This essay investigates three transmissions of esoteric movement from the perspective that the religious, theatrical, and martial arts of China are a single subject. This is a comparative and speculative exploration of personal practice... more
This essay investigates three transmissions of esoteric movement from the perspective that the religious, theatrical, and martial arts of China are a single subject. This is a comparative and speculative exploration of personal practice contextualized by current scholarship. The practices we examine are healing exercises (daoyin) as taught by American Daoist and Buddhist initiate Liu Ming (1947-- 2015), those taught by American martial arts and yoga teacher Paulie Zink (b. 1954), as well as Himalayan Rigdzin Trulkhor transmitted by the Tibetan Buddhist sage Jigmé Lingpa (1729-1798) in the 18th century. We selected these practices for both systemic and phenomenological reasons: they have strong structural similarities, they treat the body in correlate ways and their effects on the practitioner are similar.
