Mushin, No Mind, & the Secret of Living Well

The Zen expression 'mushin' is an important and valuable idea worthy of understanding for those who wish to attain balance and excellence in life and art. The term 'mushin' translated to English means 'no mind.' Many martial artists work hard to attain this magical state where the mind is no longer thinking on the ordinary level, where the mind is, in fact, functioning at such a high level that it is essentially not thinking at all. When a martial artist enters this state, he is able to fight with absolute power and magnificence because his mind is not conscious of itself and the body and the mind function together in the absolute fighting power of 'mushin' or 'no mind.'

Artists and athletes also work hard to obtain this delicious state of consciousness and often refer to it as "being in the flow." When in the flow state, the athlete can go beyond his or her limitations to achieve great feats of physical prowess by shutting off the mind to external ideas and having no mind at all. The mind becomes subordinate to the body and follows its instinctive lead. A writer is able to achieve this sometimes too, if the writer is very lucky, when the words are being written in a state of consciousness that defies normal explanation. You are able to perfect your craft in ways formerly unprecedented by turning off the mind to everything except the writing and finally turning it off even to the thoughts involved and leting the writing 'flow.'

The Buddha spoke a great deal about the importance of non-thought. He once asked, "How can you know what you believe, if you are thinking all the time?" This makes perfect sense to me because if your brain is constanty churning over everything, you can't stop long enough just to be and to believe.

The magical secret to living well, to performing well, is mushin. Thinking less and acting more.

Finding Courage



Courage is grace under fire. --Hemingway

Life itself, the very act of living, takes courage. When love is the rarest quantity on earth and every action involving other people seems like war, you must dig deep to find the strength and the boldness to go on.

During WWII, the British were under air attack by German forces. The year was 1939, and these attacks were brutal and relentless. Many lives were lost. Thanks be to God that some of the brave men who fought during that war lived to tell of how they found the courage to move forward when it seemed that their entire world was literally crumbling around them.

On the Military Channel yesterday in a documentary series entitled The World at War, I listened as one brave British soldier described how it felt to routinely hear each morning of many, many friends and comrades being killed while flying above Britain and fighting to stay alive and save their people and country. He said that it became so routine and so astonishingly predictable that they simply had to deal with it as "business as usual." He said that they would say to one another upon hearing the grave news, "Ah well, old so-and-so has had it. That's that, I suppose." While this may sound crushingly indifferent, you have to understand that to survive, these men had to accept their losses courageously. And sometimes courage means hardening oneself to circumstances.

Anytime we face adversity, we are tested for courage. My greatest moments of adversity occured inside a prison cell. And having courage at that point was the difference between life and death for me. To survive imprisonment, one must take a hard, cold look at the circumstances and adapt to them rather quickly, or else, one will crack up. That's that. 

Living inside a cage will test everything you are, and nothing in life can compare to it. But if you do survive it, you have got some courage in you. That is for sure. So, for me personally, no matter what I face--brutes who try to steal from me, bosses who turn out to be lying criminals, lovers who stab me in the back, sickness that is killing in its power--no matter any of these, I have courage to face them. And the fact that I am still standing is a miracle of courage.

The only things I write about are the things I know, and I know this: Never assume you have courage until you've run the gauntlet. Never back away from the gauntlet once you have it before you. And never act like you have it all under control if you don't. Fear is a useful gift. If you are afraid, you may survive your Waterloo. If you are foolish enough to think you are fearless, you are dead in the water.

Practice inner calm and absolute mental control, call upon the name of the Lord, and then fight. Fight for all you're worth. Fight to the death if need be.

Namaste.

Gazing Past Death



Miura Bull--Death on 4 Legs



One day, we all must face our own mortality and look ultimately into the blank space which lies beyond death. Whether you believe in an after-life, a God, a saint, or something else, you know that your days here are numbered, and no amount of praying or hoping will alter that number. The problem is: You don't know what day that will be, so you must live as though this hour, this day, may be your very last.

What if you had to confront that possibility today? Imagine at this instant that you are not yourself but rather a bullfighter, not just an average matador but a fearless one--a Belmonte or a Manolete. You walk into the arena with your picadors and your horse, your bandarillos. From across the arena, a large wooden door flies open and a gigantic animal with fire in his eyes and horns on his head comes charging toward you. Right now, this instant, and not a second later or tomorrow, you will confront your own possible demise. What makes you able to stand your ground? What gives you the strength and the strange nobility to look into death's eyes and dance with it?

