Kung fu training like Shaolin monks (video)

BBC Shaolin Temple documentary; Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew, Wisdom Quarterly

If you must fight, fight Kilesa Mara.

You have just arrived at the secret Dragon School, Shaolin Temple West, Los Angeles. First, you will be stripped of all of your possessions and attachments. Let go.

Next your head will be shaved, and you will bathe with hemp soap, tooth powder, and baking soda. Next you will be assigned a martial arts uniform.

Finally, you will be taken into a dark room with rickety desks, dull coal pencils, and rough hempen paper. You will compose a letter to your mother. One to your spouse or romantic partner(s). Another to your circle of children, relations, and friends.

Then they will all be incinerated in front of your eyes in the fireplace. It's meditation time.

I'll bite your head off and spit down your neck

The meditation master is fierce but looks soft and has a tremendous bald head and emotionless voice. Sensei will say: "You will be meditating 20 hours* a day.

Lunch is doled out at 10:30 am. It is the only meal of the day. You have 20 minutes to consume it with absolute mindfulness and in silence.

• *How could someone meditate for 20 hours? "Meditation" (bhavana, cultivation, self-development) means mindfulness in all activities. Intensive sitting meditation or zazen for developing zen ("absorption," dhyana, samadhi, ch'an) is one subsection of this.

Himalayan salt and kala namak black Indian salt are the only allowable seasonings. No processed foods are ever served, no white rice, only vegetables in their natural state, mushrooms, soaked, rinsed, and sprouted nuts and beans, and roots like ginger and beets.

(NatGeo) Go vegan: meat harms body's superhuman training practices.

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Following food intake, walking meditation begins with the practice of mindfulness of body: remain dispassionately aware of all bodily positions like an impersonal watcher, curious and attentive but not questioning or evaluating.

To follow the Way of the Tao, all that is needed is conscious awareness, wakefulness, and vigilance. Kung fu training begins in the morning. We wake up at 4:00 am.

Eating Plants or Meat

Veg Out LA Magazine shows vegan diet.

Need meat to be strong? That myth is crushed with three words: Secular Shaolin disciples. Shaolin is a Zen Buddhist kung fu training center. The monastery's first abbot was the Indian Buddhist monk Batuo teaching the Nikayas. He was followed by Bodhidharma, who came from the West. Both were Southern Indian.

The clip is from the National Geographic documentary "Myths and Logic of Shaolin Kung Fu." For centuries, Shaolin trainees have followed Buddhist and Taoist principles and spiritual practices, which includes a delicious, harmless, compassionate plant-based (vegan, no animal product) diet.