Cultivation of Spirit: A Martial Arts Perspective

Every person knows the importance of training their body and a fair few also know the benefit of expanding the mind but how many of us take the time to work on cultivating the spirit? This article is aimed more at martial artist and is written as such however the information is still useful for people that may find themselves seeking something more.

Now it is important to clarify that the spirit I am talking about here does not have quite the same context that one would find in a religious sense but rather more akin to the Chinese term shén (神). Unfortunately English can be limited in the expression of terms and the use of shén makes more sense as it encompasses the idea of spirit and consciousness into one (amongst many more things but we are not here for a linguistics lesson).

Having (hopefully) established the idea of spirit above the next natural question is, how does one cultivate spirit? Like most things in life, it is often easier said than done.

My personal belief from nearly thirty years of training and what I teach my students is that spirit is cultivated through the actions we undertake and how to undertake them. Meditation is the most obvious action one can take to cultivate spirit but simply helping others and doing the right thing also cultivate the spirit.

Martial arts has always been about self control, self discipline and self mastery. Ultimately, one should train from a place of benevolence which means to become an upstanding member of society and to help others whenever possible. If you are helping someone for the sake of reward or because you want to get views and likes on social media (as an example) then you are actually corroding your spirit. It would be a fair assessment to say that many in the world want to know “what’s in it for me?” and as such doing the right thing because it is right is becoming a lot rarer but this also means such acts are so much more meaningful and worth striving towards.

Your spiritual growth is directly linked to your physical and mental development, think of them as three legs of a tripod. If you grow physically but fail to develop mind set then you may be prone to violence. If you grow mentally but fail to train your body then you may not have the will to carry through with your convictions. Spiritual cultivation comes last as it is often the wall many martial artist hit after they become highly skilled. “What do I do now?” “What is left to learn?””Why do I feel stuck?”.

If you find yourself asking the above questions or feeling that way then it is likely you need to focus more on spiritual cultivation. Look inward, offer to teach your skills to the right people who could use guidance, offer a helping hand to your community if possible.

Always remember that mastery of martial arts is the mastery of life. You are taught to train your body in order to allow your mind to focus and when you have given both enough time and attention, grow the spirit in addition to continuing to train body and mind.