Wong Kiew Kit

[bhodi]

views

How about the 1000 or so other people who are reading this huh???

[Maestro]

hhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm

you guys keep talking about respect..what if its not the students fault, what if the "sifu" isnt deserving of respect but they are taught to respect him/her anyway

or what if it is the students fault..what if they are unrulely or just down right stubborn etc

respect has to be earned imho, calling someone sifu is fine and all, and it does carry weight, but unless someone has gained your respect your not even gonna care what you call them really..hence our friend woody "its just a word guys ..chill out dudes"

or something like that he said..

bodhi has been saying you have to understand the word..well thats bull

EVERYONE, knows what respect means..i dont care who you are..what culture..etc

there is no adult atleast who does NOT know what respect means..the word is just a word, but having respect is a given

its just a matter of having an affinity for someone/something or not having it

it just comes down to time really..do you spend the time to learn in shaolin usa and gain respect for so and so, or do you leave and go to another school etc

[bhodi]

word

I think it is not just the teachers fault and not just the students fault. A teacher can want to teach a student and the student could just not be open to learning and a student could want to learn and just be with a teacher who doesn't know or who isn't interested in teaching in that way.

I think that people do understand respect, or most adults. But I think that they have not explored the concept to its end and relalized how connected it is with so many other things that they claim are important to them. People may understand the basic concept of respect but I think Avalokitesvara understands the concept much more so than the average person of whatever background.

I don't mean understand the word, I mean understand the concept of respect deeply. I truly believe that this concept must be approached and wrestled with before even the most basic of relationships can be founded strongly on honesty and truth. There must be actual respect, not just the taught behaviours that denote an understanding of respect.

If we look at the teachings of the heart sutra, respect is something that needs to exist even for those things we think are bad. If we have respect for ourselves and for others then we need to have respect for those things that went into the creation of us and those we respect. THis does not mean that we don't also respect the process of change....

Bhodi

[Maestro]

ok

ok bodhi so go give wkk a big hug and buy him a pizza..

cmon

respect is respect

the buddha says some shit like..whenever you think of hurting another man..understand that you are only hurting yourself, because there is no difference between you and the man or the bugs on the ground..or im ****in this quote up..i dunno

the point is, respect isnt the sole concept that the universe is founded on..its not that important

sure its important to a degree, i mean the way you talk about it your starting to sound like a wahnamite and their worshipping of the grandest mystical cosmic chi master of mastering wkk

respect is a simple concept, its a basic human trait for another tangible being, its not the holiest of holy concepts

so anyway..i think im confusing myself now..so ill end the rant

peace..and bodhi nice to see you posting more often..to bad its in a thread like this though..

wkk gets us everytime..

grrrr

[bhodi]

respect

Respect is a basic human trait for another tangible being? I'm not quite sure what you mean there but I think I get your gist.

But that is how most people think of it...i totally agree with you . What I am saying is that it can be so much more than that. It can be the doorway towards so much more. To a master it is a whole lot more than that.

I found this excerpt from a book I am currently reading that i feel applies to this thread, it is as follows:


