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.