Kung Fu Mind Mastery

So we say that when we train Kung Fu, when we train Qigong, we are trying to master ourselves. That means mastering our mind, mastering our body, mastering our breath, mastering our Chi. We don't often delve into mastering the mind so that’s what I am going to talk about today.

So apparently, the conscious mind processes about seven thoughts a second, plus/minus two - so between five and nine thoughts per second. On the face of it that's quite a lot: no wonder the mind is racing if it's processing seven thoughts a second! That’s all very well and all very impressive until you hear that the subconscious mind processes two to three million thoughts a second. A completely phenomenal figure! And then seven thoughts a second sounds pretty weedy and pretty pathetic. These figures vary according to which book you read but the degree of difference is still about the same.

Clearly, the real power of the mind lies in the subconscious. But the subconscious is the part of the mind that doesn't deal in words. Every time you think in terms of words, that's your conscious mind. Whenever you're talking to yourself, that's your conscious mind - a tiny part of the power of your mind.

We talk about the monkey mind, the racing, chattering disturbed mind: that's the conscious mind, chattering away, racing away. We talk about trying to achieve mindfulness, a mind which is calm, focused and not distracted. We can call that the Zen mind, a mind which is quiet and calm. Actually, in practical terms, what we're really trying to do is calm down that chattering conscious mind so that we can actually listen to the subconscious mind. The subconscious is very powerful and it's got to say but it's being drowned out by the conscious. The way that we're generally educated favors the conscious mind: we're listening to words, we're reading words, it's all conscious. We're told to make calculations, use formulae, adhere to written rules: it's all conscious mind stuff and we're often encouraged to ignore our intuition. Actually, that intuition - your gut reactions, your intuitive feelings, your inner compass - this is all the subconscious trying to talk to you! But it doesn't work in words. So you get intuition, you get feelings.

Numbers are definitely the realm of the conscious mind. So are words.

In Buddhism, one of the major achievements is to still the conscious mind and go down into the subconscious. To shut off that chattering monkey mind. Because if you want to gain real clarity, real wisdom, you need to tap into the subconscious. I think the reason why Bodhidharma taught the Buddhist monks to do Kung Fu, is that it requires you to connect with your subconscious. When we learn our arts we have to take in a lot of information and a lot of it is in words and that's the realm of the conscious mind. And then, you've got to do it.

At first, you have to really think about it. But the more you think about it, the more it goes wrong. That's the reality of the first stages of your training. Just think about it, maybe seven to nine thoughts per second. Turn your front foot in, turn your back. Grip the floor with the soles of your feet. Position your knees directly above your toes. Have your hips square onto the front. stretch the back leg, pull the back leg, tilt the hips to point the tailbone down, lift up the crown of your head, stretch the spine, we want the spine to be straight and vertical. I haven't counted, but I think we've gone well over nine instructions and we haven't even moved the hands yet! There's too much, you can't do it all at once by thinking of it.

So what do you do? Do you give up? No you do it. And through doing, it enters the subconscious. It filters down. This is what practice is about, what repetition is about.

Through the doing of it, the subconscious picks it up and then the subconscious starts to take over. The subconscious has got so much processing power that this is easy. So, with enough practice, you do it without thinking about it. What do we mean by ‘you do it without thinking about it’? You don't need to engage the conscious mind at all. The subconscious has taken it. Just do it. And your conscious mind can kind of sit and relax. When you're doing it subconsciously, there's so much power in the subconscious that you do it perfectly. And this is the irony! The less you think about it, the better it comes out the more you think about it, the worse it comes out. So don’t think about it, just do it.

In modern, contemporary, somewhat trendy terminology, we have this concept of knowing. Knowing is the subconscious equivalent of thinking. When we talk about thinking we mean the conscious mind, knowing is the subconscious. You can't explain it, but you intuitively know it. That's the subconscious.

There's a little book in the library called The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma was the founder of what we now think is Zen Buddhism. Four of his sermons are in that book. You can actually read What he was teaching and start to understand his teachings. There are some good quotes in there. In one of them he says ‘go beyond language, go beyond thought.’ What does that mean? Language is the realm of the conscious mind. Words are the realm of the conscious mind. Thought in this context is conscious mind. If you want to progress, you've got to go past that. Don't get fixated on words. Learn to communicate with your subconscious mind. Be aware of the subconscious. You tap into all of that. And then, WOW - you’re going somewhere! Then you're starting to unlock the real power of the mind that everybody's got but hardly anybody uses.

Another quote. If you study reality using your mind, you'll understand neither reality nor your mind. If you study reality without using the mind, you'll understand both. That's a really good one. It makes more sense if instead of saying the mind, you say the conscious mind. All the time that monkey mind is buzzing around, thinking, chattering away, you don't understand.

You don't understand the world. You don't understand your mind. When you silence the monkey mind, then you've achieved this state of Zen.

You're tapping into the subconscious. When you start to tap into the subconscious mind, then you're really starting to understand your mind. When you observe reality with the subconscious mind, not filtered through all the prejudices of the consciousness, then you start to understand reality, you start to understand the world, you start to understand life, you start to understand people.

If you use your mind to study reality, you'll understand neither your mind. If you study reality without using the mind, you'll understand both.

