SHAOLIN ARTS AND MENTAL DISORDERS
Being relaxed and focused is the starting point of Shaolin training
Question
Is Western psychology that ineffective compared to the Shaolin arts when it comes to curing patients with mental disorder? Is it true that Western society consists of many stressed out people, including Eastern men educated in Western culture, like me?
— Jeff, USA
Answer
I reckon that by “mental disorders” you mean psychological disorders and not neurological disorders. Psychological disorders refer to disorders of the psyche, which is also called mind, soul or spirit in different cultures. Neurological disorders refer to disorders of the brain and nerves. If the disorders are neurological, like a defect in the brain, Western medicine is effective in treating them.
If the disorders are psychological, in my opinion, Western medicine is at a loss because Western scientists (neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc) do not even have the conceptual framework and vocabulary to describe the disorders, let alone to understand them. Psychology started in the West as a study of the psyche, which is actually the meaning of the word “psychology”, but over the last two centuries, in their desire to be objective following the direction led by physicists, Western psychologists have forsaken the elusive mind for the physical brain.
In contrast, genuine Shaolin arts pay the utmost attention to the mind. Zen is mind training. Shaolin Kungfu and Shaolin Qigong started as a direct result of finding effective ways to develop the mind — a fact even some Shaolin Kungfu masters today may not realize. For instance, some masters accused me of mystifying kungfu, talking about topics like different levels of consciousness, multi-dimensional universe, and going to heaven. To them, Shaolin Kungfu is a fighting art at a purely physical level.
When one realizes that being relaxed and focussed (at the same time) is only the starting point of any Shaolin training, he will understand how advanced the genuine Shaolin arts are concerning mind. Yet, to be able to relax or to be focussed for even a short period of time is difficult for many people in the West.
You are right. Many people in the West, including Eastern people educated in Western culture, are stressful. To make matter worse, they have become stressful so frequently that it has become a habit. To many people in the West, to be stress-free is a luxury, forgetting that it is actually a natural state. In other words, if you do nothing, you will naturally be stress-free. One becomes stressful only when he tenses himself — physically, emotionally or mentally.
Being stressful and lacking spiritual training are the two most important, and related, causes of psychological disorders in the West today. I would like to clarify that spiritual training is training of the spirit, which is also called the mind, consciousness or psyche. It is non-religious, although it makes a religious person more devoted to his own religion because it confirms from direct experience the teachings of his religion.
In our Shaolin Wahnam School, right from the beginning every moment or form in our kungfu or qigong training is a training of mind and energy. For example, when you practice the Horse-Riding Stance, one of the first things you will do for some time when you learn from any of our Shaolin Wahnam kungfu instructors, you focus your mind and energy at your dan tian. When you perform “Lifting the Sky”, usually the first qigong pattern you will learn from any of our Shaolin Wahnam qigong instructors, you go into a higher level of consciousness and work on your energy flow.
From the Chinese medical perspective, which is very different from the Western medical perspective, psychological disorders like anxiety, fear and aggression, are disorders of the mind or psyche. The immediate causes and resulting symptoms may be many and varied, but fundamentally they are due to the mind being weak and the energy flow being blocked. If you strengthen your mind and enhance your energy flow by practicing genuine Shaolin arts, psychological disorders irrespective of the labels Western psychiatrists may give to the different symptoms, will go away.
An analogy will make this clear. Let us say you want to buy some new programmes to play computer games but you do not have enough money. The immediate causes and resulting symptoms may be many and varied. For example you may have spent money taking your girlfriend out, or buying a present for your parents. As a result you may look silly when your friends talk about the new computer games, or you may shout at your sister when she brings you coffee. Actually the basic problem is that your bank account is weak or your cash flow is blocked. Once you can enhance your bank account and cash flow, not only you can overcome your need of buying some new programmes but also other needs or fancies like buying flowers for your sister or inviting your friends to dinner.
The above is taken from Question 10 of April 2003 Part 2 of the Selection of Questions and Answers.
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