Another Monks Tale: How I Went From Aging Don Juan to Accidental Mystic

It most assuredly failed at this, but on the plus side it gave us incredible, genuinely catchy songs like Friends Forever and the spectacle of Y. Kim pretending he knows how to play guitar. Unlike other films of the period that often portrayed otherwise able-bodied actors as handicapped fighters, however, Crippled Masters stars two genuinely handicapped people—a man with no arms and a man with no legs.

They both play kung fu students who are crippled by their cruel master and train for years before seeking their revenge. And to answer the obvious question: Yes, the guy with no legs eventually sits on the shoulders of the guy with no arms to form a Voltron-like super fighter. Ah, direct-to-video martial arts. Few genres are so direct in appeasing their fan-base: Michael Jai White plays a boxer fighting for his freedom, but once again: You know what does matter?

Spin-kicks and broken legs and slow-motion spin-kicks. As it turns out, the breakout character of Undisputed 2 is actually the Russian villain Boyka, who here takes on the hero role. This sequel makes even less of an attempt to hide its desire to simply be a collection of individual fight scenes, and that actually makes for an even more entertaining exercise in film violence.

It features that greatest of martial arts structuring devices: Absurdly impractical and undeniably beautiful spin-kicks. Enter the Ninja Year: Have you ever seen someone dress as a ninja for Halloween? Or any ninja costume in general? If so, you pretty much have Enter the Ninja to thank. This is a genuinely terrible film, but a hugely influential and entertaining one as well. It is, in short, the film that firmly established most of the iconic ninja tropes in the West—the stereotypical black, masked outfits, the throwing stars, the katanas.

Enter the Ninja might well be one of the most imitated films of the entire s. Warriors from the Magic Mountain Year: Although practically incomprehensible at times, Zu takes a standard mythological story—that of gods who inhabit a mountain fortress-like home and, in the process of defending that home from a benevolent enemy, take in a wayward but stubbornly idealistic mortal—and stuffs it with enough special effects to choke even the most dedicated workhorse of a fan.

Gelatinous skull spirits and metal wing capes and weird asteroids where wiggly souls are reborn: And can we do away with the dubbing? Army rather than go to prison and finds himself fighting off ninjas on a base in the Philippines. It was followed by four sequels and an unrelated movie called American Samurai from the same director because hey, why the hell not. Only The Strong Year: It feels like the Full House of martial arts films, chock full of positivity, smiling, day-glo colors and life-lessons galore.

The incredibly oily, metrosexual villain Silverio is particularly memorable—I love that the thing to send him into a rage in the final battle is having part of his luxurious, flowing hair cut off by a sword swipe. Mystery of Chessboxing , aka Ninja Checkmate Year: First is the odd form of kung fu that the hero learns, which takes its cues from the movements of Xiangqi, also called Chinese chess. Hard To Kill Year: Apparently was the year big puffy guys practicing karate won over the hearts of America. There is absolutely nothing impressive about Steven Seagal as an actor, let alone as a martial artist—there is only weirdness.

Tai Chi Zero Year: A 3D spectacle down to its fat nuts and bolts, Tai Chi Zero recognizes no bounds, no lines, and no walls preventing it from being anything—and everything—it wants to be. A breathless mess of steampunk, underground comics, slapstick, farce, historical romance, and top hats, all duct-taped to a restless skeleton of fantasy cinema, Tai Chi Zero has its precisely placed thumbs in pretty much every proverbial pie.

Set in an alternate universe where the Three Stooges were down-on-their-luck monks and kung fu nothing more than a silly distraction from more lucrative adult matters, Shaolin Soccer somehow—between impromptu dance numbers, confusing body dynamics, self-help homilies, a whole lot of hilarious screaming, and an utter commitment to CGI—tells a warm-hearted tale about how martial arts is so much more than a way to kick your enemies in the face really hard.

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As such, Stephen Chow shines, suffusing every shot and every bit of visual minutiae with the unbridled excitement of both those who make action flicks and those who adoringly watch them. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Year: Night Shyamalan attempted with The Last Airbender and then failed. This is the first film on the list both directed by prolific kung fu auteur Chang Cheh and starring the Venom Mob , but there will be several more. Sword Stained With Royal Blood is one of their minor classics, but displays many of the classic trademarks, with beautifully choreographed action sequences, wonderful athleticism and a mix of different physical styles.

