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ZEN-SHIDO
THE WARRIOR'S WAY...
Due
to our hard core approach to personal protection and hand to hand
combat, we have been accused of having no philosophy and being nothing
more than a blood and guts mutation of the traditional realm. I
beg to differ. There is reason behind our madness.
According to the Webster dictionary, the definition of philosophy
is: A study of the processes governing thought and conduct; theory
or investigation of the principles or laws that regulate the universe
and underlie all knowledge and reality; included in the study are
aesthetics, ethics, logic, metaphysics etc.
Wow… when Master Sensei expressed that Senshido had no philosophy
behind it and that his art’s philosophy is: "Never look
for trouble, but if it comes, be ready." Or, "Only use
your skills to defend yourself and help others". We had to
ask ourselves these questions: Is that the answer that Plato spent
his life looking for? Did Jean-Paul Sartre miss that concept? Is
that what the Epicureans are missing in their life? Hmmmm. I think
not.
A personal philosophy is acquired through participating in the struggles
of life. Hard work, rigorous training, your interaction with your
partners, teachers and coaches will play a part and affect your
perceptions of life, but still, it is a small part of the equation
of life. The journey is where you will develop your philosophies.
Change, or rather, the willingness to change is where it all begins.
The Warrior's mind set..........
"We
are where we should be, doing what we should be doing, or else,
we’d be somewhere else doing something else."
Where
you are today is where you chose to be. Directly or indirectly,
the choices we made in life were ours. It is called free will.
In order to have a total understanding of Senshido one must first
come to understand themselves. Senshido is a vehicle towards that
path. Introspection is imperative to those who walk the Warrior’s
way. Most people are conditioned by their fears, values and beliefs.
As Dan Millman brilliantly states in his book "Way of the Peaceful
Warrior" "The human mind is their predicament".
There is however, a considerable difference, between the "mind"
and the brain. We posses a brain that directs the body, processes
information and stores that information. We refer to the brain’s
transcendent process as the "intellect." The brain and
the mind are different. The brain is real; the mind is our perceptions
of the brains processed information. The "mind" is nothing
more than an illusory development of our basic cerebral process.
It comprises all of our random, uncontrolled and unproductive thoughts
that surge into our awareness from our subconscious. Consciousness,
attention and awareness are not part of the ‘mind’. The
mind for the most part, becomes an obstruction and aggravation to
our daily lives. It is an evolutionary mistake in the human beings
development. We have no productive use for the fettered mind. The
difference is, warriors let it go and others cling to it.
Look at children for example, when we come into this world we are
born knowing only life. The infant’s gift for learning is incontestable.
Perceptive and keen observation of children can reveal the sources
to their natural abilities. We can see that the child’s body
is relaxed, free of limitations and preconceived obstructions and
therefore sensitive and receptive. The child has no established
or learned concepts, yet. Their unbridled emotions account for great
motivational energies. The child learns complex patterns of speech
and movement quite easily and rapidly and doesn’t yet understand
the terms ‘quit’ or ‘failure’. The child doesn’t
see the ‘impossibility’ of their tasks, if they did, we’d
all be crawling and goo goo gagaing right now.
We were once that natural being, the child, remember? Our potentials
were practically unlimited in any field of endeavor (learning to
walk or communicate through speech for example) but then something
happened. The socialization process that gave us essential information
also, unfortunately, inflicted upon us fears, neuro-associations,
concepts, attitudes and beliefs that drew us out of our natural
patterns.
Our ‘minds’ formed an illusory self-concept; we learned
to criticize ourselves; we began to fear failure; we placed (thanks
to society) the wrong ideologies of life inside our ‘minds’.
These emotional constrictions and inhibitions resulted in physical
tension and dis-ease.
As we aged, we began to struggle with what we considered problematic
and developed a variety of psycho/emotional-physical imbalances
and compensations. I.e. lower back pains, muscular tension, headaches,
stomach problems, ulcers etc. True consciousness is a sensitivity
of the entire organism achieved through cognitive clarity and emotional
intuition, all of which are spiritually linked together. If it were
nothing but an intellectual (logical) affair, then babies would
never be able to learn.
The adult ‘mind’ is comprised of compulsive, random and
usually problematic thoughts. If we remain blind to our weaknesses,
we cannot correct them. The longer we accept failure, the more difficult
it becomes to experience success. This compulsive attention to the
‘minds’ moods and impulses is a basic error. If we persist
to give into these thoughts created by the mind, then we remain
ourselves and change never occurs, I cannot fathom a worse fate.
The true warrior welcomes change, always willing to sacrifice who
he is today for whom he can become tomorrow. This process can begin
with the art of disillusionment.
Disillusion is a liberation which in turn helps our evolutionary
process. However, because of our emotional attachment to illusions,
we consider the term disillusion negative. The word dis-illusion
precisely states a freeing from illusion. Yet people tend to cling
to their illusions letting them take them where they may when clearly
it is best to let them go rather than hang on to these prejudiced
illusions. Reality is where life happens and if we are anywhere
but there, we suffer, whether it is in the short or long term.
