Chinese Somatic Science Essay

In 1984 when the Japan-France symposium was held, scholars of religion, medicine and psychology were gathered from both sides, and they engaged in interchange in order to promote the movement of New Age Science. I included a suggestion, made from the Japanese side, presentations on Traditional Chinese euphony (TCM), Parapsychology, Eastern soldierlike arts and their demonstrations. In the martial arts demonstration there was included the performance of a technique in which a crucify martial artist, by emitting ki- readiness (chi- muscle), makes opponents, who are spatially distanced from him, fall down.This technique is called distant hitting to-ate , and it became a conversation piece, attracting peoples attention. As a result, numerous q(g(ng (Chi-gong) masters came to visit me. I studied their techniques, and experienced ki-energy as a subject of their q(g(ng techniques. Afterwards, I went to China to learn about its actual situation. While I was staying in Beijing in 1997, t he Chinese Society for corporal Science (CSSS) was established.The leaders of this society came to see me with a request to make efforts to propagate q(g(ng in Japan. In the following year, I invited scholars and q(g(ng masters from China and held a symposium Ki (Chi) and Human Science in Tokyo.i At about this time, a q(g(ng boom was beingness generated. After this conference, I went to China many times to investigate and study q(g(ng. I will introduce its primaeval ideas, while incorporating my own opinion.Chinese Somatic Science wayes on the three fields of traditional Chinese medicine, q(g(ng and particular(prenominal) abilities as its main objects of research. Special abilities refer to what parapsychology calls psi-ability ( paranormal ability). A central focus in each of these fields is ki-energy as the object of research. Traditional Chinese Medicine understands the fundamentals of the gentleman bodys organization by promoter of the network of meridians. Meridians are channels of energy which circulates in the interior of the human body. However, they are an invisible system which can non be discovered by dissecting a corpse.In different words, they are a system unique to the body that is active while it is alive. I am taking this to mean, for now, like a system that organizes the subject-body (i.e. the lived body) of which Merleau-Ponty speaks. An chief(prenominal) point, when it is seen from a theoretical point-of-view, is that the meridians are a system which does not agree with the mind-body dichotomization established since Descartes. That is to say, ki-energy is conceived to be a life-energy which has both physical and psychological characteristics. The fundamental principle of needle therapy utilize in traditional Chinese medicine lies in activating the circulation of ki-energy within the human body by infusing fresh ki-energy into the human body, while eliminating the stagnant and inferior flow of ki-energy.Next is q(g(ng. Q(g(ng teac hes us that the application of ki-energy can be heightened through a repeated training. Consequently, we can understand that q(g(ng, theoretically speaking, has a characteristic commensurate with the training in martial arts. It is a bodily technique with a tradition stretching from antediluvian times. In the theme of medical therapy, a mature q(g(ng doctor guides patient roles to train themselves and practice q(g(ng on their own. Here we can discern a regularityology different from the therapeutic method of modern medical science. While modern medical therapy leaves patients to assume a passive tie-up of simply receiving doctors treatment, q(g(ng lets them assume an active standpoint of training themselves.The point of this training lies in activating the natural healing power latent in the interior of ones own body. Ki-energy is perspective to be the energy that controls the foundations of life-activity. The training means to promote and purify the activity of ki-energy insi de of ones own body, and to transform it to the ki-energy of a better and high quality. Therefore, it is a therapeutic method as well as a method of maintaining and promoting health. That is, it can become a method of maintaining health by continually training oneself daily, while it is not limited to a time of sickness.Q(g(ng is divided into internal and external q(g(ng for the purpose of convenience. The training which a patient performs after receiving steerage belongs to the inner q(g(ng, while the outer q(g(ng refers to cases in which a mature q(g(ng master performs therapy on a patient or subject. In these cases, the q(g(ng master unwashedly touches the patients body with his hand, scarcely there are cases in which a q(g(ng master, distancing himself from the patient, performs a therapeutic technique without making contact. It is probably safe to think that it is ground on the same principle as the technique of therapeutic touch, which in recent years is beginning to spre ad in American.The third field that is called special ability in China, overlaps with the research of what is referred to in the West and Japan as parapsychology. On numerous occasions, I met with q(g(ng masters in China who have a bun in the oven paranormal ability, and observed their technique, while engaging them in dialogue. I encountered people who can demonstrate a wonderful technique, not to mention clairvoyance and psycho-kinesis, which Rhines research problematized. Insofar as my research can confirm, there are cases of people who innately possess these abilities, and cases of people who have acquired them through training. If these abilities are used in the field of medicine, they can fulfill the same role as the external q(g(ng. Moreover, there are cases among master martial artists who can demonstrate this kind of ability, though its number is limited.One impression I have received when encountering these people is that there is a great difference amidst the East and t he West in the foundational idea, when dealing with this kind of issue. While in the East this kind of issue has been dealt with as part of the issue related to self-cultivation, which traditionally has a cultural and sacred background, there was no such historical and cultural background in the West. Consequently, parapsychological research in the West is preceded by an interest and concern from a theoretical point-of-view.This brings in the background of contemporary scholarly research where there is no concern for its relationship to daily activity. By contrast, in Chinas case the practical purpose, as in the case of q(g(ng, looms in the purview of research. This kind of stance is based on the traditional ethos found in the news report of