"In the world before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when its feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet again, as endless aeons wheeled and passed. Time and the pure essences of Heaven all worked upon a certain rock, old as creation. It became magically fertile. The first egg was named 'Thought'. Tathagata Buddha, the Father Buddha said, 'With our thoughts, we make the world.' Elemental forces caused the egg to hatch. From it came a stone monkey. The nature of monkey was irrepressible!!"
Such were the words kicking off the recently-attended workshop on philosophy and martial arts: a presentation about martial arts and media/pop culture, with an eye specifically toward a popular TV series in Australia called "Monkey," based on the 16th century Chinese novel "Journey to the West."
What with having monkey on the brain (not = "monkey mind"), and monkey tokens popping up all around (thanks, Dan!), you can imagine my walking into the conference room the first morning to see projected on the wall big as day the logo "Monkey" from that TV series. It was just hilarious. I go halfway across the globe, and still can't get away from the monkey.
If you'd like to see a video of the intro, complete with a bit of the show's theme song "Monkey Magic," see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iUMWy4hqAg&feature=player_embedded
Well, to hear the monkey affiliated with the nature of irrepressibility sounds quite acceptable, as opposed to its other connotations with chaos. Because - thinking rather fancifully - if I'm psychologically channelling monkeyness somehow, and my thoughts are also all about the all-good, then I'm all about being irrepressibly all-good. Right on! And according to the tale, the Monkey became a buddha too, in the end. That's not half-bad, either.
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