Mulla Nasruddin once applied for a job. In the application he mentioned many qualifications. He said," I stood first in my university, and I was offered the vice-presidency of a national bank. I refused because I am not interested in money. I am an honest man, a true man. I have no greed, I'm not bothered about salary; whatsoever you give me will be okay. And i love work - sixty-five hours per week."
When the superintendent who was conducting his interview looked at his application, he was surprisedand said, "Lordy! DOn't you have any weaknesses?"
Nasruddin said, "Only one: I am a liar!"
But that one covers all the rest. No need to have any other weaknesses in you, you have only one weakness- out of that one all are born. And you have to remember your weakness, because that it going to follow you wherever you go like a shadow; whatsoever you do, it is going to color it.
So the basic thing in religion is not what to do , the basic thing is what to BE. 'Being' means your innermost core, 'doing' means your surface activities on the circumference. 'Doing 'means your relationship with others, with the outer world, and 'being' means you as you are, unrelated, as you are within.
You can be without doing anything, but you cannot be without the being. Doing is a secondary, dispensable. A man can remain inactive, not doing anything, but a man cannot be without being- so being is the essence. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, they all talk about being; and the temples , churches, mosques, orginizations, sects, the so called gurus and teachers and priests, they all talk about doing. If you ask Jesus, he will talk about your being and how to transform it. If you ask the Vatican he will talk about what to do, about morality. Morality is concerned with doing , religion with being.
This distinction has to be kept as clear as possible, because everything else depends on it. Whenever a person like Jesus is born we misunderstand him. And Misunderstanding is because we miss this distinction: he talks about the being, and we listen to him and interpret as if he is talking about doing.
When Jesus spoke it must have seemed to the priests that his sayings were anti-religious. They thought that he was the man that was going to destroy religion. He told people that if they were to fast they would beget sin for themselves. Many religions teach fasting! He said, " if you pray you will be condemned, if you give alms you will do evil to your spirits."
The strangest of sayings, but very meaningful. Jesus is saying that as you are you cannot do anything right. The emphasis is not on fasting or not fasting: the emphasis is not on giving alms or not; the emphasis is not to pray or not- the emphasis is: whatsoever you are right now, as you are, everything will go wrong.
can you pray? You can go to the temple because that is easy, but you cannot pray. Prayer needs a different quality; that quality you don't have, so you can only decieve yourself that you are praying. Go and look in the temple at the people who are praying; they are simply decieving themselves, they don't have that quality of prayerfulness. How can you pray? And if you have the quality of prayerfullness, what need is there to go to the temple or the church? Wherever you are prayer is: you move, you walk - and it is prayer! You eat, you love - and it is prayer! You look, you breathe - and it is prayer! ....Because the quality of prayerfulness is always there, it is just like breathing. Then you cannot be in a moment of non- prayer.



---------------------------------------------

So what I am saying is that respect is important. You can have respect for more than just another person. you can have respect for yourself, for the table you are using. More importantly you can have respect for intangible things like the concept of change, Love, Truth and all other things that have no concrete physical appearance in our world. I am putting forth the idea that without a deep understanding of respect everything we do is muddied, a little or alot. A master/ disciple relationship is directly concerned with opening the door to this understanding. It is about entering on a path to self mastery. That is not possible if you do not have complete honesty and respect with and for yourself and your master. If this was easy then everyone walking around would be masters, but they are not. Respect is not any easy thing to get your mind around unless you are just in the very beginning stages of thinking about it or if you just don't think about it at all. I think that most peoples understanding of respect is very shallow and that it has not permeated all aspects of their being. I think that is a safe statement to say. The average person does not really understand the concept of respect. Does not understand it deeply. They play around in the shallows of it and refuse to go into the deep end or are simply unaware that there is a deep end. Going into the deep end of it requires alot of work and change from within. It requires a transformation from within. That is scary business for most people, and /or just not something they are concerned with. People might think that they want to be in a loving relationship, or that they want to be honest and good, or that they want to be happy, but they don't want to do the inner searching and transforming that is required to make those things possible. They want the change to come from outside themselves. They want to win the lotto, for the red light to change faster, for their girlfriend or boyfriend to be more like this or that, to lose weight on some wonder diet that allows them to eat ice cream and chocolate, for their kids to be perfect angels, to be 'lucky'.



Hey Vince, I don't sound like a wahnamite.....it is not my fault if your underdeveloped mind is not capable of understanding me. It is like casting pearls before swine here...I feel like i have played a symphony on my lute to a bunch of water buffaloes till my fingers bled...uhhhh i mean Sorry man i didn't mean to come off like that.

Anyway i came back to the forum and started on the thread about Tamo but that vanished from my last day results and i saw this. It is obviously an interesting thread but I didn't want to just be another Viewer and not participate. I have been trying to participate in a way that take sthis whole thing above the original discussion of WKK being a Cultmeister, but as Arhat posted earlier it is a rich vein of comedy. So every now and then I throw in some Wahnam humour. But really i don't intend to offend any of them that are reading this. It is just humour and not meant to be taken seriously.

