Michael L. Raposa

In this extraordinary alloy of philosophical reflection, historical synthesis, ans spiritual guide, Michael Raposa, himself a martial arts practitioner, provides a fascinating approach to understanding the conection between martial arts and meditation in such diverse dicsiplines as Japanese aikido, Chinese tai chi chuan, Hindu yoga, Christian asceticism, Zen Buddhism, and Islamic jihad.

The relationship between meditation and the martial arts ia multifaceted one: meditation is one of the practices in which martial artists engage in order to prepare for combat, while the physical exercises consituting much of the discipline of the martial arts might well be considered meditative practices. Raposa suggests there is a sense in which meditation may in turn be considered a form of combat, citing a variety of spiritual disciplines that are not strictly classified as 'martial arts' yet that make heavy use of martial images and categories as part of their self-description.

What happens when spiritual discipline is appropriated as exercise for health or recreation? How might prayer, meditation, and ritual be understood as martial activites?

What is the nature of confllict, and who is the enemy? These are some of the questions Raposa raised and responds to in Meditation and the Martial Arts, his rumination on the martial arts as meditative practice and meditation as a martial discipline.

Michael L. Raposa, Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University, is the author of Peirce's Philosophy of Religion and Boredom and the Relilgious Imagination (Virginia).

Contents

Preface
Introduction
1 The Way of Spiritual harmony
2 Daoist moving meditation
3 Yoga/Zen/Jihad
4 The spiritual combat
5 Toward a moral equivalent of war
Postlude: On the concept of peace
Notes
Index… (altro)