Expect flying swords and acrobatics galore. As much romance as martial arts, The Bride With White Hair is nonetheless filled with ultra-stylized, gory, head-scratching mayhem. In some sense, it has a Romeo and Juliet tinge of doomed lovers, if those lovers had the ability to fly and attack people with prehensile hair. The title character is a young woman who undergoes a terrible transformation when rejected by her lover, using her newfound powers to seek out those who have wronged her.

The whole thing is shot in a very gauzy style with cold colors and odd, unnatural lighting that makes it feel like an especially vivid nightmare. In Equilibrium , Taye Diggs plays a future fascist law enforcement officer named Brandt, and near the climax of the film, Brandt gets his face cut off. But also like his face, the fact that I just gave away a meaty part of the climax should be easily disconnected from whether or not you should still watch Equilibrium.

The Karate Kid Year: Miyagi, the sensei who trains the bullied Daniel LaRusso in martial arts. It was the sort of feature that defined karate to an entire generation of young kids and must have inspired countless dojo openings and yellow belt ceremonies. Mark DiSalle and David Worth.

The Cave of Silken Web Year: The Cave of Silken Web is technically supposed to be the latter, but wow, is it surreal to watch. The villains are spider demons who take the guise of attractive women and scheme to achieve eternal life by eating the pure flesh of the monk. Like many other Shaw Brothers films of the period, the production values are actually pretty high and the color photography really pops. Best of the Best Year: A hilariously sincere American cheese-fest, Best of the Best is essentially Cool Runnings , except the stakes are a life-and-death martial arts tournament against that evil foreign superpower we all love so much: The ending in particular is pure schmaltz: Rather than give in to hate and kill his opponent in the ring, our hero lets Team Korea win to keep his honor.

And then the Koreans apologize, hand the Americans their medals, and everyone hugs it out. With James Earl Jones as the coach who yells stuff! By , Jackie Chan was fairly well known to Hong Kong audiences as an ascendant performer who, along with the likes of Sammo Hung, was introducing a new dimension of comedic martial arts films. An absolutely superior athlete and stunt coordinator, he had already starred in more traditional kung fu comedies such as the original Drunken Master , and was now experimenting with expanding his stunt action sequences in a period setting.

The Bruce Lee Story Year: The Bruce Lee Story does a good job of simply celebrating the life of the most famous martial artist of all time. Jason Scott Lee is inherently likable as Bruce, in a story that spans from his childhood to his time in the United States and breakthrough on American television in The Green Hornet. Dance of the Drunk Mantis Year: The Last Dragon Year: As a style icon and source of one-liners , few can compare. Clan of the White Lotus Year: Portrayed by director Lo Lieh, he projects such a perfect sense of menace and sheer invincibility that Liu has to train in multiple new and inventive styles to even stand a chance.

Kung fu movies can sometimes come off as weirdly compartmentalized between humor and really dramatic, serious action. When she commits suicide in an attempt to end the fighting and keep everyone safe, they end up in an epic, knock-down, drag-out kung fu battle that ends with a rather spectacular finishing move—a pro wrestling-style giant swing.

Last Hurrah For Chivalry Year: Many of the themes are the same, though—killers for hire, deception, organized crime and revelations about who is really working for whom. Last Hurrah For Chivalry is definitely a film that leans on its stuntwork and choreography rather than any story of particular interest, but lovers of stage combat will certainly appreciate the fast and furious swordplay. Kung Fu Hustle Year: Stephen Chow is probably the biggest name in martial arts comedy since the days of Sammo Hung, and Kung Fu Hustle will likely remain one of his most well-regarded films both as a director and performer.

The action has no basis in reality, being closer to a real-world depiction of Looney Tune physics. The plot revolves around two warring clans: A convoluted series of alliances and allegiances are forged and tested, leading to a final fight that goes full Hamlet and kills pretty much everybody. Responsible for first bringing the so-called jiangshi subgenre into vogue, Mr. Oh, and you can repel them by holding your breath.

The movie is a cinematic fever dream, which a few seconds of the trailer, with its flying heads and hopping vampires , should make abundantly clear. Imagine him a gruffer cousin to Jean-Claude Van Damme, just as given to finding himself shirtless, but more apt to preserve his mopey loner status—at least until some beautiful upstart maiden enters his life and throws herself at him. There are tomes to be written and classes to be taught on the perplexing existence of Bloodsport , but perhaps the film is best summarized in one moment: These were beefy mooks that could believably be action stars.

Van Damme set the bar higher: Sister Street Fighter Year: Chiba appears in the film in a supporting role instead of as his Terry Tsurugi character from the first two films, but the actual star of the show is Sue Shiomi as Tina, a young woman searching for her missing brother, a drug agent who goes missing while investigating a criminal organization.

