Why spirituality is difficult for modern men

When I was a boy, my hero was Bruce Lee. I can attribute it to my father. We were too poor to waste money on commercial video, so we did what most working class families did: we recorded movies on VHS whenever they aired on TV. When I was 4, that movie was Enter the Dragon.

In the film, Lee plays a high proficient Shaolin martial artist and instructor. He is approached by British Intelligence to infiltrate the island of Han, an apostate who has descended into murder and corruption. Released in 1973, it is the most successful martial-arts film of all time.

Western studios have a complicated relationship with censorship. Decades later, I rediscovered the film on DVD, packaged with its deleted scenes - the most important being a conversation Lee has with his Shaolin teacher. Lee is asked a series of penetrating questions:

“What is the highest technique you hope to achieve?”
“To have no technique.”
“What are your thoughts when facing an opponent?”
“There is no opponent.”
“And why is that?”
“Because the word ‘I’ does not exist.”

It is symptomatic of modern society that such rich dialogue was removed. Lee was equally adept in athletic and intellectual pursuits; perhaps excluding his insights was an attempt to avoid confusion in modern audiences.

For me it is an allegory of how modern society approaches spirituality for men. Rather than pinning it to a stature of utmost importance, it has become a footnote in society.

Last year, I staffed a weekend-long personal development event that promised to ‘open (my) mind, body and senses to new experiences’. I found engaging workshops, intriguing speakers, a sense of community, and fabulous people.

Yet I left the weekend with a sense of frustration.

Take nothing away from the workshops themselves, they were wonderful. But the event itself was led by a pair of women. The workshops were mostly facilitated by women. A majority of the participants were women.

Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic to be in such a diverse, inclusive space. But I but I felt my body unshakedn, my spirit unstirred. I sensed the cavity of the absent masculine. The messages I received were not designed for the consciousness of men: raw, brutal and savage and beautiful.

The masculine grows through challenge. Let’s not forget that.

The masculine grows through challenge, grit, through grinding through the stones of everyday life. Men grow when they put themselves under pressure. They will persist when they check in and see that their paths are in tune with their actions.

The world is a reflection of who they are.

If they are on the wrong path the world will feel meaningless.

The most intense pressure of them all?
Their inner selves. Their inner worlds. The flip from action, into surrender. Surrender into themselves.

It’s as if we hold that mirror up close to our face, and see into our own eyes. Into our own void, our own selves.

Men grow when they are presented with themselves, with the truth, without filter.
Men grow when they see their limits, their mortality, their meaning.
Men grow when the weight of themselves cuts them so deep, carving a new awareness.

Men grow from wounding.

When men work together, they form the energy of brotherhood. To hold each other to account, to raw truth, to self-determination.

Men wound each other with truth.

Looking back at my journey, the experiences that hit home, that had a profound impact: they happened away from daily life.

I grew in darkness, away from light, away from view. It happened in secret, with secret words, secret rituals. They were gifts given to me when the night was darkest, when the void became a mirror that reflected me to myself.

Myself as a mirror, my self becoming a mirror.

Modern wellness and spirituality speaks of growth, of spreading wings and finding potential. But my experiences tell me there is value in contraction as a means to transform. There is value in wounding. There is value in unlearning. There is value in minimalism.