Zen Moments in Martial Arts and the Lost Art of Forgetting
April 25, 2010
“A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!” – A Zen Parable
From the time we are young, life is a process of accumulation. We acquire knowledge, physical skills, and material possessions. Success in this world often depends on accumulating more than those around you. Wealth and knowledge are associated with power. Innocence and ignorance are only charming traits in children.
A white belt, fresh in off the street, enters a martial arts studio for a variety of reasons. Some students seek self defense instruction, some seek improved health and fitness, and some look for a guiding light or deeper spiritual guidance. A good martial arts system should be able to provide all of these things and more.
Most martial arts systems are terribly oblivious to the needs of a new student, in the same way perhaps a language school may first teach you how to converse with other students and talk about personal interests before you learn how to order food in a restaurant. These skills are essential and will come in handy, but you need to learn to survive first, and from there proceed to develop a cohesive framework of understanding.
There are a few martial arts systems that focus solely on self defense training. Most others offer more to a student than survival skills. They offer physical education and the fundamentals of proper body structure and power theory. They offer philosophical principles that can provide not only principles of application of martial techniques, but also moral principles governing the use of those techniques. And last but not least, they provide dogma in the form of training theory and physical technique. This dogma makes the white belt very strong, and consequently, the black belt very weak.
Education in the west is a process of methodical indoctrination. All subjects are analyzed, deconstructed, and the pieces are spoon fed to students. By studying the parts, and eventually adding them together to arrive at a picture of the whole, the student gains confidence and control over his field of study…if he is in fact capable of reconstructing the parts. A martial arts novice may learn three basic kicks, three blocks, and one or two hand techniques. These techniques are the core of the art, the foundation upon which the rest will be built.
The student practices these techniques class after class until proficient. He/she begins to fight under controlled scenarios to apply these techniques on resisting opponents. If he’s diligent and conscientious, he’ll rise to the head of the class and dominate classmates, and occasionally, teachers. His web of knowledge and ability to perform is better developed and more intricate than his peers. He has broken down the stuff of combat and reconstructed it piece by piece. While this game may be nourishing to his ego, it squelches his spirit. His mind is increasingly boxed in and robotic. And then it happens…
He fights someone more advanced, or from a different background than himself, or worse, he’s confronted with a no-rules fight-for-your-life self defense situation. His opponent’s movements are unorthodox and confusing. His rhythms are different. His footwork is strange. And he’s not holding back or respecting rules of engagement. And everything he knows is ineffective.
He can’t defend himself. Now for someone who has more than 5 to 10 years of training, hundreds of hours of fighting under his belt, and can break brick with his hands, head, and feet, his problem is not physical limitation. He has the power to kill his opponent with the right strike. He just can’t find and apply the right strike. More often than not this leads to frustration and doubt, and if humiliating or painful enough, the student will denounce his system and seek out one that seems more complete.
In truth he possesses all the tools he’ll ever need. But he’s grown into the mold…mentally. His mind is incapable of letting go, of adapting, of forgetting his years of conditioning. His fights are regurgitations of the past; he is never operating fully in the present. A return to the present, learning to see combat as undivided, life as undivided…and new, learning to live fully in the now and forget the past is the key to transcending one’s system, and one’s ego.
Seeing beyond (or forgetting) the ‘self’ is the key to perceiving immediate truth, as well as acting and reacting without limitation, despite the fact that one’s technical base is finite. I know of only two ways to arrive at this that bear relevancy to martial arts training. One is to fight, fight hard, and fight until doing so feels no different to you than meeting a friend for coffee. Experience will put to sleep all concern of life and death, of victory and defeat, and you’ll be left with a free mind capable of grasping the infinite.
Experience fighting (expand the metaphor to any other craft if you wish) will teach you to let go of your fears, and with them, your ego, and to rely on intuition and immediate perception. Your techniques will flow naturally and effortlessly. The other method of achieving effortless action in martial arts, and again, life, is religious (in the agnostic sense) meditation. Proper meditation is the art of forgetting and the fresh experience of undivided reality. Meditation is tasting the strawberry.
For those new to meditation and interested in reading more, please refer to my previous article on meditation – Meditation for Beginners: Meditations for Peace, Power, and Martial Arts
Comments
Got something to say?