Kung Fu Panda Year: All of the classical elements are there—an obnoxious pupil who becomes a fighting machine. A team of literally animal-based martial artists with varying styles. And a secret technique that the hero needs to learn in order to conquer that villain. If you like classical martial arts filmmaking, Kung Fu Panda is probably the most faithful animated twist on the genre that anyone has pulled off so far. Man of Tai Chi Year: Kiss of the Dragon Year: Jet Li was a Hong Kong superstar who came across the sea to America, likely with hopes of a Jackie Chan-like career trajectory in his mind.

Kiss of the Dragon brought things back down to Earth a bit, in a John Woo-style feature starring Li as a Chinese intelligence agent hunting for a drug lord in Paris. The rest of the action is fast-paced and violent, mixing gunplay and a greater than average prevalence of broken necks. The Prodigal Son Year: Another film directed by Sammo Hung, Prodigal Son reins in the comedy for once to present a unique story about privileged children and the price of true knowledge.

Yuen Biao stars as Chang, the son of a wealthy man who believes himself to be a kung fu master. However, because he lacks any real skill, his father has clandestinely been bribing all of his opponents to lose. When the ruse is revealed, Chang must join up with a traveling circus troupe and its Wing Chun-employing leader to learn true kung fu. With that said, the guy with no eyebrows still sort of creeps me out.

Nearly five years in gestation, The Raid 2 feels like the exact kind of movie that Gareth Evans has always dreamed of making. In these verses Paul died circa 67 laments the fact that he is unable to do good; rather he finds himself following the "law of sin. James also cites passages from Augustine's Confessions [21] that he says are "an account of the trouble of having a divided self which has never been surpassed.

The enemy had control of my will, and out of it he fashioned a chain and fettered me with it. For in truth lust is made out of a perverse will, and when lust is served, it becomes habit, and when habit is not resisted, it becomes necessity. By such links, joined one to another A new will, which had begun within me, to wish freely to worship you and find joy in you Thus did my two wills, the one old, the other new, the first carnal, and the second spiritual, contend with one another, and by their conflict they laid waste my soul.

Thus I understood from my own experience what I had read, how "the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. For now, in the latter, it was not so much myself, since in large part I suffered it against my will rather than did it voluntarily. Yet it was by me that this habit had been made so warlike against me, since I had come willingly to this point where I now willed not.

Augustine appears to be speaking about a situation similar to the one experienced by Paul, except that he is not explicitly describing an ethical dimension of his inner conflict. Instead we learn about two other dimensions. One of these can be called the volitional since a binary opposition expressed is the free will versus the enslaved will.

The other dimension of his conflict is spiritual, or "flesh" versus "spirit. Augustine's wish to find joy in God is only one pole of the spiritual dimension; the second pole is related in another passage also from Book Eight of the Confessions: I was displeased with the course I followed in the world, and with my desires no longer aflame with hope of honor and wealth, as they had been, to bear so grievous a bondage was a very great burden to me.

In comparison with your sweetness and the beauty of your house, which I loved, those things no longer gave me delight, but I was still tightly bound by love of women. From this passage the details of his spiritual conflict emerge: In addition to relating details regarding the dimensions of his inner division, Augustine provides an account of the emotions he experienced: Thus I was sick and tormented , and I upbraided myself much more bitterly than ever before. I twisted and turned in my chain, until it might be completely broken, although now I was scarcely held by it, but still held by it I was.

Within the hidden depths of my soul, O Lord, you urged me on. By an austere mercy you redoubled the scourges of fear and shame , lest I should give in again The nearer came that moment in time when I was to become something different, the greater terror did it strike into me My lovers of old, trifles of trifles and vanities of vanities, held me back. They plucked at my fleshly garment, and they whispered softly: I felt great shame , for I still heard the murmurings of those trifles, and still I delayed and hung there in suspense. Torment, fear, terror and shame are explicitly mentioned by Augustine as those emotions that accompanied his spiritual struggle - the struggle between two wills.

However what Augustine is talking about is not a mystical struggle proper, because although it is an experience of the divided self, it is not accompanied by a systematic program of asceticism and meditation. Augustine is describing the inner tension that precedes a point of commitment. The Spanish Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila , in her description of the mystical struggle, focuses on the contrast between the favors, or emotional consolations, given to her by the Lord, and what she perceives as her faults: And seeing my lack of amendment, I became extremely vexed about the many tears I was shedding over my faults, for neither were my resolutions nor were the hardships I suffered enough to keep me from placing myself in the occasion and falling again.