If you can study reality with your conscious mind switched off, just through your intuitive mind, your subconscious, that's when you gain the real understanding. That's where the power of the mind really lies. And the subconscious mind can observe the conscious, and it observes all the flaws of the conscious, all the failings of the conscious mind - which are a lot! And when you start to understand all the failings of the mind, then you start to understand things properly. You start to understand why humans have so many problems because their minds are so flawed. You start to understand why you've got so many problems because your mind's flawed. You start to understand how to put your mind into shape and into order and to fix the problems.

So we have the monk Bodhidharma, who's the 28th in line from the Buddha. He's the patriarch of Indian Zen. So this Zen mind has been passed down from the Buddha through the 28th generation to Bodhidharma. He comes to China and he's asked to teach at the newly built Shaolin Temple. He's given a big job. He wants to teach the people, teach the monks, how to manage their minds. Because if you read his teachings, then becoming a Buddha is all about your mind. As far as he's concerned, when you achieve the mind of a Buddha, then you are a Buddha! So, he's faced with the task of instilling the Zen mind, the Buddha mind. He's got to find a way to do it, and he does it through physical practice, which we now call Chi Kung. That was his way of accessing the mind through the body. Getting people to understand the mind. Now this is the link between Kung Fu and Buddhism.

A little bit more about the mind. We can work on the mind through our practice. We know that the brain is divided into the left and right hemispheres. The left side of the brain connects with the right side of the body. The right side of the brain connects with the left side of the body. The left brain is considered to be the Logical deductive side. It's the side that's more keyed to formulae, deduction. And it's also keyed to the right hand. Most people tend to be right -handed. They're more keyed to the logical side of the brain. The right side of the brain is keyed to the left hand. That's the creative, artistic side. So left -handed people tend to be a little bit more artistic and something of a minority. And often people are encouraged not to be left -handed because we live in a right -handed society.

So again, you've got the creative mind being suppressed. So what can we conclude? Well, we could conclude we want to develop equally the left and right side of the brain so that we achieve more balance between our artistic, creative side and our logical, deductive side. But actually, you can go better than that! You can try to get the two sides of the brain working together more. Rather than having this creative side and logical side, you've got a more holistic mind with the two sides working together. That’s the most powerful! That sounds absolutely great, but how do we do it? How do you do that?

Your left hand keys to your right brain, your right hand keys to your left brain. If you get both the hands moving together doing the same thing, then both sides of the brain should work together.

If you use your left hand as much as your right hand, your develop your right brain as much as your left brain. But if you use the hands together, then you have to get the two sides of the brain working together. To achieve that you've got to unify left brain and right brain. Apparently there's a further stage when your right hand crosses over to the left side of your body you have to use both sides of the brain working together to cope with this and when the right hand crosses over to the left side of the body, you go the other way. There's lots of times when you do your training, the one hand is on the other side of the body and the legs as well. So the movement develops the brain and unites the two sides of the brain. It gets them working together as a more powerful whole. And that's very powerful. And all of this is developing your general brain power. It's developing your consciousness. It's elevating your consciousness. It's elevating your mind.

Okay, now here's something really interesting. I don't know how long they've known this for, but apparently it's a fact. Within your gut, you have enough synapses (nerve junctions) to make up a brain the size of a cat’s brain! You have enough neural connectivity in your gut for the gut to actually work like a brain about as powerful as the brain of a cat. It's like having a second brain down there. And that's pretty powerful. Now, you can say, well, cats, you know, maybe they're not the most intelligent. You can't get them to read books or do maths. But on the scale of things, they're actually quite up there. Sadly, my tortoises have nowhere like the amount of processing power in their brains that the cat does. The same goes for the chickens. Cats are pretty well up there. As for goldfish, forget it. But even they're pretty high compared to slugs and earthworms. So we actually have a fairly powerful brain down there in our guts and we sort of know because we talk about having gut reactions knowing something deep down in your gut we're aware that there is this thinking power down here.

So how can we harness this power? Number one, be aware of it! And that requires quietening, the chatter of the conscious mind to let these intuitive thoughts and feelings, feelings come through. And secondly, you've kind of got to actively be aware of it. Be aware of your gut brain, value what it tells you and try to act on it rather than taking the approach of, oh, it's nonsense. Gut reactions are nonsense. They're not logical. They're not valid. Gut reactions are very powerful! If you want to develop wisdom, you've got to listen to your intuition.

About the more, kind of, general body brain: we talk about body brain, talk about muscle memory. You've got a lot of thought and a lot of memory kind of deep down, spread through your body. If you think about it, you'll often kind of reach for the kettle before you think, ‘I fancy a cup of tea’, you often kind of reach to open the fridge before you think you're hungry. In fact, it's this kind of muscle memory taking the action that makes the mind experience a desire.

And it's very much a, there's a two -way street, there's a two -way relationship here. You can shape your mind by shaping your body. Open body, open mind. Closed body, closed mind. Flexible body, flexible mind. Relaxed body, relaxed mind. Healthy body, healthy mind.

When you look at people who do gymnastics, dance, yoga and other things which involve stretching, you probably think of them as being open minded people, artistic, possibly a bit nonconformist. Where might you find people with rigid bodies, rigid movement? Look at the army! People in the army are taught to stand up straight, rigid movement, marching. They are told which foot to start marching with - ‘by the right, quick march!’