Dr. Alejandro Chaoul's Articles on Lions Roar

Yoga is not the only form of moving meditation. A look at some other traditions that join body and mind in transcendent movement. Aikido: The Art of Peace By John Stevens. When I first saw aikido being practiced, I was enticed by its graceful, elegant movements. There was none of the hard contact or the ungainly grappling associated with other martial arts. The movements seemed fluid and seamless, and it was difficult to discern who was the attacker and who was the defender as the two partners executed the techniques and their motions blended together. The techniques, I later learned, are based on three principles: circular movement to neutralize an attack, triangular entry to the side or behind an attack to avoid its force, and square control of an attack by using one’s four limbs to pin a partner. In aikido, before an attacker lands a strike or gets a firm hold, his or her partner is already moving out of harm’s way. Aikido is the “Way of Harmony,” founded by the great Japanese master Ueshiba Morihei (1883-1969). Morihei was a peerless martial artist, famed for his ability to down any number of attackers. But he was primarily known as a man of peace, “a spiritual warrior.” In his youth, Morihei was obsessed with physical strength. While he was not a tall man, Morihei was built like a tank, and with his prodigious stamina and energy he could overpower any opponent. One day, finally, he was completely stymied by a martial artist named Sokaku Takeda, a tiny gremlin of man who relied on the power of ki (spiritual force) to subdue challengers. Sokaku’s martial art mastery awakened Morihei to the truth that real power transcends physical strength. Morihei trained under Sokaku in Hokkaido for a number of years, but he remained troubled in spirit. “There must be more than technique involved in the martial arts,” he thought. Then, on a trip home to visit his dying father, Morihei had a fortuitous encounter with Deguchi Onisaburo, the grand shaman of the new Omoto-kyo religion. Omoto-kyo is primarily Shinto in approach, but it also combines elements of Daoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. One of the fundamentals of its creed is that all human endeavors—including farming, martial arts, and fine arts—should be works of the spirit. Onisaburo himself was one of the greatest Japanese artists of modern times—a calligrapher, painter, potter, sculptor, poet, playwright, director, actor, and archer. Onisaburo’s Omoto-kyo teachings opened Morihei eyes to the spiritual dimension of life, particularly to the concept of misogi, “purification of body and mind.” Misogi, an ancient Shinto ritual often performed in waterfalls or the ocean, is used to cleanse the body and mind, returning one to an original state of purity. Morihei made the concept of misogi central to his martial arts practice. In the spring of 1925, Morihei had an enlightenment experience: “Suddenly the earth trembled. Golden vapor welled from the ground and engulfed me…I saw the entire Earth as my home, and the sun, moon, and stars as my intimate companions.” Morihei went on to become the most famous martial artist of the twentieth century, revered in Japan and abroad as O’Sensei, the “Great Master.” In 1942, Morihei formally established aikido, the name he selected for his art. He described it this way: Aikido is a way to promote love and goodness among humankind. Aikido follows the dictates of heaven, is free of conflict, and continually manifests freshness and vitality. The world will continue to change dramatically, but fighting and war can destroy us. What we need are techniques of harmony, not contention. The Art of Peace is required, not the Art of War. Morihei wisely prohibited any kind of competitive matches or juried contests in aikido. Each and every practitioner takes turns practicing the techniques—which stress ki blending, timing, breath power, and smooth flowing movements over brute strength—to gain experience being the “winner” and “loser.” Since there are no organized competitions in aikido, men and women, young and old, train together. Training with all kinds of people—some very strong, some not; some flexible, some stiff; some tall, some short—and learning how to apply just the right amount of movement and control is an invaluable lesson in how to deal with different kinds of personalities. The emphasis in aikido is on “crossing the goal line together, hand in hand.” We train not to learn how to win; we train to learn how to emerge victorious in any situation. And the enemy we need to defeat is not an opponent who faces us, but the demons of hatred and contention within. Morihei stated that it was not necessary to perform misogi in a waterfall if you practiced aikido. The techniques themselves are vehicles of transformation, and sincere practice will bring out the best in you by “uniting your spirit with that of the Divine.” John Stevens is professor of Buddhist studies and Aikido instructor at Tohoku Fukushi University in Sendai, Japan. He was written over thirty books on various aspects of Asian culture and is one