science and technology in China. (Modern technology of the West emerged as an application of theory, where theoretical research does not take into account the relationship it has with the practical, daily activity of human beings.) When we exa mine it from a broader perspective, this kind of tendency is rooted in the philosophical tradition of the East which highly values the practical standpoint.However, there is a tradition in the East which admonishes people, as they are prone to fall into an ethically wrong tendency regarding paranormal phenomena. The tradition of East Asia such as that of China and Japan maintains that the bodily technique must conform to an ethical standpoint. Although I could hardly see such a spiritualistic stance in the contemporary situation in China and Japan, there were occasions where I met persons with such a stance, especially among the masters of martial arts, who are living among people, but not related to universities or academic institutions. In the tradition of Buddhism, this kind of special ability has been called siddhi jints(riki and is considered a kind of a by-product that naturally emerges in the crinkle of self-cultivation.Buddhism has persistently maintained that self-cultiva tion should not aim at acquiring this as its goal. For example, D(gen, a famous Japanese medieval Zen monk, teaches in the chapter of Jints( Divine Power, i.e. paranormal power in Sh(b(genz( that although Buddhism recognizes this kind of siddhi, it is a small siddhi, and the true great siddhi exists in the midst of such everyday activities as drinking tea and take a meal. This reminds me of Yang Xin, a q(g(ng master, who is now actively promoting q(g(ng in America. When I saw him in Beijing some time ago, he told me that he was now poring over distant q(g(ng Chin. yu(g(q(g(ng Jap., enkaku kik(, .He was accompanied by a twelve-year girl, who was his experimental subject. I asked him why he was conducting such an experiment. He replied I am not laborious to become famous by showing off this kind of technique. As I read a description in a classic on the method of self-cultivation that one can perform this kind of technique, I just wanted to know if it is true or not. Then he wrote o n a piece of paper Chin., d(d(ow(y(n Jap., daid(mugon This phrase means that The Great Dao remains silent and does not speak.Herein lies, it would seem, a difference in the traditional ethos between the Eastern martial arts and Western sports. The historical origin of Western sports goes back to the Olympian events in ancient Greece. They emerged, based on the demands of a field of study such as physical strength, stamina, running, throwing, and the handling technique of a house-drawn cart. We might say that the custom of the modern Olympics in which a record is valued more than than anything else inherits this traditional idea. By contrast, in the tradition of the martial arts in the East runs an idea which emphasizes spirituality, even though the martial arts highly-developed, like those of ancient Greece, through techniques used on the battlefield.The history of the Chinese and Japanese martial arts was nurtured through the influence of Buddhism and Shintoism. It came to devel op the idea that training in martial arts has the meaning of enhancing ones ethical personality. Consequently, the stance of respecting the opponents personality and capacity was sought in performing techniques. For example, Mr. Ueshiba Morihei, founder of Aikid(, states that militant art is chouse. The ultimate goal of martial arts is not to win by defeating an opponent, but to harmonize with an opponent such that people can love each other under that which is great transcending humans. It would seem that research on the prayer, which has been recently initiated in America, incorporates this kind of spiritual idea.Incidentally, I came to realize in the course of investigating the Chinese Somatic Sciences that the standpoint of psychology was lacking. In modern China, which used Marxist materialism as its guiding principle for establishing the nation, psychology was not studied until the time of the Cultural Revolution, as anti-thetical to materialism. Even q(g(ng was an object of suppression. Today, however, the study of psychology is recognized to be legitimate, and the exchange with Japan is making an advance. I have practiced meditation since my youth, and have continued to research and study it.Meditation methods in the Chinese tradition were called quiet q(g(ng and stands a pairing relationship with the usual moving q(g(ng which mobilizes the body. However, almost no meditation methods are practiced in contemporary China. This is probably due to the fact that meditation methods such as those of Buddhism and Daoism were developed within the tradition of religious culture, and declined as a consequence of persecution after the modern period. When somatic science was established in Japan in 1991, we used for its English designation the Society for Mind-Body Science (SMBS), as I felt the importance of psychology.The fundamentals of meditation lie, after all, in promoting the circulation of ki-energy. When it is seen from the point-of-view of psychology, ki -energy designates libido. It is life-energy equipped in the unconscious(p) and the body. The foundational idea that is placed in The Secret of the Golden Flower, a meditation text of Daoism, is to transform and sublimate ki-energy from the state of libido (Chin., j(ng Jap., sei, ) to the state of divine subtle energy (Chin., sh(n Jap., shin, ). Ki-energy changes into a spiritual energy, when the instinct and desire in ones unconscious region are purified. Freud insisted that neurosis develops when conscience suppresses the activity of libido, while Jung claimed that libido is an energy related to religiosity. When one touches the activity from the dimension of primal origin, the love of others is transformed from the eros of flesh to spiritual love.To summarize the foregoing, ki-energy is an energy that controls the whole of psychology, medicine, and bodily technique, including the relationship between the environment and the human body. The philosophical guideline that comprehens ively includes all of these fields is sought in the idea of the y(n-y(ng exchange of ki-energy which has its origin in the Yj(ng. According to its conceptual paradigm, nature as an environment is endowed with life, and is fostered to grow, by means of the activity of ki-energy issuing from the Dao that exists in the ultimate dimension. Human beings, along with other life activities, are receptive of this energy and are made to live. Purifying it to a sublime level brings about an enhancement of ethical personality.