They seemed fraudulent tears to me, and afterward the fault appeared to be greater, because I saw the wonderful favor the Lord bestowed in giving me these tears and such deep repentance. Teresa of Avila, The emotions reported by Teresa are vexation, frustration and remorse; the division within herself is between God's graciousness and generosity versus Teresa's ingratitude and moral weakness.

An even more striking example of the divided self is the following account from Teresa of Avila: On the one hand God was calling me; on the other hand I was following the world. All the things of God made me happy; those of the world held me bound. It seems I desired to harmonize these two contraries - so inimical to one another - such as are the spiritual life and sensory joys, pleasures, and pastimes. In prayer I was having great trouble, for my spirit was not proceeding as lord but as slave.

And so I was not able to shut myself within myself which was my whole manner of procedure in prayer ; instead, I shut within myself a thousand vanities. Here we can see a dimension of the inner conflict similar to the one reported by Augustine: However in this passage can also be found a different dimension of the divided self: Teresa discloses that in prayer i. Instead her mind is given over to distractions. Hence we have a formal dimension of unified consciousness versus dispersed consciousness. Since Teresa had read Augustine and Augustine had read Paul, one might suspect that such reports were possibly no more than a convention of a particular genre of Christian literature.

But in spite of similarities between, e. Augustine's temptations are erotic whereas Teresa's preoccupations are of a romantic type. This is not explicit in the above cited passages, but it is clear from other passages in the Life as a whole. Augustine places more emphasis on the will, than does Teresa.

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He also states that he is beyond the point of being tempted by honour and fortune, whereas a desire to be well thought of by others is a temptation for Teresa. The impression one has of Teresa is that she sees herself, in this period of her life, as being distracted by trivialities, or little sins, instead of the serious work of God.

Again this is not explicit in the above passages but is an impression based on the text as a whole. Augustine's view of his sins is that they are important, albeit shameful, sins. Part of the difference between Augustine and Teresa can be accounted for by the fact that the former is in a pre-commitment phase whereas the latter is in a post-commitment phase of the divided self.

Teresa of Avila is engaged in a mystical struggle proper. She is following the routine of convent life and she is practicing meditation. Much of the rest of the difference between the two is probably accounted for by differences in socialization patterns for males and females. And whatever differences remain can be explained in terms of variations in culture, historical period, family background and individual temperament. However the point to be noted is that within the general pattern of narrating an interior struggle, there is room for the unique features of any given individual's experience.

The fact of individual differences in the reporting of a divided self inside or outside of the context of a mystical struggle suggests that the phenomenon is not merely a literary convention but an actual occurrence. Additional support for this position is provided by the fact that self-reports of a divided self are not particular to one religious tradition. They are found in the personal documents of other religious traditions as well.

Why are reports of a mystical struggle found in so many different religions and periods of history?



The answer, I suggest, is that a mystical struggle corresponds to a stage anticipated by a number of mystically oriented persons. Subsequent to an investigation of various religious doctrines and sects, the Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazzali , turned to a study of Islamic mysticism and arrived at the conclusion that true Sufism consists not of intellectual analysis but rather of mystical experiences and the ascetical preparation required for such experiences: I saw that one can only hope for salvation by devotion and the conquest of one's passions, a procedure which presupposes renouncement and detachment from this world or falsehood in order to turn towards eternity and meditation on God.

Finally, I saw that the only condition of success was to sacrifice honours and riches and to sever the ties and attachments of worldly life. The division that is set forth in these remarks is: However Al-Ghazzali's insight did not result in a decisive course of action. On the contrary, it precipitated an acute case of a divided self: Coming seriously to consider my state, I found myself bound down on all sides by these trammels. Examining my actions, the most fair-seeming of which was my lecturing and professorial occupations, I found to my surprise that I was engrossed in several studies of little value, and profitless as regards my salvation.

I probed the motives for my teaching and found that I perceived that I was on the edge of an abyss, and that without an immediate conversion I should be doomed to eternal fire. In these reflections I spent a long time. Still a prey to uncertainty, one day I decided to leave Bagdad and to give up everything; the next day I gave up my resolution.