of the world's leading authorities on the practice and philosophy of aikido. Trulkhor: The Magical Movement of Tibet By M. Alejandro Chaou. Trulkhor, or “ magical wheel” or “ magical movement,” is a distinctive Tibetan practice of physical yoga in which breath and mental concentration are integrated with particular body movements. In contrast to Indian styles of yoga in which the practitioner aims to hold a pose with the body still and the breath flowing naturally, in trulkhor the practitioner holds the breath still while the body moves in such a way as to guide the breath, which in turn guides the mind. Tibetan religious traditions have employed trulkhor as part of their spiritual training since at least the tenth century. Although trulkhor is found in all five Tibetan spiritual traditions, it is most prevalent in the Kagyu, Nyingma, and Bon schools. While trulkhor may have been practiced much earlier and preserved only as an oral tradition, written texts point to the practice of trulkhor by famed yogis of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries such as Marpa, Naropa, and Drugyalwa Yungdrung, among others. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, who teaches trulkhor through his Ligmincha Institute, says, “Trulkhor is a wonderful daily practice, especially to control and handle the stress of our modern life in society. It has the power to balance the energies of mind and body and it also helps enormously to support one’s meditation practices.” Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, who teaches trulkhor under the Sanskrit name of yantra yoga through his Dzogchen community, describes the practices as a tool to understand one’s own true nature more clearly. Within trulkhor there are practices that work specifically with the energetic or subtle body. This is composed of channels (Sanskrit: nadis), vital breath currents (prana), and essential spheres (bindus), providing the landscape where the mind and the physical body connect with each other. The Bön Mother Tantra, among other tantric texts, explains that the mind rides on the vital breath (or energy) currents like a rider on a horse, and the two travel together through the pathways of the channels. As the breath circulating in the channels becomes more balanced, the channels become increasingly pliable, allowing the vital breath currents to find their own comfortably smooth rhythm. Put simply, our physical body, energy, and mind are said to be the three doors through which one can practice and eventually realize enlightenment. Therefore, trulkhor can be understood as movements that guide the energy linking the mind with the gross and subtle bodies. This brings internal or even mystical experiences and transformation in the practitioner. Also, with the help of movements that guide the mind and vital breath currents into different areas, the practice brings the possibility of healing the body-energy-mind system, which is the model of good health in Tibetan medicine. Until recently, Westerners were focused on receiving Tibetan teachings that develop the mind, but in the last five years there has been a growing interest in Tibetan physical yogas. While traditionally these practices were taught and practiced only after the student had undergone many years of meditation training, some Tibetan masters now teach it more openly, like many other meditative practices, yet with the appropriate supervision. Other teachers maintain the secrecy of the higher trulkhor practices. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has based much of the trulkhor practice he teaches on the ancient Mother Tantra. You can find a very good explanation of these teachings in his book Healing with Form, Energy and Light. Ligmincha Institute offers training specifically on trulkhor that consists of four five-day retreats over a two-year period. Over the last five years, Ligmincha Institute has been collaborating with the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to design and implement a Tibetan Yoga program for cancer patients, utilizing the tsa lung trulkhor from the Bön tradition. Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche follows the trulkhor of Vairochana’s Union of Sun and Moon, on which he has written a commentary that will soon be published in English. Other teachers who teach Tibetan physical practices in the West include Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso, who teaches both public and advanced practices, and Lama Norlha of Kagyu Thubten Choling monastery, where trulkhor is taught only as part of the three-year retreat. These physical yogas from Tibet have come to the West, as most Buddhist teachings have, through the needs of students. Feeling that mind practices lacked the “embodiment” aspect, many felt the need of physical movement with a spiritual component. Unaware of the existence of Tibetan yoga, or unable to meet the strict requirements for receiving the practices, they turned to hatha yoga or other Indian yogas. Now that many trulkhor practices are available to...

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