Buddhism in Choy Lee Fut

I was having a conversation the other night, and the idea of buddhism in choy lee fut came up. The question was where is the "Buddhism" in the system?

is it only with certain postures? can postures be primarily buddhist as opposed to taoist?


does any one (meaning schools) promote the buddhist belief whether it be chan family, hung sing or buk sing?

The reason why i ask is because if it is there, i don't see it. Possibly because im not a buddhist.

The chan chan family will claim choy fook, the hung sing family will claim Ching Cho, so lets avoid that place for a moment and stay focused on the task at hand.


hsk

Bai Faat Jeung

thats just a move. im not talking about hand techniques.

im speaking about buddhism.

thanks

are you talking about techneques that are linked to buddhist poses?

According to the Chan Family history, Chan Heung was a very strong Buddhist. However, I don't believe that kung fu in itself can be inherently buddhist.

so the best we can say about choy lee fut buddhism is that its only in our roots?

i can understand postures referring to buddha, i was just wondering what buddhist aspects are in the choy lee fut system.

thanks ben.

frank

Terms such as Fut Jeung and the various Lohan names are descriptive from their resemblance to Buddhist statues. If you think about it logically, Taoism deals largely in the natural, and with the relationships between things (it is after all more accurately a philosophy than a religion), so a physical activity such as martial arts can be Taoist, but Buddhism deals largely with the self and the spirit, so it would be very hard for any physical activity to be implicitly Buddhist (I know this is a gross over-simplification, but you get the point).
Yes, some people claim to have gained Zen enlightenment through Kung Fu, but then people have claimed Zen enlightenment through marathon running :rolleyes:

Chan(zen) thought, Chan breath. every action is to hold buddhist practise, practising gong fu, hitting rocks, meditation all are buddhist practise with the heart behind it. or you are just practising or doing things on the surface level with nothing behind it.

jueng hung sings teacher after sifu chan was a monk in hiding after temples burned by the goverment. was esential to train the mind in for building strong morals in one who is to learn such deadly MA techniques

all i was asking is where does the buddhism fit into choy lee fut aside from the fact that we come from the shaolin temple.

i don't know what you practice, but i practice what i practice, then i practice some more.


hsk

i don't practice gung fu in mind. what i have in mind is taking care of business. and if taking care of business means im a buddhist, then ah mi to fo.

all these threads seem to go round in circle, very zen no:)

they probley go round in circles because people have the wanting to know, but cant understand it yet. its not so easy for words to tell you what is buddhism in practise of gongfu, CLF or other systems, its somthing you will understand yourself if you truly wish to. buddhism isnt exacty a part, or somthing solid that can be said, "hey, there is is in CLF" this is why i say it is practised in everything, i hope you can find out what this means.

buddhist practices have been stripped out of a lot of kungfu. there's a couple fo reasons for it.

The glaring one being the non acceptance of other religious beliefs in so called christian countries. Just look at how many articles are asociating satanism with kungfu practice already. It's gotten to the point where people are putting christian symbology all obver their gis like karate guys put yin yangs and dragons all over theirs and their nakme patches etc etc as an outward show that there is no connection between martial arts and other thought or philosophy.


the buddhism in kungfu is not in any sort of scriptural teaching. It is mostly in the practice of kungfu as a form of transformation, cultivation and awareness of the buddha nature within oneself and the hard core buddhist practice in kungfu is Ch'an (zen) meditation for the purpose of revealing to the self teh buddha nature.

the forms, etc etc are vehicles to these epiphanies as you will find success and failure in equal portions and in so doing, you come to a greater understanding of yourself through your capabilities and limitations.

But, if you want to ad dharma lessons or sutra lessons to your kungfu class, maybe you should arrange with your local buddhist temple to give your teachings there in tandem with theirs.