The thing that was most revealing to me about Doc clarifying your statements as opinion was that it indirectly means that he knows that they are reading this. Otherwise you could say whatever you want and who would know?

ANyways.... Breaks over now....

Peace!
Bhodi

[juszczec]

Re: Mark...

Originally posted by arhat
most of the deeper, root level concepts of Ch'an are universally applicable

I've found, if you are open minded enough, this is true of many religions/philosophies.

one doesn't need a cultural filter to understand why we bow with one hand, or to gain a benefit from the story.

Yes you do.

If you take the same story: teacher, student, self mutilation by student to show fitness to study, and put it in 21st century Canada and you'll have people saying the student is crazy.

Then they'll ask "so, are we to honor a crazy man?"

When someone tells you they are a sensei,

They'd better be able to demonstrate a high level of skill. Just like anyone who presents themself as some kind of expert or teacher.

and they are 22 yrs old, I think you come to a different conclusion than say if that person were 72 and they say they are a sensei.

You need to observe and listen. I've seen very capable 22 year old MA, and incompetent 72 MA, and vice versa.

Even in my own culture, the word Master has not lost it's meaning- for example in the art world, if a 22 yr old apprentice of a recognized Master comes up to me and says that they are a Master painter, I will have difficulty believing them. Through their work they had better exhibit mastery, because if they do not, then they will be soundly trounced critically by those who ARE masters.

But in the MA world, the titles have become so commonplace they have lost their meaning. And there is no standard to assigning them.

In any case, gong fu, as far as I can tell, is not in the condition that many other asian martial arts is in.

Sure it is. Someone's student called him sifu. Some say its ok, others do not. And, a couple of months ago, didn't y'all discuss 2 Shaolin Grandmasters who appeared on the cover of Black Belt magazine?

If you don't think its going on, open the phone book and tell me how many Kung Fu Sifu, Master, Grand Master, Great Grand Master etc are listed in ads in the Martial Arts section.

Mark

[bhodi]

the one armed man did it!!!

Most people, no matter what your cultural background, would agree that cutting off your arm to prove that you are worthy of being someones student is just craazy! DO you think this is common practice in china ? there are tons of one armed disciples running around?

I am completely able to understand the story and I am not from china. I grew up in NY. I am white.

All it takes is moving past the initial responce and some interest in the why of it!! Of course it sounds crazy! It did to me at first to. If you present it in the way you did above or even in its entirety the whole story sounds crazy and most everybody will agree with you. That does not mean that when you become more familiar with it you don't realize the concept, the reason the story is told.

Concepts bridge cultures.

Unfortunately you are right about the Sifu and grandmaster problem and there is alot of abuse that is possible because there is this lack of understanding. But this would be true even if there was not a cultural filter on the situation. There are plenty of crackpot artists who sell work because they are able to convince someone that they are a master. There are plenty of crackpot doctors out there as well. The abuse is rampant in our society. It is not just martial arts and certainly not just arts that have another culture as their origin.


Bhodi

[Maestro]

reply

gonna reply real quick here cause i got an appointment..

but bodhi man use some spacing jesus how can you teach these kids when you cant even write?

anyway..i dont think that story you posted by whomever it was, was a very accurate assumption of what "is"

for one priests..gurus..or whatever teach actions because actions speak louder then words or thoughts, plenty of people think things this way or that way..or think they are this or that, or see themselves in this light or that, but when it comes down to it, most people are far from what they think their "being" is

it is neccesary for people like buddha, christ, lao tzu etc to show us the way, the goal inhand..etc

but its for other men priests and such to help us get there..thats why they teach action, not "being"..for most people you cant just jump right into it and be enlightened and say..oh yea im in touch with my inner self bla bla bla bla..

it is hardwork like you said, and that "hardwork" that you mentioned is what priests/gurus/spiritual advisors etc are for..they are there to GUIDE YOU, to help your ACTIONS become REALITY

the person who wrote that story is a little off..right away condeming anyone who prays in church to be dillusional, maybe some people just concentrate better in a silent peace atmosphere

why does doc go all the way to china, up in the mountains, with his master to train in gung fu

when he could easily do the same thing(without his master..) here

he goes there because he is comfortable there, he likes it there, being there in that place and time and whatever obviously helps him get what he wants from his training..if it didnt..then wed have pictures of doc training in the rockys or something

but we dont...

anyway i gotta cut this short now gotta get outta here..

peace

[juszczec]

Re: Respect

Originally posted by bhodi
Really? You want me to explain this?

