Charles Johnsons' The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Chapter CHINA

RESEARCH FOR 'NO MASS:COSMIC GAMES"

by: Paul Dewitt Goree

In Johnson's work The Sorcerer's Apprentice, chapter CHINA: Johnson details the social complications one African Man is going through, as he attempts to internalize ZEN philosophy and eventually obtain a Black Belt.  The complications are primarily between him and his wife. My favorite part in this story is:

Randolph (the husband) had been attempting to perfect his meditation stages (with the correct breathing stages). His wife Evelyn slowly grew intolerant of his sudden change in behavior. One day while he was excelling at the meditation stage, she confronted him stating (in words or less): " WHAT DO YOU FIND SO "INTERESTING" IN THERE, THAT YOU WON'T COME OUT AND BE WITH THE REST OF US!"  This statement explains everything, that would eventually resolve all of the couples complications.

While in a meditative state, one MUST block out all external factors (to a zero frequency state). Especially audio. The most difficult verbal audio to block out are insults, shame, etc. More so difficult, nearly impossible until perfected is the isolation factors of emotion love one, friends and family member will express: seeming they will not know what your intentions are-but will fully appreciate your dedication once you accomplish meditation.

Meditation is similar to Internal Reflective Dialoguing (I.R.D). Sigmund Freud called I.R.D, Self analysis (http://icpla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Anzieu-D.-The-Dream-of-Irmas-Injection-pp.-131-155.pdf) which he did with himself, upon himself. The difference between I.R.D and meditation: Meditation attempts to remove all external factors from the mind. A total blankness. This includes all the sensory receptors (eyes, ears, smell, taste, touch) leaving total space for six sensory receptions (soul instinct).

(J.Hillman-http://www.personaltransformation.com/james_hillman.html). I.R.D attempts to allow the soul/mind to reflect upon self achievements, loses, and life errors without an external presence. No SUPER-EGO to alter, or reflect what a social norm of expectation requires. The Super-Ego can lower a persons self worth/self-esteem or it can raise confidence within a person.

The following is taken from Johnson's work, explaining the story of CHINA and the African American identity...-In “China,” Johnson combines realism and humor with Oriental philosophy to weave a tale of a middle-aged black couple in Seattle, Evelyn and Rudolph Jackson. At the outset of the story, both are ill, though Rudolph, who holds a post-office job, is clearly nearer death than Evelyn. Suffering from flat feet, high blood pressure and emphysema, all diseases caused by his job and diet, Rudolph is smitten when he sees a kung-fu film. Avidly taking up the discipline of the martial arts, he conquers and transforms himself physically and spiritually. Forging his body and mind into a new shape and power, Rudolph successfully defies the limitations of the cultural assumptions and customs he learned in Hodges, South Carolina, where he and Evelyn grew up. Evelyn, unfortunately, remains locked into those assumptions and limitations, unable to escape the role of middle-aged Christian black housewife until, in the end, she witnesses the gravity-defying, culture-defying leap of her husband “twenty feet off the ground in a perfect flying kick.”

“China” illustrates the power of consciousness over body and spirit and the destructiveness of American culture for blacks who have accepted the limitations which it teaches. Interweaving Oriental philosophy with concepts and terminology from the Eastern martial arts (which he has himself practiced for a number of years), Johnson introduces the idea of existential freedom for the black man and, with it, a new identity. As Rudolph asks a frightened and protesting Evelyn at one point in the story: “I can only be what I’ve been? . . . Only what I was in Hodges?” The answer comes from the self, from Rudolph’s strength and independent desires: “I only want to be what I can be,” he tells Evelyn, “which isn’t the greatest fighter in the world, only the fighter I can be.” Despite the seriousness of this theme, Johnson uses humor to portray the marital and sexual relationship of Evelyn and Rudolph, both of whom have fed too long on “a heavy meal of pig’s feet and mashed potatoes.”

With “China,” “Althia” illustrates the traps of black identity in America: the lack of opportunities and freedom, the “life that led predictably to either (a) drugs, (b) a Post Office job, (c) Marion Prison, (d) Sunset Cemetery (all black), or (e) the ooga-booga of Christianity.” Both the first-person narrator in “Althia” and Rudolph in “China” break free from these restrictions. Where Rudolph masters his body and mind, transforming his physical and spiritual health, the narrator in “Althia” frees himself from a denial of his bleak Chicago roots and confronts, in middle age, the physical, sexual self he has repressed.

In my work, NO MASS: COSMIC GAMES (http://paulgorrr.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-gamesting-operation-no-mass-cosmic.html) ...I detail KIASI-SPIRITUAL KIAIS, the soul shouting out to the universe. Such as in a 'PRAY', 'WISH', or 'PRAISE'.