I was talking with Xin Ran recently about Yuan Fen, which means the appointed lot by which people are brought together, or a predestined relationship. By itself, Yuan cause/connection/ relationship, while Fen is a share/duty or to divide/distinguish, so I guess you can have both either or neither at any one time with any person/ persons and thing/ things. I guess it’s as crucial a factor between teacher and student in the Chinese martial arts as between man and woman and all the other permutations. Karma is similar, essentially causes which produce effects in another stage, time and / or place of existence.
I’ve recently been reading “The Life of Marpa The Translator” (Shambhala 1999 ISBN 156-957-112-0) translated from the Tibetan work written in the early 16th century by the so-called “mad yogin”, Tsang Nyon Heruka. Marpa was an 11th century Tibetan farmer, scholar and teacher who travelled three times to India to study Buddhist teachings. The characters of Tsang and Marpa are very different from the stereotype Buddhist sage.
For example one of Marpa’s disciples says to him, “You said that if one does not enjoy meat, liquor and women, it is a disservice to oneself. It appears to us that this is no different than what we do.” Marpa replies, “Though I enjoy sense pleasures, I have these confidences I am not fettered by them.” And later, “While enjoying sense pleasures, I meditate on the deity…”
In fact he did not resemble outwardly a spiritual person; he didn’t wear the robes of a monk or yogin; he didn’t seem to spend a lot of time meditating or in retreat. He sang,
“Although everyone attains enlightenment by meditating,
If one becomes enlightened without effort in meditation, that is it.”
His master wrote of seven yogas, consisting of, eating food, wearing clothes, sleeping, walking, talking, bathing and making offerings. We all do most of these, but how many of us actually think about what we are doing?
In these arts as with Chinese martial arts, a student who wishes to be trained in practice which can lead to enlightenment must first make a personal connection with an authentic teacher (guru) of a lineage, who has had a true transmission of such practice from his own teacher and thus has the ability and understanding to teach his own students in turn. Again, as with Chinese martial arts, the so-called inner art or teachings are rarely written down but are mainly an oral transmission one-on-one. An authentic teacher will not only know these oral teachings, but will have put them into practice.
So what makes an authentic teacher? It is said, “No guru, no teachings, no path”. Another of Marpa’s gurus (this term literally means heavy/weighty one and therefore refers to an enlightened master, though its English meaning is less specific) says to him of gurus:-
“If you recognize him as a sword,
You will cut the bonds of fixation
If you recognize him as a wheel,
You will recognize the truth of not dwelling in extremes.”
There is in fact a formal ceremony, known as “sprinkling over” through which a guru leads the disciple into the sacred world. The disciple binds himself irrevocably to this world by taking a vow to commit himself to his guru and to his personal deity. This bears some similarity to the Bai Shi ceremony of initiation in Chinese martial arts where the would-be disciple bows before an image of the founder and in front of his master, indicating his acceptance of certain conditions and his commitment to his style and to his master.
Obstacles are encountered on the path which, when overcome, can heighten realization. A story in the book illustrates this. As Marpa was to become the lineage holder in Tibet, Naropa, one of his main teachers, tested him by asking if he would prostrate himself in front of his guru or his personal deity. Marpa chose the deity, forgetting that it was his personal connection to his guru that was most important. The power of this incident caused Marpa to be overwhelmed by sickness, which in turn flushed away those things which had obscured his karma.
The idea of a personal deity according to the character of a disciple is interesting. Marpa also says,”I have to give each son-disciple the appropriate special transmission and activity.” It is not so simple for the would be disciple, one of Marpa’s gurus remarks about one of Marpa’s friends, “He and I have no karmic connection.” In other words the friend could never become his disciple.
The same thing is true in Chinese martial arts. In Ba Gua Zhang for example it is well known that the complexity of the system led Dong Hai huan to teach his disciples in different ways according to their characters and body type. In Tai Chi Chuan, Yang Lu-chan’s disciples Ling Shan, Wan Chun and and Quan You were famous respectively for striking power, strength and for footwork and skill in evasion.
On Marpa’s final trip to India, he found that his teacher had become a wanderer “to enter the action” and encounter the world directly. In this way it took Marpa more than 8 months of trials and tribulations to find his guru. In the same way, Chang San-Feng, the so-called “Filthy Taoist” and founder of Tai Chi Chuan was not someone who stayed in one place. When I recently climbed Hengshan, the Southern Sacred Mountain, in Hunan province, I bought a book in a temple there which mentioned Chang as having moved to Hengshan from Wudang mountain, owing to being disturbed constantly by pilgrims and visitors.
Nowadays there are very few people practicing any martial art who can be said to have any karmic connection with their students or wih their teachers. Most teachers have to a greater or lesser extent become supermarkets and most students are simply shoppers. Few are dedicated and prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to learn or to teach a complete art.
My master told me his uncle was found of Taoism and after learning Immortal Family Baduanjin Qi Gong from an itinerant Taoist, told him that he wanted to be a Taoist too. The itinerant Taoist told the uncle that it was very easy, and all he had to follow him. The uncle was full of questions, “Where to? For how long? Not now because I can’t leave my family and my business at the moment.” The karmic connection ended right there with the Qi Gong transmission.