is stronger
Than the highest wall can ever provide.

“The Shanghai Kid”: Fighting as Self-Development

Last modified on 2009-09-03 07:57:55 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

The fighting in the Kung Fu series is often fun to watch while also remaining true to the precepts of Shaolin and Taoism. The “Shanghai Kid” scene is an entertaining example. As the episode from which this scene is taken makes clear, there was nothing funny or endearing about the world of bare-knuckle brutishness in which Caine finds himself, any more than modern boxing, with its death and presenile dementia, is either amusing or inspiring.

Caine makes short work of these two fellows, mainly with body blows delivered with the feet. Thus, he does no enduring harm while also furthering his goal in becoming involved in this sport (he came to this setting in search of his brother). Kung Fu, Aikido, and related disciplines seek to make the fighting sport a supporting function of self-development. As you can see from the rather grainy film below of a true Shaolin master at work against a karate fighter, the sport is a dance of retreat and advance, with blows stuck glancingly and action halted frequently.

In fact, you might think of this fight scene as a parable of sorts on opinion and being right (and wrong): as any hitter in baseball will tell you, it often hurts more to swing and miss than to connect with the hardest or fastest-moving object. For either a foot, a fist, or an idea to be effective requires that it work in a field rather than on an object. The true target is negative energy rather than the body of a person who carries it. Thus, the Kung Fu practitioner in the video “runs away” from the karate guy, making him expend his force, feel that pain of swinging and missing. Only then does he advance. I have never heard of a Kung Fu practitioner who is killed in a fight or who goes into middle age in the grip of premature dementia due to a lifetime of blows to his head, such as is seen in modern Western boxing and even contact sports like American football.

Once again, in Shaolin Kung Fu and related practices, the fighting is not seen as a central activity of the path; only as an adjunct, a metaphor in action, if you will, on the way of inner growth. Part of the meditation practice that I teach involves “kicking” ego down and out of the way of the true self. Yet when we speak of “beating” ego, or even of “killing” it; we are adopting yet another metaphor, since there is nothing real, after all, to be beaten or killed. Ego is an illusion, albeit an often compelling and destructive one. As in “real” Kung Fu, the inner fight is one of the many keys we use within ourselves to unlock the true self, the light-body that harmonizes with the way of Nature. The goal of such “fighting” is not victory but clarity; its method is not violence but only dispersion.

Barefoot in the Park

Last modified on 2010-01-30 00:23:08 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Note: I wrote the following post last summer, before I or anyone else was aware of the Harvard research findings on barefoot running. Well, though I’m a walker and not a runner, it would appear I was indeed on to something. Compare my recommendation with the video below from that Harvard researcher.

I rarely offer practical advice in living in this blog, because I happen to think that the most practical advice points to the elimination of ego and its delusions. Today, however, I have something to offer which came as a discovery to me this afternoon: I was walking in Prospect Park and sat down in some grass to rest. I was taken by the notion of taking off my shoes and socks and walking barefoot. I thus walked the entire length of the Long Meadow at the park (only about a mile long), and found it very refreshing. It is good for the body, excellent for the feet, and even better for the mind, since it makes each step an exercise in one-pointed attention.

Here in New York, part of the reason for that is that there are certain risks: broken glass, rocks, and litter (not to mention the occasional mound of dog feces). Nevertheless, what such a practice does is bring unmediated feeling, sensation, into the act of walking. No matter where you live, I recommend it. Give it a try.
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The Leaving Scene and Teachings in Freedom

Last modified on 2009-08-17 20:02:31 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Among the many things I admire about the Kung Fu series is its economy of dialogue. Few television shows have ever been as sparing and as thoughtful with the spoken word. The vast majority, in fact, tend to be loud, garish, and chattery.

In Kung Fu, the actors were frequently called on to communicate non-verbally. The leaving scene, in which Caine “snatches the pebble” and consummates both his freedom and his commitment to his path as a Shaolin priest by burning the tiger and dragon into his arms, has barely four lines of dialogue over six minutes. The actors, the direction, the set, and the music combine to deliver the poignant ambivalence of departure; the dramatic tension of freedom.

Contrary to what many in our Western culture imagine, freedom has nothing to do with indulgence. Freedom in the way of Nature is not about an absence of restraint, but an acceptance of responsibility. We are free when we joyfully embrace the limitations that come with taking our true place in the order of Nature. This is the teaching that young Caine received throughout his Shaolin training: Master Po reminds him that to be free is to “bind yourself to nothing” and to “seek harmony with All.” It not an attainment, but a process. The quest for freedom is both renewed and fulfilled every day and in every moment. There is no endpoint of freedom, just as there is no pinnacle of illumination or apotheosis of achievement. As soon as you imagine that freedom has been ultimately attained, you have lost it.

