WHAT IS THE SUBTLE BODY TO US?

It is not possible to meditate in the grips of the ‘Fight or Flight response.

WHAT IS THE SUBTLE BODY?

More extraordinary minds than mine have pondered this experience.

A ‘subtle body’ of sorts has been part of humanities perception from the dawn of civilisation, we come across it in such diverse instances as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan book of the Dead, Buddhist meditation, Taoist alchemy, Tantric Yoga, the Jewish Kabballah, the esoteric writings of Gurdjieff to the magic of Alister Crowly and the ‘Order of the Golden Dawn’.

Nobody knows what it is but all of us have experienced it or something akin to it at some time or another and many of us have a sneaking feeling that it could be real.

Try this.

Sit in your favourite chair, close your eyes, and ‘relax’.

Imagine that there is a knock at the door, still using your imagination get up, walk across the room and answer the door.

Who got up and opened the door?

It was the ‘Subtle Body’.

We cannot and indeed should not separate Kung Fu from the people that formulated it, the Shaolin Monks, it was their lived experience that created Kung Fu.

The constant danger of attack from bandits was a central part of their lived experience.

Physically working hard every day was a central part of their lived experience.

Training every day was a central part of their lived experience.

Practising Dhyāna/Chan/Zen was a central part of their lived experience.

Unfortunately, we cannot trust any of the histories that are put forward about the Shaolin Monks. On many occasions, the monastery was razed to the ground and all authentic written histories lost.

What we can safely accept is that they did work and train hard every day and they did practice Dhyāna/Chan/Zen every day.

If we apply modern sports science/sports medicine thinking to these two facts alone we find that hard training creates an abundance of Cortisol in the body.
Cortisol hangs around for a long time, more than 24 hours and the monks trained every day.
Cortisol is a stress hormone similar to adrenalin and is a precursor to the ‘fight or flight’ response.
If all the monks did was train hard they would be permanently in a ‘Flight or fight’ mindset.

Dhyāna/Chan/Zen is a practice that is known to decrease Cortisol.

Despite Kung Fu movie depiction, Shaolin Monks were spiritual people living in violent times, their main goal was meditation, fighting was an ugly but necessary evil {usually, but not always, performed by a secular section of the order}.

It is not possible to meditate in the grips of the ‘fight or flight response.

The practice of Dhyāna/Chan/Zen, or what today is often referred to as ‘Mindfulness” was not an aid to the Monk’s Kung Fu, on the contrary, it was an antidote to the Monk’s Kung Fu.

The more secular monks no doubt found that their Dhyāna/Chan/Zen practice had mental benefits to their physical practice so some cross-pollination becomes inevitable.

It is also inevitable that some of the monks would have lost limbs in clashes, so the lost limb syndrome, although it would not be seen as such at that time, could well account for the manifestation of the subtle body to the less spiritual monks.

Food for thought.

Your mileage may vary.

WE MUST AIM TO BE EQUAL TO THE LARGENESS OF THE THINGS AROUND US.