Contemplating Rings
Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings holds a lot of wisdom that would be of interest to the contemplative student. Marvel’s commitment to transcendental meditation is showing up in beautiful ways in their storytelling. Those deep in their mindfulness study will find affinity with seeing the mystic potential in action. The basic premise is that a powerful, structured war machine is set against the mystical, nature-based, god realms. Shang Chi and his Sister are in the liminal space between their father’s thirst for power and their mother’s divinity. An area that we as sons and daughters of the earth find ourselves in against the forces of the military-industrial complex that is only intent on mindlessly extracting resources no matter what cost and our human need for divine connection to our better nature.
The movie opens with the story of Xu Wenwu’s, Shang Chi’s father, accumulation of power for a thousand years. He becomes obsessed with the idea that there is a martial arts of the gods. So he goes in pursuit of the mythical Ta Lo whose gates are only opened during the Qingming Festival, which is the spring festival where one honors their dead. It makes sense that Ta Lo would only be accessible during this time as it sits as guardian between the living creatures of the underworld. One cannot ignore that one of the most notable modern protests in recent memory, Tiananmen Square, happened during this festival. That protest took place because the counterrevolutionaries believed that the limitations of mourning imposed by the communist party were dishonoring the memory of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. To dishonor the ancestors and their rites is to dishonor civil rights itself.
Qingming is the line of demarcation for certain teas, dragonwell being one, prized for being picked before the festival. The earlier season teas are considered to have a more complex and bright flavor. There is a purity to the newness of the tea, so it is here that the intrinsic beauty of the leaf is closest to the gods. The intersection between tea and peace is well known in the eastern world. I learned at Naropa’s tea ceremony that the tea house was a place where weapons were forbidden. Marvel hits the poetics out of the park here showing that Phase Four is really committed to these moments of deep contemplation. What does it mean to be pure enough to enter Ta Lo?
Moral purity is at the heart of Xu Wenwu’s soul. His bardo journey to seek the martial arts of the gods starts in the everchanging bamboo forest. The forest has a defense mechanism whereby it pushes out travelers who find themselves wandering its paths. While the actions of the forest are defensive rather than offensive, it is worth noting that it is where one can see the powers that Nature in the god realms has—one of aggressive protectors. The notion of a maze or labyrinth to the higher realms should resonate with mindfulness students who often find themselves in a walking meditation pondering a paradox, like a moving forest. All of Wenwu’s team is killed going over a cliff, and it is he, along with his rings, who survives the ordeal. It is here where he accidentally wanders into Ta Lo and finds himself facing Ying Li.
Ying Li, whose name indicates clever heroism, uses a mix of martial arts styles to defeat Wenwu, but it is symbolic that Baguazhang dominates her style for it is considered yin-the divine feminine. Wenwu tries multiple times to overpower her, and she deftly can use his energy to her advantage and gain purchase in the fight. As a protector of Ta Lo, she can master the wind and redirect it as a weapon. He eventually shoots all his rings at her, which she can Matrix slow-motion avoid and then command. She spins them into a chi energy ball and defeats him using his powers. The mystical intent of Thai Chi is how she masters the rings and converts them into an atom of energy.
Wenwu is deemed too unworthy of living in the idyllic Ta Lo, so he and Ying Li each give up their center of powers to live an everyday life watching movies and playing games as a family. What is left unresolved is why Wenwu makes zero attempts to become worthy of being in Ta Lo, he is resigned to being bound to his past. This past catches up to him when the Iron Gang kills Ying Li as she defends her children. Shang Chi watches her death from the safety of his hiding spot and stays with her body until his father comes. Together they track down the killers and Wenwu kills them while his young son watches on. Wenwu retreats to his power-hungry ways, and Shang Chi participates in intensive martial arts training administered by Death Dealer. Death Dealer is the opposite of his mother in training, even down to the details of their masks. He wears a mask that covers his eyes, whereas Ying Li wears one covering her mouth. Like many men he is blind and she like many women has her voice silenced. This metaphor inherently belongs to all of us, where we have the innate divinity of idyllic gods, then as humanity, we have added a constricting opposite patriarchal worldview that oppresses our innate motherly training. His father tasks Shang Chi with revenge. The horror of this task has him leaving his family when he is 14, this breaks his sister Xu.
Death Dealer and Wenwu ignore Xu Xialing as their limited worldview only leaves room for male warriors. She trains in secret, learning to integrate her powers into her fighting style as she is freed from the dogma of Ten Rings’ Terrorism. Students of Wing Chun would resonate with this history as their empty-handed form is attributed to a Shaolin nun who sought peace and not continued aggression. Xu tells her brother that she can feel her mother when she is fighting as if her training were a download from a more powerful class. We see the power of this open-handed yin form when Ying is teaching Shang Chi. Ta Lo’s peaceful spiritual warriors is similar to Naropa’s founder’s visions of both warriors and Shambala.