Only a Manolete or Belmonte would be able to answer these questions, but we can learn something enormously important from what they did with their lives. Their actions--brave, noble, and powerful--stand as living testimonies to the strength of the human mind and soul against death. If you can take your very soul into your hands and confront whatever you fear most in this life, you can overcome it. You may not be able to defeat death (though you might be able to cheat him a time or two), but you can face him like a man. You can stare him down. You can stand your ground.

There is no such thing as a free and easy ride in this life. Sickness can drop on you like a ballpeen hammer and crush your skull, your soul, and your heart in one swift blow. Will anyone come to take your place at that hour? Hardly. The trick is to be ready for whatever comes, to accept it, face it, and gaze past it to what comes next.

Remembering A Great Poet



Charles Bukowski, American Poet

He had a ravaged face, a face which expressed all that words could not. It was a face that spoke of pain, of difficulty, but never once of defeat. Charles "Hank" Bukowski was a great poet, a national treasure, more to be treasured perhaps than most other poets I can think of, because he took the fist in the chin, the elbow to the gut, and he smiled through all the pain, kept writing, kept trying, never once gave up or in. I loved him, though I never met him. His words offer me something other writers never give me--honesty, real simple, true honesty.

A man of wild temperament, a Depression-era hoodlum with bad skin, a beautiful soul with a depth and a gentleness that his eyes did not always show. Fueled by alcohol and women, he said his writing was the "residue" after the experiences themselves, and oh what sublime residue.

Bukowski, for all you left behind in your words, thank you. For never giving up or giving in, thank you. For sharing your truth--sometimes ugly, sometimes beautiful, sometimes too harsh to read--thank you.

And for getting me through this past week of food poisoning, you were my sole companion in those long afternoons, I love you.

Here's to you, Hank!

Bluebird

by Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Oneness

We come into the world naked and alone. Some of us seek ardently for a union with another being. We seek such a union with friends, with parents, with sisters, with lovers. Some people, however, have no interest in union, and seek only to satisfy the desires of their own flesh. They seek only for their own contentment without ever considering that it causes separateness and sorrow rather than oneness and joy.

We will only find peace and lasting inner harmony by seeking oneness. If you wish to know the secret to understanding whether an action is good or bad, then know this: All actions that lead toward oneness are good. And all actions that lead to separation and multiplicity are bad. It is that simple.

A man who is interested only in feeding his stomach and goes into a house, kills and robs the people who live there, and then goes home to eat, drink, and be merry is of course performing an action that leads to the darkest and most sorrowful separation. No oneness can be achieved through such a selfish, senseless act.

Alternately, a man who gives himself entirely to helping those in his life who are in need is performing an action of the highest good, an action that leads to oneness.

Lovemaking is an act of oneness when it is performed as an act of love and worship of the other. Rape, on the other hand, or even simple domination and control of the other, is an act of separation and cannot ever lead to union or oneness.

Lies told to others are also actions that lead only to separation and never to oneness. To anyone who wants to lie and to control others, I can only say this: Lie all you want. Control all you want. But your actions will never lead to oneness and will only bring the worst kinds of karma to you.

We have free will, but we also must acknowledge that we have to face certain realities. One such reality is that if you wish to find soul satisfaction, love, and peace in this life, you should act always out of a desire for oneness with others, with all other people, with all living creatures.

When you deify your actions, when you make them sacred, you become united with everyone and everything, and most of all, you become united with the Divine. From that center, you can never fail.

Face the Brutes!

“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly.--Swamiji Vivekananda

The world is what we believe it is. If we see it as a harsh place where no beauty can exist for long, then that is what the world will be for us. If we see it as a place where the brutes will always stamp us out, then it will be such a world to us. The world is merely a manifestation of what is within us. If a baby is lying in a cradle and he is happily sucking his bottle, and suddenly a thief comes in and steals the furniture in the room and all the paintings on the walls, the baby sees no thief. The baby does not believe in or know of thieves, so no thieves exist. Such is the power of the unsocialized mind. We need to go back to our own infancy in the way we see the world. See it as a place where our minds give us control and not as a place where we are controlled willy-nilly by the thoughts and actions of others.