Poverty: Looking Past the Condition

Last modified on 2009-08-17 20:01:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Master Po raises an issue that many of us are going to have to deal with in the near future as more Americans come to the end of unemployment benefits without being able to find work — honoring the inherent dignity of a person who has no material standing in society. Note that the old master is not making any claim about there being dignity or nobility in poverty — that’s nonsense and a man as wise as Po would know it. He directs Caine’s attention not to the man’s physical or socioeconomic condition but to his human reality, his presence. In other words, Po does here what a good teacher should do: he points the way beyond appearances, beneath the surface, and toward the living truth of the moment.

In fact, Caine’s mistake is one commonly made by doctors and other medical professionals: he saw only the condition and not the person. The great Canadian physician, William Osler, used to tell his students: “do not ask what disease the patient has…seek to know instead the person that the disease has.”

This is a teaching of the Tao.

Water

Last modified on 2009-08-17 20:03:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Master Kan, speaking with the voice of Lao Tzu, praises the strength and patience of water. The majority of the earth and our bodies is composed of water; thus, the basic element of baptism is already within us — there is no need for priests or rituals, if we can only turn within and discover what we already are. Something to keep in mind next time someone tells you that rain is bad weather.

The full text of Chapter 78, from my translation of the Tao Te Ching, is below.

Is there anything in all of Nature
As adaptable and as shapeless as water?
But for wearing down what’s fixed and rigid,
No power on earth can match it.
Thus, it is unique.

When an amorphous presence
Meets adamantine resistance,
The amorphous prevails.
When the supple meets the obdurate,
Suppleness prevails.

There are none who can deny this,
But no one seems able to live by it.

Thus the Sage teaches that
The humiliation of one’s country
Is not to be taken upon one’s self,
Nor are environmental disasters
To be conquered as enemies.

But we can, with subtle understanding,
Communicate with them.

“Do Nothing, and Nothing Will Be Left Undone”

Last modified on 2009-08-06 03:58:00 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

In this segment, we hear Master Kan’s voice speaking the words of Lao Tzu. What he is communicating to young Caine are two of the more challenging concepts of the Tao, Te and wu-wei. We can use an anatomical metaphor to briefly encapsulate Kan’s message: Te is the heart that gives motion to the blood of wu-wei, whose movement delivers oxygen and other nutrients throughout the living organism. This is the life guided by “purpose or skill at living” and “unforced action” (see below).

For when action lacks force,
Nothing is left unaccomplished.

Rely upon your true eternal nature,
And you will never have to strive again.
(Lao Tzu, from Chapter 48, Tao Te Ching)

Eastern philosophers like Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu had a word for purpose — Te. It is a vision that was independently echoed in variations of that same theme (Spinoza in Europe, the Native American philosophies here, and the concept of ubuntu in Africa come readily to mind).

When Lao Tzu spoke of Te, he meant purpose — that is, a thing’s raison d’etre, the intersection of utility or talent and natural direction. Thus can we speak of the Te of a hammer, a house, or a human; it is very close to what Pirsig meant when he used the word “quality” in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It reveals the consciousness in all things, as all things in Nature can be said to have Te. Alan Watts, focusing on Te’s reference to the human realm, rendered the term as “skill at living.”

Te as purpose, however, is not a “driver,” but rather a guide to life, since Te itself can flex, shift, and even transform during the life span of the person or thing that it imbues. This is a notion that Westerners have a lot of trouble with: we like things and purposes fixed, defined, and then, as Pastor Rick Warren would have it, “driven” (thus the title of his bestselling book, “The Purpose-Driven Life”).

But a concept like Te is far more fluid and dance-like (Lao Tzu repeatedly uses water as a metaphor for Te) — your Te as a person, a professional, a parent, or what have you, is expressed not in ideology, policy, or rigid forms of action, but by wu-wei, another Chinese term that I rendered as “unforced action” in my own translation of Lao Tzu, and which has been rather clumsily translated as “doing nothing” or “not acting.”

Wu-wei is simply action that comes from a center, with no strain or rigidity to it. Artists, craftsmen, and athletes are deeply familiar with wu-wei, because it is the very expression of their lives. During periods of wu-wei, the natural warps, bends, and valleys in the space-time continuum that Einstein described theoretically become the lived experience of the person. The athlete speaks of having been “in the zone,” where time either stopped, went into slow-motion, or simply receded entirely. The artist feels something ineffable guiding his brush, her pen, or the whole being; the sense of being physically present — sitting at a piano or walking across a stage — evaporates amid the mist of a valley in space-time. There is only the experience, with no obstruction between the act and the actor. Alan Watts expressed it this way:

Wu wei…refers to a person who does not get in his or her own way. One does not stand in one’s own light while working, and so the way of wu wei is the way of non-obstruction or non-interference. This is the preeminently practical Taoist principle of life.

