Watched an amusing film last night - "the bullet proof monk". Basically picked it up because it had sean william scott in and chow yun fat - where can you go wrong? (i forgot to mention the influence jackie chan and bruce lee films have had on me ;) ).

It was quite interesting with chow yun fat playing the enlightened monk quoting from the tao te ching. The quote I'm thinking of is as follows: "to know others is to be wise, to know yourself is to be enlightened". I often let these things wash over me in my youth but never really understood where they were coming from or why they were important to a fighter.

I am starting to get an idea of what is going on here though. There is a process one goes through in order to clear ones mind so that you can know yourself without the clutter of emotions or illusions of the mind getting in the way. This becomes important to a fighter because an enlightened figher uses his* mind to direct his energy and his body as is apropriate. If there are parts of oneself that one is not aware of then these are a liability and may cause a fighter to hesitate, freeze up or have an inapropriate emotional reaction. Only by truely knowing oneself can one have full mastery of oneself and hence achieve excellence as a fighter.

There is, as usual another side to this coin. This is the role that fighting or sparring can have in becoming enlightened. It is all very well saying that one has dealt with their personal demons and have cleared their mind, but sometimes one doesn't know what the pond contains without stirring it up. So sparring can be a way of challenging oneself, ones image of oneself and ones mastery of oneself. I am currently wondering whether I should take up an art that is more focussed on martial applications and sparring as well as t'ai chi to complement my studies.This is not the only way, there are - or so I've read - many thought exercises that one can go through, repeatedly trying to understand oneself more deeply. I shall ponder on it.


* 'he', 'his', etc. used in the sense of impersonal pronoun, not only thinking men here