Chapter 3, Bodhidharma, the Alien Aryan

The great rivers which crisscrossed Indo-China carried more than information about self-defense techniques. Ideas and inventions also traversed these waterways. The people who occupied the area, though often racially and linguistically unrelated, were farmers, hunters, fishermen, housekeepers, and craftsmen who enjoyed the bounty of similar natural resources and suffered from the same dependable pestilences and unreliable weather. Their clothing, buildings, and implements of work and war differed in style but not in basic design. Form happily follows function but tradition drags its heels.

Naturally they placated gods of similar temperament. The philosophical principles of Yoga were well known in South China: Brahman and The Dao were virtually interchangeable concepts. The One. The Indivisible. The Union of Opposites. But Chinese genius had refined the concept; and Daoism was a cooler, more elegant version of its Indian counterpart. The heated and often overwrought methodologies of Kundalini Yoga were refreshed and moderated when presented as Daoism's Microcosmic Orbit meditations. Additionally, Daoism subsumed the entire body of Chinese medicine: the knowledge of physical anatomy, the comprehensive pharmacology and the pain relieving procedures of acupuncture and acupressure. Daoism's pragmatic approach also expanded and enriched Indian appreciation of Prana.

To the Indian, Prana was more than just the breath of life... the vital force or "inspirit" which God had used to vivify clay. It was the core discipline of the science of Yoga. Daoism's no- frills approach to spirituality simplified the science and made it more accessible to practitioners.

The beneficial distribution of Prana (called Qi (Chi) by Daoists) to every part of the body, became Daoism's singular obsession. Study of the meridians, the psychic nerve channels through which Qi was delivered and circulated, gave rise to the knowledge of dozens of particularly sensitive pressure points, points which the martial artist would later exploit. The human body's vulnerability to acute pain or to muscular paralysis at these points would make them the prime targets of a combatant's strikes.

It so happened that when Buddhism was about a thousand years old a certain fatigue, if not rigor mortis, began to set in. Tons of sutras and shastras began to press the life out of it. Desiccated old men haunted Buddhist libraries while younger, more adventurous devotees left to merrily pant in the oxygen rich atmosphere of Tantrism. With so much Buddhist energy being drained away in pseudo-spiritual sexual hemorrhage, the religion found itself in desperate need of more than the usual dose of Mahayana rectitude. It needed a transfusion of Daoism's practical, holistic power.

Bodhidharma, who, as Indian Prince and Buddhist priest, was well-educated both in Vajramushti/Tai Ji Quan techniques and in philosophy and theology, wanted to bring Buddhism out of the libraries and lecture halls of esthetes and pedants and into the everyday minds of the common man.

His Indian temperament, camouflaged amidst China's "southern" thinkers, accorded him a nearly native claim to Daoism's methodology. He therefore combined Indian Buddhist philosophy with Daoist methodology, and came to orthodox China to preach his new synthesis: Zen.

And what was this "Zen"? The word simply means meditation.

In Sanskrit the word is "dhyan"; the English cognate of which is "dwell". Dhyan and Zen appear to be unrelated words, but in fact they are similarly pronounced. Whenever a heavily voiced "D" precedes the glide "Y", as in Did You, the sounds are usually combined and pronounced as a "J". We say, "Di'ja go?." Ed-u-cate becomes "ejucate." Canad-i-an becomes "Cajun." Sanskrit's Dhyan (meditation) became "Jen" - pronounced exactly that way but written as Chan in Chinese. In Japanese, a slight variation: Zen. Temperament is not a mask. Bodhidharma was a blue-eyed aryan and tended to stand out in a crowd. Besides his startling appearance, he demonstrated some rather formidable meditation powers; and the Chinese, suitably impressed, gave him the sobriquet, "The Blue-Eyed Demon." Novelty being its own cachet the Prince from India was soon invited to the Imperial Court of the Liang Dynasty's Emperor Wu. Bodhidharma did not fail to use the opportunity to publicize his new Zen doctrine, the rationale which would become the governing code of martial arts' conduct: The Code of Wu Shi Dao... The Warrior's (Wu Shi) Way (Dao). In Japanese: Bushido.

The Emperor had built many temples and performed many charitable acts and considered himself the most hard working and worthy of orthodox Buddhists; and so he asked the Zen philosopher how much merit all his imperial good deeds had gained him.

Bodhidharma looked surprised. "Why, none." he answered.

The Emperor grew indignant. "Then what," he demanded, "if not good works should I as a Buddhist have striven to accomplish?" "To be empty of yourself," answered Bodhidharma. It was not the sort of remark one generally made to Chinese emperors.

The emperor countered, "Just who do you think you are?" and Bodhidharma shrugged. "I have no idea," he said.

But the man with no ego was not a fool; The Blue Eyed Demon left town fast and headed for the sanctuary of Shao Lin Monastery.

At Shao Lin Ji, as legend has it, Zen's First Patriarch found the priests to be in such poor physical condition that, in addition to teaching them his new form of meditation Buddhism, he instructed them in the Tai Ji Quan/Vajramushti discipline known to us now as Gong (Kung) Fu.

However the Shao Lin priests managed to learn Gong Fu, one thing is certain: they learned it well within the context of Zen's Code of Conduct. The martial arts were practiced as a spiritual discipline, a devotional exercise, an expression of egoless action. There could be no swaggering, no aggressiveness, no emotional involvement of any kind... and never a thought of vengeance. An angry man or a proud man was unfit for such ritualized combat. If a student started to behave egoistically and didn't catch himself in the act, he'd get a lesson in humility when his master caught up with him.

"To be empty of yourself!" Think of it. What did Bodhidharma mean and how exactly did that meaning translate into Wushidao/Bushido?

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