Wu wei is the visible aspect of Te, the principle in action. Whether you’re an auto mechanic or an opera singer, wu wei becomes the flow of your action, and your Te matures as you learn, practice, and develop in mindfulness. As I often remind my teenage daughter: you learn the rules of your work, your art, so that you can more effectively break, or, to be more accurate, transform them. Again, Alan Watts:

In all this you will see that there are three stages. There is first what we might call the natural or childlike stage of life, in which self-consciousness has not yet arisen. Then there comes a middle stage, which we might call one’s awkward age, in which one learns to become self-conscious. And finally the two are integrated in the rediscovered innocence of a liberated person.

Let’s be very clear about one thing: these ideas and experiences are not difficult, esoteric, strange, weird, mystical, or special, except to the rigid face of ego and its institutions. The most practical — that is, the most truthful — life is much easier to create than one defined (driven) by opposition, accumulation, and falsehood.

It is an old and rueful bromide in our culture that we wish that we “could go back [to youth] knowing then what I know now.” As Watts points out, the potential reality is even better: we can recreate that youthful innocence and flow within the very moment we are in, with all its experience supporting it. The company, the nation, the media, and the world can never mature unless each individual leads it out of that stony rut of conformity, fear, and immobility. If you cannot move, you will never dance; if you cannot dance, you will never live.

Lessons in Cowardice

Last modified on 2009-08-05 22:19:51 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Student Caine requires a number of teachings in cowardice — probably because this notion is as bound up with misconception and folly as any in either the East or the West. Let’s see what Kwai Chang’s teachers had to tell him about cowardice…

We begin with Master Kan and the candle-snuffing scene (which, as frequently happened in this series, benefits from some luminous direction and cinematography). Kan recapitulates, though rather more eloquently, a two-word instruction Caine received from another Master: when mere conquest or empty conflict rather than emergent danger is the issue of the fight, “run away.” We are reminded that, way back in 2006, Lt. Gen. William E. Odom had written a piece on the American occupation of Iraq for Foreign Policy magazine entitled, “Cut and Run? You Bet!” Master Kan would have seconded the proposal.

Master Po, below, had also challenged the boy Caine to think differently about cowardice. Thinking himself a coward, Caine fights madly, foolishly, self-destructively. Contending is difficult; contending with a millstone around your neck is impossible. Once the truth about the reason for his blind combat comes out, Po goes into his Taoist comedy routine: cowardice is the “body’s wisdom of its weakness.” We recall that Shakespeare’s Falstaff echoes this teaching: “honour is a mere scutcheon” that “comes unlooked for, and there’s an end.”

Master Po adds another perspective that further lightens the weight of this leaden self-image of the coward, which many a man will run from, even if his flight takes him straight into the arms of death. He reminds Caine that, even if we accept the image, it is not to be considered a life sentence. Every condition can swing to its opposite, because every possibility is within us. A dead hero is just as useless as a living coward; the difference, and the outcome in real life, come not from the image but from the wisdom of knowing when retreat or cowardice is the appropriate response, and when the moment calls for courage.

Throughout the series, Caine allows himself to be punched, kicked, beaten, insulted, and threatened, always without responding. When someone hands him a gun, he treats it like a radioactive turd. It is self-knowledge and wisdom, not the self-consciousness of his power, that tell him when and how much to strike. If this is not a lesson for both our geopolitical and American moment in history, then perhaps there is nothing left to teach.

Beyond Knowing

Last modified on 2009-08-03 22:10:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Are we there yet?”

Master Kan’s answer would be, “no, we are not there yet, but you are. You are already there, because you are here. It has always been so.” Thus, at the end of this scene, he tells Caine, “we taught you, young man, because you already knew.”

This is the way of learning that we have yet to understand in the West, with our accumulation and acquisition obsessions. Natural learning is a process of revealing rather than collecting; nothing is added and everything is nurtured; nothing cultivated yet growth happens without effort.

In the archery scene from The Praying Mantis Kills, Caine tells the young man, “when you cease to strive to understand, then you will know…without understanding.” Just as freedom is a different reality than absence; understanding is a broader and deeper experience than knowledge. Lao Tzu describes this in Chapter 48 of the Tao Te Ching:

Pursuing knowledge: daily accumulation.
Following Tao: daily unburdening.