In the morning I was sincerely resolved only to occupy myself with the future life; in the evening a crowd of carnal thoughts assailed and dispersed my resolutions. On the one side the world kept me bound to my post in the chains of covetousness, on the other side the voice of religion cried to me, "Up! If you obey it, if you give up this fine position, this honourable post exempt from trouble and rivalry, this seat of authority safe from attack, you will regret it later on without being able to recover it. In addition to such dimensions as spirit versus the world and uncontrolled versus controlled passions, a split in the form of consciousness similar to that referred to by Teresa of Avila can also be found here: Hence the future mystic speaks of his resolutions being dispersed.

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Finally Al-Ghazzali did leave Bagdad. His experience of a divided self continued but it was now met by a disciplinary program of asceticism and meditation: I then betook myself to Syria, where I remained for two years, which I devoted to retirement, meditation, and devout exercises. I only thought of self-improvement and discipline and of purification of the heart by prayer in going through the forms of devotion which the Sufis taught me. I used to live a solitary life in the Mosque of Damascus, and was in the habit of spending my days on the minaret From thence I proceeded to Jerusalem, and every day secluded myself in the Sanctuary of the Rock.

After that I felt a desire to accomplish the Pilgrimage After visiting the shrine of the friend of God Abraham , I went to the Hedjaz. Finally, the longings of my heart and the prayers of my children brought me back to my country although I was so firmly resolved at first never to revisit it. At any rate I meant, if I did return, to live there [in solitude] and in religious meditation; but events, family cares and vicissitudes of [life] changed my resolutions and troubled my meditative calm.

However irregular the intervals which I could give to devotional ecstasy, my confidence in it did not diminish; and the more I was diverted by hindrances, the more steadfastly I returned to it. Again in this passage Al-Ghazzali describes two sets of oppositions within himself. There is the contrast between religious aspiration and material, or worldly, concerns; and parallel to this opposition is the contrast between two forms of consciousness - i. In other words the nature of his divided self is as much one of form as it is of content.

The content is one of an opposition between a higher and a lower set of values; the form is one of an opposition between a mind that is unified and one that is distracted or dispersed. A diary of a nineteenth-century Hasidic Rabbi, Isaac Eizik of Komarno , contains an account of the divided self as well as a description of the severe ascetical regimen he adopted: I attained to many lofty stages of the holy spirit, the result of my industry in Torah study and in divine worship.

The truth be told, I did not appreciate at the time that it was not the result of my own efforts since I was still remote from true worship. But after reflecting on the matter I separated myself entirely from the world. It was my habit to sleep only two hours a day, spending the rest of the time studying Torah, the Talmud, the Codes, the Zohar, the writings of our Master Isaac Luria and the works of Rabbi Moses Cordovero. But I fell away from all these stages for three months and was in a state of immense smallness of soul.

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Many harsh and demonic forces kelippot rose against me to dissuade me from studying the Torah. Worse than all was a state of melancholy into which I was hurled. Yet my heart was as firm as a rock. During this time the only pleasure I allowed myself was to drink a little water and eat a morsel of bread daily. I had no delight whatever in the Torah I studied or the prayers I recited.

The cold was very severe and the demonic forces extremely powerful so that I actually stood equally balanced between two paths, depending on how I would choose. Much bitterness passed over my head as a result of these blandishments, really more bitter than a thousand times death. But once I had overcome these blandishments, suddenly, in the midst of the day From that time onwards I began to serve the Creator of all with a marvelous, unvarying illumination.

The blandishments had power over me no longer. Afterwards I fell once again for a time so I came to realize that I must journey to the saints who would draw down His light In this passage the opposition is between "lofty stages of the holy spirit" and concentrated study of religious texts, on the one hand, and "immense smallness of soul," a falling away from study and the consequent experience of temptation by demonic forces, on the other. What is narrated here is more than an account of a divided self; it is one of a mystical struggle.

In addition to his study of or reflective meditation upon religious, ethical and mystical literature, Rabbi Isaac subjected himself to restricted food and liquid intake, sleep deprivation, social isolation, and exposure to the severe cold of early winter. In the autobiographical verses of the seventeenth-century Maharashtrian saint, Bahina Bai , can be found a description of her mystical experiences as well as her mystical struggle.

Bahina produced an autobiography, but as her translator states, the story contained therein ends before she embarked upon anything resembling a mystical struggle: Her autobiography covers only the details of the early years of her life. For her later years with their mental struggles, temptations, perplexities, and thoughts of approaching death, one has to gather from her verses such details as she has made possible.

In fact Bahina's autobiography ends with what Underhill According to Underhill's model the stage that follows upon an awakening is that of a mystical struggle and descriptions of it can be found in a number of Bahina's verses. These descriptions are frequently cast in the form of a dialogue between her higher self the self struggling to realize mystical union, or liberation and her "heart" a lower self.