David faced the brute Goliath and slayed him with one stone. He beheaded him before all his people to their astonishment. Why? Because he believed with all his soul that he could. Why? Because he believed that God would support him and would make it so. Like David, we must know we can achieve anything. We must be fearless. This is not a polyana attitude for sissies and prisses. It is the truth. If you believe, if you have faith in God and yourself, you can never be defeated.

Fear is useless. Fear must be channeled into action. So, as the great Swamiji Vivekananda says, "Face the brutes!" Never run from them. Look them in the eye and dare them to continue. Dare them!

Control & Abandonment

Manolete--A Bullfighter for All Seasons

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. ~Buddha

The intense battle to control one's own passions is the most important battle that any human being will fight. To master oneself is to master the universe. Without the ability to keep one's emotions, fears, insecurities and desires in control, we can never move one inch toward freedom.

Take the bullfighter. Is their any greater symbol of self-control in the world? One solitary man walks alone into a huge, crowded arena to face a man-eating machine bred solely to fight and kill. It is an either/or proposition: Him or the Bull. Only one of them will walk out alive, and the only thing between the two of them is a cape and a small sword which he will use in the later part of the fight. Is the bullfighter without fear? Absolutely not. Manolete, one of the greatest bullfighters to have ever lived, said that he was always afraid when he entered the ring. If he hadn't been, he theorized, he would have been killed immediately. The control of his fear, the use of that fear in the service of his art form, is what made Manolete great. Ultimately, he was killed by a fine bull, a torro bravo. But before he died, he showed the meaning of courage--of self-control.

Another example of the conquest of fear is that of the professional boxer. All the great ones will tell you that when they enter the ring, they are afraid, but through self-control, constant practice, nerves of steel, and strategy, they can use all of their fears in the service of their art. The result: a beautiful fight. If you don't believe boxers have fear, go have a look at some of Mike Tyson's early fights when he hit opponents so hard that they were literally standing in the corner crying!

In the practice of yoga, a form of spiritual and mental discipline, I find the ability to control myself. Yoga means in its literal translation "yoke," and the idea behind all forms of yoga is to unite or yoke oneself with the Divine. Through this practice, absolute mental self-control may be achieved, and then absolute freedom.

No freedom, no evolution, no movement forward in this life is possible without self-control. I have fears, just like everyone else, but I refuse to allow them to conquer me. When you truly seek freedom, you must sit down and go within. You must acknowledge your demons one by one, and conquer them utterly.

Self-control and restraint do not mean repression and avoidance. On the contrary, they mean acceptance, acknowledgement, and ultimately conquest.

To be a warrior is to fight. To be a hero is to conquer the self so that fighting is unnecessary.

Namaste.

Madness & Civilization



Charenton Asylum--Former Residence of the Marquis de Sade



The reasoning man who scorns the prejudices of simpletons necessarily becomes the enemy of simpletons; he must expect as much, and laugh at the inevitable.
— Marquis de Sade

My manner of thinking, so you say, cannot be approved. Do you suppose I care? A poor fool indeed is he who adopts a manner of thinking for others!
— Marquis de Sade

During the Age of Reason (beginning around 1700 and running through to the early 19th century), a new form of punishment was found for individuals whom society found less than desirable. This punishment was simple: TO EJECT FROM SOCIETY ANYONE WHO DID NOT FOLLOW THE BOURGEOIS ORDER. And where were they ejected to? Since there were no more leper colonies, or lazar houses, society had to find a new residence for them, if residence such a place can be called. Thus was born the House of Confinement, a quasi-jail/institution. Such houses were scattered across all of Europe, but particularly found in Germany, France, and England. These houses were set up as a "reasonable, intelligent society's" place for hiding away those who were "unreasonable."

As it turns out, houses of confinement contained all manner of people, from simple beggars to epileptics to unwed mothers and of course the entirely insane. No distinctions were made among the inhabitants. At the time, "patients" would have been the wrong word for them because they were neither treated for their woes nor cured of them. They were merely being closed off from the rest of society. Most of the time, it was the unfortunate soul's family or neighbors who wanted them put away. And with minimal difficulty, they were put away in droves.

