Just before the turn of the century, we held a ten-hour black belt test outdoors, mid-winter. We started before dawn. The ice and snow under our feet made a nice smooth surface for training.
At that time I had taken four of the five steps leading to Zen ordination. I was introduced to Zen at the dojo of Shoshin Nagamine, in Naha, Okinawa. I trained in the US and with Sogen Sakiyama Roshi of Shuri, Okinawa. I was training in karate as a kind of moving Zen. This was a well-worn path in tradition Japanese budo. It was a natural step to train karate as sesshin, 接心, – as an extended meditation retreat.
There was nothing religious in it. No mention was ever made of religion, belief, or sect. It was advanced training, for skill, strength and focus.
There were 30 or 40 black belts active in the dojo at that time. They were used to hard training, but this day was unusual for us.
The power of the preoccupations that assail the mind, the distractions that pull at the body and senses, all diminish in the heat of training, subsumed in the will to persist. Moving continuously for ten periods of fifty minutes each, worked. When we were done, as the steam rose from our sweating bodies, as the stillness and silence enveloped us like an ocean or the sky, we were different.
We were not all doing the same thing. For some it was a demanding, physical endurance training, like running a marathon. For some it was also training in intense focus, stabilizing the mind, and then entering into a state of flow: exalted, spontaneous and joyful.
Because of the limits of Zen as it was handed down, (the omission of instruction in mind training technique, and the nullification of practice zeal with the doctrine of pre-existing perfection), no one went further.
Now we can. So, 25 years later, we have an opportunity to do extended training again. This time with a fresh understanding, and a new path.
The move from “keeping the form” – what I had learned in training, teaching and leadership early on – to “breaking the form” was a necessary step I took years ago.
Now, with propitious circumstances, persistent training and investigation, the threshold of “departing from the form” is evident.
(For a description of this sequence of practice see “The Original Shu Ha Ri 守破離”.)
That old dojo, which formed the foundation of my training and was the crucible of its transformation, that dojo in which I kept the form and began to break the form, foundered in the shallows.
It then became necessary for me to train and study alone in the desert, for eight years. And then to begin again, growing a new dojo, planting a new garden from seeds.
The process requires cultivation, done every day, and there is no guarantee of success. Like a garden, good results do not come from force or cleverness, but through persistence and skill, from providing nourishment, under the right conditions. There is no place for hurry or hesitation. You just persist.
Now, for strong people, motivated to challenge their limits, deepen their training and their lives, it is possible once again to take on the challenge of deep training: for the rewards of physical ability, technical skill, spontaneous execution of action in flow and beyond, to insight training, exploring the most profound and fruitful dimensions of experience.
Over the course of my career in martial arts and meditation people have inquired about me: “Who the hell is this guy?” Who is he to question convention? Tradition? Received wisdom in technique? In mind training? Who is he to do without institutional imprimatur!?
Four hundred years ago my friend Bashō kindly answered:
この道や Kono michi ya
行く人なしに Yuku hito nashi ni
秋のくれ Aki no kure
Along this path
Goes no one.
Autumn is ending.
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For more on the 1998 winter black belt test see my book “The Rhinoceros Tale.”
For a fresh explanation of the structure of the path of practice see the article, The Original Shu Ha Ri 守破離.
Read the article Lost Bunkai and the Karate Revolution on the recovery of deep karate in our style, Yamabayashi Shorin Ryu.
And reference my book “True Karate Dō” for more on the Basho poem, the limits of Zen as we know it, and the application of Satipatthana to kata practice.
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Post Copyright © 2024 Jeffrey Brooks
Image by J. Pleni, via Pexels
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