In the following example Bahina is at a point where she has gained a measure of self-mastery, but is still apprehensive regarding "attachment to worldly things: Oh my heart, your nature of attachment to worldly things was formed in a former birth, therefore the power of worldly things is great in you. I, therefore, pray you to listen to me. I have made my organs of sense willingly obedient to me. But if you do not mind what I tell you, I shall not let anything remain of my body. I shall fast, I shall stop my breathing. In the hottest season I shall sit in the midst of five fires four at the sides, and the sun above ; I shall torture my body by hanging head downward over a smoking fire; I shall wander to all the sacred bathing places of the earth; I shall adopt extreme fasting; I shall put my body to the saw.

Then what will you gain by all this? Says Bahini, "Oh my heart, obey what I tell you. If you don't, you will have to go begging. The passage is both an affirmation of progress already undergone, i. There can also be found in her verses a commitment to meditation as a means of achieving success in her mystical struggle: I have found Right-thinking viveka and Indifference to worldly things vairagya as the true way. So now, Oh heart, who is going to pay any respect to you! I shall seize and compel you to contemplate. Then at once the seductive power of my bodily organs will decline.

I shall make you the judge of yourself. Oh heart, look to yourself. Says Bahini, "In gaining the credit of this you will be the gainer, and find yourself in peace.

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In Bahina's model of the person, the heart is not to be rejected, but rather purified of its attachments and brought into subordination; when this happens the heart is possessed by the principle of goodness sattvaguna and the result is good deeds Bahina Bai, Thus her notion of the heart closely resembles the Sufi concept of nafs.

Strictly speaking the heart is not one pole in the mystical struggle, rather it is the ground upon which the struggle takes place. In the first verse, cited above, Bahina threatens her heart, in the second, she holds out the promise of peace if the heart will only be compliant. In the following verse the tone is even more conciliatory: Through Right-thinking I will give attention to the Vedanta philosophy.

I will acquire the non-dualistic experience of oneness with Brahma. Oh heart, I will lay this wager before you, therefore, give yourself to knowing the supreme Atman. The right result of listening to the scriptures is meditation. And in this deep meditation there is rest for the soul. Says Bahini, "Oh heart, become a good heart. Why should we quarrel from now on? In subsequent verses Bahina reports her experience of non-dualistic oneness. Of interest in the verse just quoted is the connection between spiritual reading or in this case listening and meditation.

Thus sacred, and in particular mystical, texts both create the problem of the divided self, as Datte noted, and at the same time give rise to one of the means, i. A brief but richly detailed description of inner conflict can be found in an autobiographical account of the process of self-cultivation written by the Neo-Confucian Kao P'an Lung In I was banished because I had spoken out on certain affairs [he had defended some officials who were unjustly dismissed from their positions], but it did not disturb my thoughts.

However as I was returning home I tasted the ways of the world and my mind became once again more agitated. In the year during the Autumn I headed for Chieh-yang. I realized that within myself, principle and desire waged battle upon battle without peaceful resolution. One day Ku-ch'iao suddenly asked, "What is the original substance like? These two paragraphs contain several interesting features.

Kao contrasts his response to his banishment with his response to his having "tasted the ways of the world. However his failure in the pursuit of his ideal did result in inner conflict. But as in the case of Al-Ghazzali the conflict is in both the form and the content of consciousness. With respect to the latter, the opposition is between principle the ideal and desire for the "ways of the world". The opposition in the form of consciousness is between an agitated state of mind and by implication a calm or undisturbed and unified state.

The fact that Kao could become so easily agitated suggests that his experience of the calm and unified mental state was neither frequent nor profound. This is confirmed by his confession that his response to Lu Ku-ch'iao's question was "only from my mouth, not from a true understanding. Kao's response to his experience of inner discord, and the apathy that resulted from it, was a firm resolution to pursue the ideal of sagehood: The night before I crossed over the river the moonlight was pure and clear. I sat beside the Liu-ho Tower. The river and mountains were clear and inviting.

Good friends urged me to drink more. In this most agreeable of times I suddenly felt unhappy as if something were constraining me. I exerted myself to rouse my joy, but my spirit did not accompany me. Late in the night when the others had gone I went on board the boat. In a sudden realization I said to myself, "How is it that today the scenery was as it was and yet my feelings were like this?