Where does the mystical son fleeing oppression goes? The only place one can go, San Francisco? This is where we find Shaun, the American pseudonym of Shang Chi, and his down-to-earth best friend, Katy. San Francisco is home to robust expressions of Asian communities, and cross-cultural pollination allows it to be a place where one can recreate one’s identity. Students of esoteric Vajrayana Buddhism know how interconnected the philosophy is with the San Francisco Beat scene. Of course, it is also the place of countercultural thinking and revolutionary action which Comic Book Writers of the Silver and Bronze era peppered into their storylines. Destiny can only be held off for so long, even in the dense cover of mundane existence, and Shaun’s pendant is stolen from him in an epic battle on a Muni bus. This plunges him and Katy back into Shaun’s past, where he must warn his sister of the potential danger her pendant may pose for her. Shang meets his sister in the dueling ring of her underground club called the Golden Daggers, where she quickly trounces him in the main ring. The Ten Rings and Wenwu capture both pendants and siblings.
Wenwu has brought his children together because their pendants unlock the holographic water simulation instructions that indicate the golden path back to their mother’s home Ta Lo. Their father has been convinced that Ying Li is begging him to save her from the guardians of Ta Lo. As Wenwu carries the shame of unworthiness, he can only see Ta Lo as this group of evil people preventing him from possessing his most genuine desire, his wife, no matter how disordered. We can see the parallels between the male-dominated, pleasure-seeking, spiritual materialism of today’s power structures when they come across the more sacred, mysterious, female equitable evolution of utopia. That disordered desire that blinds one to the consequences of their individual and selfish actions against the greater good is the disorder that plagues our existing culture. The Ten Rings gang find themselves obeying the madness of a power-hungry empire even when it is directly against their interests. Fear dominates all decision making which is how they create terror.
Katy, Shang, and Xu do not obey the Ten Rings’ power structure; instead, they choose to be guided by Morris, an ancient Chinese creature who has no face and four wings. They yield to the unknown mystery of their maternal linage no matter how its contrasted against the dominant version of reality. This surrendering to their peaceful warriorship and bravery in the face of the fates allows them to pass through the forest and into the loving community of Ta Lo. It is their very act of humility and humanity that makes them worthy of the god realms. Unlike their power-hungry father, they see the innate and intrinsic value of this utopia their mother helms from. Under the tutelage of their aunt Ying Nan and the village elders, each of them can settle into their power. Katy finds herself aiming true at the throat of destiny. This is a place where she hits her marks instead of floundering. Xu is finally on equal footing as a warrior and she masters her favorite weapon, the rope dart. At First, Shang has a hard time with this because he is out of alignment with his true self. He has not faced the internal pain caused by being forced to become a death dealer. It is Katy who finally pierces the illusionary veil for him and he comes into alignment. Finally, Shang receives the maternal dose of training, the crane style from his aunt, and he masters the elements.
Wenwu invades Ta Lo and pushes his way to the gate of the Dweller-in-Darkness. He blindly, like a spoilt child, pounds at the door with all the power of the Ten Rings. Doing this releases the Soul-Suckers who immediately and indiscriminately attack the human souls to feed them to the endlessly hungry ghost that is the Dweller-in-Darkness. If this all sounds familiar it is because this is what power always does, behaves in ways that discount the other humans around them in order to satisfy that which will always dwell in darkness. There is no feeding of the leviathan that will ever sate its desire for more souls. It uses every seduction, every lie, every bit of love and connection to separate humans from their sacred selves. Even his children are not enough reason to stop his selfish madness, like every poisoner on earth who blindly destroys our climate no matter how it might impact the next generation. The only way forward is unity and even the henchmen take the side of Ta Lo, leaving Wenwu alone facing the monsters of his madness. That is the only fate possible to such an empty human, being devoured by the terrors of their making. It is being swallowed whole while your family watches in horror. Karma is unkind to those who seek to deny the reality of the spiritual responsibility that power entails. Wenwu’s disordered worldview is why he was deemed unworthy for the god realms because when one exercises power in evil ways, it marks the soul. There are consequences to evil empires whose only function is the amassing of power and being disconnected from humanity and eventually love itself is the punishment. It is a lonely void instead of a generative village.
In the end, the Great Protector is awakened and defeats the Dweller-in-Darkness. The Great Protector, in the form of the serpentine divine feminine, is aided by all of the villages who work together in order to kill the Soul Suckers. The Dweller is again safely guarded by Ta Lo. The Ten Rings are now in the possession of one of Ta Lo’s own sons, Shang Chi, and the women, Katy, Xu, and Ying Nan who make up the collective destiny. When Shang Chi and Katy are faced with the opportunity to follow Wong deeper into the mysteries of Marvel’s universe they answer the hero’s call. The rings find their home in one who yields, and in this act, there is hope for all the worlds.
The lesson for today’s spiritual warrior is that the collective in touch with its divine destiny is more powerful and the ugly war machine. Each of us, like Wenwu’s henchmen, can turn our back on the systems of terror and stand in brotherhood. The creatures that suck our souls to feed hungry ghosts are never as powerful as collective love. This reader is your destiny as well.