Most
of humanity suffers in silence; we do not, in essence, fully enjoy
our lives. For some, their entertainment’s; the gym, reading
a book, movies, sex, are not really entertainment but simply methods
of escape. Temporary ways to distract us from our underlying sense
of fear and reality, a reality that is not congruous to our objectives
of happiness. Life has become nothing more than mundane habit and
routine. Before we know it 50 or 60 years have gone by and we have
no idea what happened or where it all went. Our obsessive search
for distraction and escape from the predicament of change, the dilemma
of life and death, seeking a purpose, financial security and trying
to make sense of the mystery has diluted our natural sense of being
and happiness. This belief in the exterior has diminished our individuality.
People are mesmerized by their own confused and mental processes.
This acceptance of the ‘status quo’ just because it is
deemed normal by society’s terms does not necessarily nor automatically
make it right. What is right for others may not be right for you.
Knowledge
and Wisdom are two different things. Knowledge is strictly one-dimensional.
It is the comprehension of the intellect. Anyone with an average
IQ can acquire knowledge. Wisdom on the other hand is three-dimensional.
It is the holistic comprehension of the mental, emotional and physical.
It comes only from experience. We are prisoners of our own misimpressions
and we cannot see these constrictions we have imposed on ourselves
because they are deeply rooted from our childhood. These constrictions
are then never dealt with accordingly unless they are pointed out
- and even then, people choose to ignore them. The path of least
resistance is often confused with immediate action that will cause
temporary discomfort but be beneficial in the long run. It’s
the old band aid analogy. Remove fast and hard or take it off real
slow.
All
random thoughts that distract us are self-imposed. When the mind
resists life, thoughts arise; when something happens to conflict
with a belief that is not congruous to our happiness, turmoil and
inner conflict sets in. It is fascinating to see one persisting
on hanging on to and defending a self they don’t even believe
in. A self that has created a self-imposed ideology of fear and
limitation. Change is imminent, only the mind is threatened by change.
We have many habits that weaken us; the secret to change is to focus
all our energy, not on ridding ourselves of the old, but on building
the new. Guns and Roses said it best when they sang "Slipping
farther & farther away, it’s a miracle how long we can
stay in a world our mind's created in a world that’s full of
shit."
Cerebral
talent through logical processing emerges as we gain facility in
diminishing our archaic habit patterns so that we no longer feel
compelled to give attention to the obstructions and limitations
which are self-creations of our own minds caused by society’s
imposed beliefs. (Okay, now take a breath after such a long sentence).
Self-conceptualization and the self-fulfilling prophecy are something
I learned about in psychology. It is a very common psychological
phenomenon. It basically states that our progress in life tends
to be directly co-related and consistent with our expectations.
Whether we believe we can do something or not, we are right. The
first step is to realize that we own the power to define our boundaries
and capabilities. We must then challenge our self-imposed limitations
and understand that we deserve better than to be constrained by
unreasonable fears, expectations of failure and feelings of unworthiness.
The third step is to accept and make the necessary changes required
for self-improvement.
If one concentrates on the impossibility of the achievement one
will most certainly experience failure. One of my guys, Ronnie,
was competing in a grappling tournament and was easily winning fight
after fight. There was however one competitor there who had a "reputation"
for being a bad ass. Not to mention he was twice Ronnie’s size.
Ronnie immediately began to concentrate on the impossibility of
the achievement rather than on the moment at hand. Needless to say
he lost that fight when he could have easily won it. Other competitors
who Ronnie easily beat prior to the event did very well against
the same guy.
It was painfully obvious that an elective self-concept had imposed
itself on Ronnie, shattering his confidence and in turn, his victory.
When this happens, one can surrender to it, ignore it, resist it
or use it and learn from it. If you surrender to it (which is what
Ronnie had done in that particular case) you will inevitably create
your reality and your past will become your future. If you ignore
it, the self-concept will continue to have subtle effects causing
you continuous dis-ease. If you resist it, you will waste energy
(reason being why people frequently feel fatigue and laziness).
One should use it fully. Experience its energy then cut through
it by changing the accustomed act. Learn to do what you didn’t
believe you could do and the word "can’t" will lose
its power over your life.
Our concerns of the future are valid until they become compulsive
or obsessive. Reading the future is based on a realistic perception
of the present. Don’t be concerned with the future until you
can clearly see and comprehend the present.
"Unless we change our direction we are likely to end up
where we are headed."
CHINESE PROVERB
This
quote is very powerful and true.
"Mushin" in Japanese is the term for ‘No mind’.
Living life in the now and understanding that there are no ordinary
moments is imperative to a healthy soul. And as James O’barr
so poetically put it, "There is more than one way to purify
the soul. There is absolution and redemption, salvation and a means
to an end; and if these axioms are of opposing polarities, then
there is at least some consolation in the fact that they all have
a common ground." Death. Our final journey. Unfortunately for
some, the only inner peace they will ever know.
Bruce
lee said that "In seeking out truth one must search with the
heart and seek with the inner eye." In the long history of
martial arts, the instinct to follow and imitate seems to be inherent
in most martial artists, instructors and students alike. This is
partly due to human tendency and partly because of the steep traditions
behind the myriad’s of styles and systems. Consequently, to
find a refreshing and original teacher becomes somewhat of a rarity.
The need for a pointer of the truth is for many, blatantly apparent
and since no one really owns the truth, then it is out there for
anyone to seek, acquire and teach when understood and turned from
knowledge to wisdom.
I leave
you again with Bruce Lee’s words.
"Absorb
what is useful, disregard the rest and add what is specifically
your own."
Train
Intelligently and diligently.
Richard
Dimitri
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