Thus I strongly affirmed, "If on this trip I do not penetrate the matter, then this life will have been in vain. The emotion reported here is unhappiness; Kao also relates that he was unable to respond with joy to stimuli that usually provoke this emotion. In the paragraph that immediately follows Kao describes the means he undertook to achieve his goal. The emphasis is on study and meditation which in the Neo-Confucian tradition is referred to as quiet-sitting: The next day in the boat I earnestly arranged the mat and seriously set up rules and regulations.

For one half of the day I practised quiet-sitting while for the other half I studied. In the quiet-sitting I did not settle on any one specific way, but just followed the methods Ch'eng and Chu [have] spoken of generally, practising one by one: Whether I was standing, sitting, eating, or resting, these thoughts were continuously present.

At night I did not undress and only when I was weary to the bone did I fall asleep. Upon waking I returned to sitting, repeating and alternating these various methods of practice. When the substance of the mind was clear and peaceful there was a sense of filling all Heaven and earth, but it did not last. From this passage we learn that Kao's ascetical practice included sleep deprivation and the immobility and social isolation that accompanies protracted periods of quiet-sitting or meditation. We also are given details regarding the nature of meditation - it is the practice of mindfulness, a fundamental meditation exercise employed in Buddhism.

Subsequently Kao had an experience in which he perceived the unity of all things - an experience of enlightenment or wu - which experience he integrated into his self-cultivation Taylor, Thus for Kao P'an-lung there is a process of development, found in many other mystics: A twentieth-century example of a personal account of the divided self can be found in the autobiography of a Japanese woman, Satomi Myodo Her experience of the divided self begins at the point in her life when she has just entered a relationship with an orphaned nineteen-year old male who was a member of a gang of youths which frequented the theatre where Satomi worked as an actress: I immediately quit acting and began a life with Ryo-chan.

I felt I had to watch over this wild youth until he attained maturity. When we started living together, he became completely amenable. Like a gentle pet lamb, he silently fell in line. He was innocent and genuine. I, however, quickly became aware of my own ugliness. Anger, jealousy, and all the other vices that seemed to have lain dormant now began to turn up constantly.

O Captain, Who's Captain? - Critical Role - Campaign 2, Episode 36

I wanted to tell Ryo-chan off and drive him away. I ground my teeth and struggled to control these feelings, but in nine out of ten cases I was defeated. Even when I unexpectedly found myself succeeding in this struggle, my success proved temporary, and soon I reverted to nastiness. I keenly felt that I was the one who needed to be rescued. For me to try to rescue Ryo-chan was a complete impossibility and pure conceit. Carried away with emotion, I had completely overestimated myself. I did not stop and think. Unconsciously, I had decided that I was a correct and pure person.

Thus I made an abrupt turn. Until now I had sought to help others. Now I sought to help myself. Ethical purity, and control over emotions, are set in opposition to being carried away by emotions, especially negative emotions. One of those negative emotions mentioned is overt anger. The experience reported in the above passage occurred when Satomi was approximately 26 years of age. In her autobiography she provides a report of her ascetical response to a similar state of inner discord which she experienced four years later: I couldn't help being aware of my moral ugliness. Tortured with guilt, all I could think of was to somehow wipe away the defilements with which I was stained and to develop the ability to understand myself.

Thus I zealously began ascetic practice. At first, I would take a vow and set about my asceticism for set periods of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one days. As might be expected, during the period of ascetic practice, with my body purified, deluded thoughts had no chance to put in an appearance. I felt that, in accordance with my goal, I was becoming completely pure. However, as soon as I fulfilled my vow and took a breather, my true character revealed itself, and in the end I saw that I was no better off than I had been before.

Hmm, they say you shouldn't stop ascetic practice until you lose consciousness and fall into a trance. If I do that, then surely when I revive from the trance, there won't be a bit of defilement left and I'll be an entirely new person. For thirty days in the dead of winter, wanting the water temperature to be as cold as possible, I put water into a basin and left it overnight to freeze. At the crack of dawn the next morning, I broke the ice and poured the water over myself.

At night, too, after everyone had gone to sleep, I did the same. I wanted to pass out! Nonetheless, I didn't pass out as I wanted. After the morning water asceticism, stark naked, I tried to practice meditation, sitting out on a freezing concrete washstand. But no matter how long I sat out there, I still did not faint.

Then, finally, winter passed. I began to hate myself. In this account of her experience of a divided self two very specific emotional states that constitute the division are identified - frustration at her incapacity to enter into a meditative trance and guilt or introjected anger in the face of her perceived moral ugliness. And here again we have references both to the content of consciousness purity versus defilement and the form of consciousness a trance state, devoid of thoughts, versus [deluded] thoughts.