One of the most famous such houses was Charenton in France, made famous most of all by their most notorious inhabitant, the Marquis de Sade. At Charenton, he was placed in a cell and treated as though he were a raging lunatic. But the reality was that Sade was simply a man quite ahead of his time in his honesty and in his realistic (albeit sometimes pornographic) writings about human behavior. The truth was, however, that Sade was merely a creative person who wanted the freedom to produce his art.

For his troubles, he was placed in an asylum where he eventually died. Along the way, the only entertainment or hope he found was in writing and in helping write and direct plays which the inhabitants performed and the house of confinement profited from when shown to the general public for a fee.

What do you think? Was he insane? Were any of the people placed in these houses of confinement truly mad, and if so, how did those in power justify not helping them except by punishing and using them for their own amusement?

There are many who argue that the whole notion of madness is a figment of society's imagination, that those deemed "mad" are simply those who don't toe the proverbial line. There are many, Michel Foucault among them, who point out that what is considered mad at one time shifts and changes depending on the prevailing power group of the day.

There well may be those who are mad, who aren't fit for civilization, but aside from the individuals who are criminal in their actions--i.e. murderers, psychopaths, sociopaths and rapists among them--I can't really say with great certainty how one goes about defining insanity.

To be candid, I don't think the psychiatric community and the DSM are able to do it successfully either. Why must we label people anyway? Personally, I think it's crazier to spend one's life trying to collect and then eject people whom one doesn't agree with than it is to write dirty books. After all, Sade's work stands as a hallmark of literature from that period. And it still sells A LOT. So, how mad could he be?

Warriors

Throughout the ages, there have always been those who attempt to harm others with cruel weapons and harsh language. There have been those who have placed in a cage anyone who disagreed with them. There have been governments and despots who did everything in their considerable power to stamp out the beauty of the human spirit. But they NEVER succeeded in stamping the human spirit out entirely. The reason? Because the eternal spirit in man cannot be stamped out and destroyed.

In the worst times, heroes are born. Think of the people--normal men and women--who had to fight to survive the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. The people who survived were not in any way unique or special except for in one key area: They had the courage to live and they fought for it. Perhaps they had to do things that were incomprehensible to survive. BUT THEY DID SURVIVE. And thanks to their bravery, the Jews, the Poles, the gays, the artists, the intellectuals of Germany and the surrounding countries went on to rebuild their lives and created more art, more life, more thought, and more beauty.

Perhaps the reason these extraordinary people survived such an ordeal is that they wanted and needed to tell the truth of what happened to them. I think that is a beautiful and noble reason to fight for life.

No matter how far against the wall you feel pressed, you must have the will and the courage to fight!

Never give up. Always ask questions. Demand answers. Refuse pity.

The best revenge is a good life.

You are Lions!

Come up, O lions, and shake off the delusion that you are sheep; you are souls immortal, spirits free, blest and eternal; ye are not matter, ye are not bodies; matter is your servant, not you the servant of matter.--Swami Vivekananda

There is an old Indian proverb about a baby lion who believed he was a sheep. When the young lion cub was born, his mother died soon after. Seeing the poor lion wandering alone and having no mother to help him understand the world, a loving and kind herd of sheep raised him among their own. He grew into a beautiful and fine lion, but he thought he was a sheep. So, all day, he ate grass and went 'bahhhhhhhhhh.' Finally, after many years, an older lion was watching from above the flock upon a high cliff and saw the poor little lion among the sheep eating grass and behaving just like them. He was shocked by this sight, so, later that day, the lion went down to fetch the lion and took him to a stream of water.

"Look," the lion told him, "You are not a sheep. You are a lion!"

The younger lion saw himself and he let out a loud roar! He understood in an instant that like the lion who showed him who he truly was, he embodied all that was strong and courageous. He knew he was the king of beasts. And so he left the sheep and embraced his own strength as a lion.

Like the little lion who thought he was a sheep, we sometimes tend to see ourselves as weak and powerless creatures. Life can be harder than we ever anticipated. And we find at every turn people who wish to harm us, people who treat us like helpless sheep. But we are NOT sheep, as Swami Vivekananda tells us so brilliantly in his writings. We are LIONS!