Decrease, diminish, deprogram:
Continue in this till power is dead.

For when action lacks force,
Nothing is left unaccomplished.

Rely upon your true eternal nature,
And you will never have to strive again.

But let your life become
A game of inner commerce,
And you will never cease with making deals;
You will never feel fulfilled⎯
In this or any other world.

This is a fairly challenging perspective to take in this our information age. But it’s really very simple: if you lack the capacity for understanding, then all the data in the world won’t do you a bit of good. Understanding is not and cannot be acquired; only revealed, literally “dis-covered.”

Blinded by Hate

Last modified on 2009-08-03 10:43:56 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

“Vengeance is a water vessel with a hole…it carries nothing but the promise of emptiness” Master Po’s words are clear and uncompromising: a society that pursues the doctrine of “an eye for an eye” only makes blindness a pandemic. The gentle irony here is that a man who has lost his outer sight is the one who can see most clearly from within.

The segments presented here are from one of the earliest and most challenging episodes of the Kung Fu series’ first season. It is titled, appropriately, An Eye for an Eye. John Furia’s script is a story of rape, vendetta, and the unending cult of war. That it manages humor even amid a relentlessly serious tale is a tribute both to the artists and to the character of the Shaolin way. Po asks young Caine, “did your eye meet your own fist?”

Thus, if you respond to this episode as an attack on Lex Talionis or Judeo-Christian traditional belief rather than an affirmation of something more natural, more human; I think you are making a mistake. The guiding spirit of Kung Fu, both the martial art and the television series, is the pursuit of inner peace. That both must also occasionally kick at the gut of ignorance is a practical necessity, not an ideological impulse.

This is clearly revealed in the closing dialogue between Caine and the vendetta-obsessed old Confederate warlord. Caine silently acknowledges the injustice and its searing pain; yet his answer to the old man’s rage is uncompromising: “no one.”

The one person who finally arrives at the correct response to hatred is the woman at the center of the drama, the raped daughter of the old soldier. She will learn to bury her hatred within the earth that contains her child’s body. It is the only way forward.

Caine’s teaching is drawn from a deep vein of experience and literature in the Taoist tradition. In the now-popular environmental art of Feng Shui, there is a concept known as the “poison arrow,” which denotes a stream of malignant, self-defeating energy that spawns stagnation, obstruction, and unremitting pain. In the I Ching, this notion of the “poison arrow” is evoked in line 4 of Hexagram 21, “Biting Through:”

Bites on dried gristly meat. Receives metal arrows.
It furthers one to be mindful of difficulties
and to be persevering. Good fortune.

It’s a perfect metaphor for the hideous path of vendetta: gnawing recurrently on old, petrified meat (a “beef,” in Western vernacular); and getting only sharp, toxic arrows stuck in one’s mouth. The I Ching, being a developmental text devoted to healing, offers a solution that is quite similar to Caine’s advice: nurture awareness; feel the pain of your grief, your anger, your loss, and your injustice. Then bury it: allow it no space within your mind or your life to spread its poison. When, like the woman in the story, we can do this, the scars dissolve from our eyes, and healing becomes possible.

Unlearning the Fear of Death

Last modified on 2009-07-29 07:17:06 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

In several places throughout the series, Caine says that he does not fear death. This appears to have come largely from the influence of Master Po. The viewer might well ask, “how can one teach such courage, the ultimate attitude of bravery?” And Master Po would answer, “in order for a man to learn courage he must first unlearn fear, especially the fear of death.” Then our natural courage arises, as if unbidden, with no training or cultivation required.

In the video segment below, Master Po reads from the closing lines of Lao Tzu’s 50th chapter of the Tao Te Ching. The key phrase in the poem comes midway through, in the reference to “the obsessive attachment to life’s mere appearance.” As you learn to penetrate this appearance, the unlearning of fear is given greater momentum; and like the cowardly lion of The Wizard of Oz, we suddenly find that the heart of courage is ours, for it has always been within us.

Into life they arise,
Through death they return.

A third of them seem bound up with their lives;
A third of them seem attached to death;
Another third appear ambivalent⎯
Passively shifting their allegiance
From each to each.

Why is this so?
Perhaps from an obsessive attachment
To life’s mere appearance?

But I have heard of people
Who could live long and travel far⎯
Ever free of harm or mortal wound
From wild beasts or deadly weapons.

A rhinoceros would find no place to pierce them;
There would be no meat for a tiger’s claws,
And no place where a sword could enter.

And why is this so?
Because they have shed the illusion
That marks off life
From the realm of death.