Another point worth remarking upon is that Satomi relates moral purity with an absence of deluded thoughts and associates this condition with a purified body resulting from asceticism. From an examination of descriptions of the divided self found in the personal documents of several mystics belonging to a number of different religious traditions it can be seen that the division is in terms both of the content and the form of consciousness. The content may be an ethical opposition good versus bad or it may be a religious hierarchy of values God versus the world or it may be a conflict in terms of willpower or personal competence control over passions versus an enslaved will.

The poles of the formal dimension are in terms of a unified, or concentrated, versus a distracted or dispersed mind. In some accounts both the formal and the content dimensions of consciousness are referred to; in others one dimension alone is described. Many of the above passages illustrate a response to inner turmoil found in numerous mystics, subsequent to the point of commitment - an attempt to control what is perceived as the lower nature through asceticism and an attempt to concentrate or unify consciousness through meditation.

On the other hand the functions of these two sets of practices sometimes overlap or are interchanged. For example Satomi Myodo reports that asceticism helped her to succeed at concentrating her mind during meditation. The passages cited also suggest a difference between the pre-commitment phase of the divided self and the post-commitment phase, in terms of emotions experienced.

Passages describing the pre-commitment period speak of torment, fear, terror and shame Augustine ; uncertainty Al-Ghazzali ; agitation, lack of peace and unhappiness Kao P'an-lung ; and overt anger, jealousy and implicitly pride e. The emotions referred to in citations from the post-commitment period of the purification of the self tend to be of a self-critical inward-turning nature. Teresa of Avila mentions vexation, frustration with herself and remorse with tears ; Isaac Eizik speaks of "smallness of Soul" and melancholy; and Satomi Myodo refers to frustration with herself, guilt introjected anger , self-hate and implicit self-disgust at her defiled condition.

Finally, mention is made of determination e. Mystical manuals and inspirational literature. Reports found in personal documents are valuable primary sources for the study of the mystical struggle. Another set of useful descriptions are those provided by inspirational literature from within a given mystical tradition and manuals of mysticism, written for instructors or for potential mystics themselves.

In an address, intended for delivery at a conference on great religious traditions held in Lahore, in , Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam, presents a mystical stage-model that makes use of the three types of nafs , referred to by Annemarie Schimmel in the passage cited above. The third and final level is that of the nafs-i-mutmainnah , or the soul that is united with God. In between these two stages is that of the nafs-i-lawamma: The source of the moral conditions of man is called the nafs-i-lawamma , or the self-accusing spirit conscience Although the self-accusing soul upbraids itself for its faults and frailties, yet it is not the master of its passions, nor is it powerful enough to practice virtue exclusively.

The weakness of the flesh has the upper hand sometimes and then it stumbles and falls down But it does not persist in its fault, every failure bringing only fresh reproach to the mind. Before our lives divide for ever, While time is with us and hands are free , Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea I will say no word that a man might say Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; For this could never have been; and never, Though the gods and the years relent, shall be.

Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, To think of things that are well outworn? Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, The dream foregone and the deed forborne? Though joy be done with and grief be vain, Time shall not sever us wholly in twain; Earth is not spoilt for a single shower; But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn. I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew, You had grown strong as the sun or the sea. But none shall triumph a whole life through: For death is one, and the fates are three.

At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death; Death could not sever my soul and you, As these have severed your soul from me. You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you, Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. But will it not one day in heaven repent you? Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?

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Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, Meet mine, and see where the great love is, And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you; The gate is strait; I shall not be there. The pulse of war and passion of wonder, The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, The music burning at heart like wine, An armed archangel whose hands raise up All senses mixed in the spirit's cup Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder — These things are over, and no more mine. These were a part of the playing I heard Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife; Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.

Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep Than overwatching of eyes that weep, Now time has done with his one sweet word, The wine and leaven of lovely life. Sweet is true love though given in vain , in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. Love, art thou sweet? Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. Here her hand Grasped, made her vail her eyes: O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.

I must not scorn myself: Let no one dream but that he loves me still. Love lifts us up where we belong Far from the world we know Up where the clear winds blow. A song fluttered down in the form of a dove, And it bore me a message, the one word—Love! Wikipedia has an article about: Look up Love in Wiktionary , the free dictionary. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: At Wikiversity, you can learn about: A World of Peace, Love and Happiness. Retrieved from " https: Love Emotions Interpersonal relationships Virtues.

Pages using ISBN magic links.