Anything in this life that adds to our strength is good! We must be strong always, strong enough to defeat any and all obstacles, strong enough to let go of bad habits and people, strong enough to fight if necessary for what we believe in.

And, as Vivekananda tells us frequently in his work, anything in this life that weakens us must be cut away from our lives. Whether it be a person, a drug addiction, a bad relationship, a terrible boss, a horrid job, a cruel spouse, or anything else. In short, you must cut these things from your life with a long, sharp sword and never again allow them to interfere in your world again.

We are strong! We are lions! We must love one another and we must be strong enough to fight against anyone who threatens to take away our love, our strength, and our goodness.

As Hemingway wrote, "Courage is grace under fire." Be bold and never back down.

Namaste.

Decoding Wrath

Ah, the sweet satisfaction of wrath, of anger, of unfiltered hostility, of hate! There is a part of our brains--the amygdale--that is so powerful and so overwhelming in its ferocity that it can shake the other parts of our cerebrum to specks of dust. This primitive anger center exists in animals and it existed in our forebears since the beginning of time. Some argue it is the amygdale to which we owe our survival. Others say it is our self-control which made our species survive, and that the development in modern man of the frontal cortex is what helps us keep anger in check.

But, if you've ever known the sweet satisfaction of rage expressed, then you know how it feels when anger takes hold. At such moments, our brains become like tiny infernos that burn hot and want expression!  But, the fall-out from a total expression of rage is usually too graphic to be explained except to say it is primitive and almost animal in its honesty.

War is supposedly the ultimate expression of anger, or is it?

When the Spartans took their 300 to Thermopole and dished out an incredible fury on the Persians for attempting to invade them, the result was bloody. Leonidas and his brave Spartans gave up their lives for the freedom of their fellow men and women. It is known as the greatest last stand in history.

But was it rage that drove them to fight? According to historic records, the Spartans were the greatest fighters to have ever lived. Yet, it seems that it was their CONTROL of rage which gave them such incredible power on the battlefield.

According to historians, before each battle, the Spartans, in full battle attire, listened to soft string instruments playing melodious tunes to soothe them and keep them calm. Apparently, their strategies and their feats of strength came not from rage but from its opposite--stoic calm and absolute determination. And for them, then, killing their enemies was an unemotional experience and therefore they were almost always undefeated.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that on the field of battle, the person who has compassion for the other side will be the winner of the war. It seems that the Gita is saying: When in battle, it is the person or group who can retain their calm and even their humanity who will conquer the day.

I would have to agree. In life, it is the man or woman who exercises the greatest self-control who will win. It is the person who refuses to give in to emotion or hysteria who will conquer the odds.

Namaste!

In Memoriam: Amy Winehouse

"Kill all my demons and my angels might die too." ~Tennessee Williams

Amy Winehouse's brief candle blew out forever last week, and we are all a little poorer for the loss of such a talented young artist. Her candle was, I thought, a beautiful candle. Somehow, it seems that Amy's demons--dark and frightening though they were--are what gave such soul and passion to her music.

In artistic terms, she accomplished enormous success in a short period of time. She was catapulted to stardom and then a stream of lights fell behind her as her demons continued chasing her. Alas, she did not outrun them. 

The world has been harsh with her. The day after her death, I was standing on the check-out line buying a magazine with her photo on the front. It was a way for me to say farewell to her somehow. The young clerk looked at the magazine cover and said with an almost malicious tone that, "She was just a dope addict," as if somehow this made her death less tragic or less worthy of sympathy. It made me sad.

The public sometimes devours the very creatures it wants to take pleasure in. Amy gave pleasure to her listeners over and over again, yet her every flaw and problem was magnfied and judged harshly by the self-same public. 

It seems like people wanted to kill Amy's demons for her. When she soulfully sang,"They're trying to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no,"  everyone loved her. Yet, the song reveals perhaps what Amy felt even from the beginning of her fame--that people wanted to take away the darker aspects of her somehow, and that it would make her better, cleaner for public consumption. How CRUEL!

I contend that her demons are what made her beautiful and they are what fueled her art. In attempting to kill them, she lost her angels as well as her demons. It is a tragedy. And I wish she were still alive to go on singing her melodies.

Fly away home, sweet Amy. "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." (Hamlet)