Yes. Please do.

As far as cultural customs having to do with respect.... I suggest that many people within our own culture do not understand the significance of the "polite" actions that they use every day to denote respect.

Do you mean understand where they came from? If so, I agree.

I can relate to you a greek fable and the concept still remains intact. This is because we understand that a fable has a moral lesson and the story has no other purpose. But if people stopped understanding the lessons and just kept telling the story out of tradition we would have a problem similar to calling someone Shifu or sifu jkust because they instruct a student or class.

But what is important? The message or the story?

What is important, whether your teacher can be considered a master by 10 out of 10 peopled polled or if he can provide you with the training you want.

As long as you get what you want, titles don't matter.

Organizations do tend to assign their own titles internally but that doesn't mean that there should not be a commonality between the titles distributed in like fields. Obviously doctors have a certain standard even though some doctors are better than others. Of course sometimes people fall through the cracks but for the most part we have standards that must be reached before a title is given. This works in many other disciplines and so why not in the martial arts? Because we don't expect it to? And so this is allright?

There are no such global standards in MA. They are set at the organization level. Organizations won't agree because they'll be trying to protect their own business turf and not give any advantage to their competitors.

And regardless of titles, each person will ultimately use their own judgement as to if this teacher is worth studying with.

Also, the problem of who is qualified and who is not is much more important with a medical doctor. Its nowhere near the same importance with someone teaching MA.

As far as only being able to understand a concept because of the culture you were raised in ????I think that is nonsense.

In Japan it is acceptable to kill yourself if your business fails.

Explain that to Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch and get them to go along with it.

The problem is not many people are intrested in knowing or know at all, because just like in our culture people have certain behaviours, not because they have some understanding, but because it was taught to them....usually without any explanation.

Agreed.

When so and so talks you say YEs Sifu! Or Yes Sir! Can your average person explain why? Ask them and then see how far their definition of respect goes.

Agreed.

Now tell me how its important to learning.

Mark

[arhat]

you know...I've been thinking...

...maybe I will get a bird...just for the left hair horn though, I don't want to be ostentatious.

Hey!! That's it, a new ranking system. I will now be called Grandmaster Arhat, 39th Dan One Bird Hair Horn. Once soem other kung fu cats catch on then I will of course add birds as the need arises so that I am always ahead.

Please make note of this for all your future correspondence with me. Don't show me your crotch when I serve you cookies. And whatever you do, if you don't want me to flip out and start chopping off heads , DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT call or refer to me as GMA39DOBHH or I will teleport right to you, play really loud air guitar, then chop off your head while GuanYin and I smoke dope and laugh while writing gangsta raps with Jesus. Needless to say, if you call me that I won't accept you as a student.

[doc]

Am I going to have to change the "russbo.com god" status to your new title, oh great one? And shall I start selling gold pants, with extra long belts that will hold 39 stripes in the new upcoming docstore?

We bow before you, oh exalted one with the horns.

[Maestro]

lol

lol

[lester1/2jr]

I like the guys who you have to keep bowing till they say it's okay to stop.

[prajna]

Yan Xin

I heard Yan Xin was taught by Hai Deng. Is this true? Were there any other contemporary masters taught by him (inc. monks)?

[Bungle]

I kinda feeling bad for starting this whole thread so i apoligise to wahnam students and Wong Kiew Kit for bad mouthing them. I was probaly out of order and i had no basis for it. Doesn't mean that you guys made some good points. I guess no organization is perfect...