MOMENTMIND – MEDITATIVE AWARENESS IN COMBAT

A student of mine today asked me if I’d ever ‘Run The Form’ on anyone at a tournament before. I said “yes, but that was back in the day…. I’d selected very simple manual labor jobs so life was pretty simple….I used to practice 3 hours a day….it was when I was in the ‘crane’ form (my 5th year)…” and this isn’t the first time he’s asked me an off-the-wall completely-unrelated-to-what’s-being-discussed question (GET IT, Jack?!?!?), but I think this bears a little more discussion, because it’s one of the earliest and most fundamental applications of Meditative Awareness in the Martial Arts, and is KEY to a positive outcome in Any self-defense situation.

Running The Form on someone is a term that I use a couple times a year to describe the place you get to where you understand Kung Fu on a Very Deep, and very Intimate level.  To Run The Form on someone is to find yourself Literally following the choreography of a Traditional form in the midst of free sparring. I’ve always used this as a means of applying what benefits I’ve received from the practice of Chan Meditation. I mean, a serious 8-13 technique sequence as it exists Exactly in the form the way that it’s practiced in class, the way that it’s been handed down to us & practiced for several hundred years (depending on the system) before that. Yes, it sounds unreal. But it Is real. It’s all about cultivating the meditative ability to ‘live in the moment’, to exist in one single instant of awareness that travels through the moments of your life like the window of a Slide Rule. A perfectly framed window that passes from moment to moment with you as the passenger observing the conditions of each moment both objectively and subjectively in a state of utter awareness – and selecting how you will interact with them, adjusting the conditions, adjusting yourself, effecting changes to bring about appropriate-to-you outcomes. During the personal dialogues I have within myself I refer to this as MomentMind. For although Kung Fu trains the mind to always be in touch with these ways of being, much of my mental processes are absolutely Not of the continually evaluative, interpretive, and influential nature described here. And That, is why Mindfulness Meditation exists as the cornerstone of all meditation lineages and techniques. Simple awareness is all that is required for every practitioner to become transformed from novice to Master.

MomentMind

In Chan Meditation it’s the ability to exist ‘within the moment’ – that is, to truly, Completely, have all of your awareness, all of your senses receiving and focused on Only the criteria of this single moment of your existance. Because in truth, it is the Only moment that you exist in. This very simple idea has led meditation practitioners down Infinite rabbit holes of speculation and exploration. All of them leading right back to the single point from which it all began. The point at the tip of your mind when it resides in This Moment. Having a mind capable of observing these moments from within, being able to objectively and without bias interpret the specific elements of an ever changing circumstance one moment at a time, gives you the ability to use your position of subjectivity to begin seeing and understanding the next moments criteria before that criteria has as yet begun to manifest itself. Eventually, this MomentMind will develop the ability to not just see and understand the moment you are in and where it’s going, but to actually create the criteria of the next moment , shaping it through the vision of your mind’s intent. MomentMind is truly about not being involved with what seemes like Sith-Lord manipulations of the space-time continuum, but about understanding what the transmutations and permutations are, how they come about, and flowing with them towards (for me at least) favorable outcomes for All involved.

MomentMind and Running The Form

Once I realized that it was happening, I’d try on a subconscious level to try and ‘incite’ my mind to bring those types of manifestations about on a more regular basis. Not too long after that it became something I could trigger. Righteous! But not quite enough. Now, the task before me was very clear: I had to go Farther back. Further back in the form, further back through time to the Beginnings of the sets I’d learned. And then – once Running The Form had been Initated – How Far Could I Go?
It got real trippy – I could pass back and forth from form to form while sparring with complete strangers. That brought me to a deeper level of Meditative Awareness. I could see my sparring partners moving before they moved. I thought it was just ‘me’ until over and over again I’d watch video and see myself step to the side and low circle block for no good reason – and Then the opponent would snap a lighning fast kick At My Block. Then, the floodgates opened. All types of psychic and spiritual phenomena became available to me. I never tried, never forced, simply accepted and was open to it all. So it all came. Deeper levels of Meditative Awareness. I am completely convinced that the combination of physical Kung Fu and the alignment of energy centers (the forms) and psycho-energetic development exercises (qi gong) do work, and are 100% responsible for MUCH of what I’ve experienced as a martial artist. And these developments are responsible for that martial journey being one of Magical Experiences. And mind-blowingly unbelievable realizations about Me, You, and The Universe.
Even though I normally have this brooding feeling of tolerance every time an off-the-wall completely-unrelated-to-what’s-being-discussed question is asked, every once in a while – the answer is beyond your wildest imaginings.
It’s Been beyond Mine….