Self-discipline is the only way to liberation.
Intelligent self-discipline, consistently applied, is training.
In an unhealthy culture impulse and self-indulgence are encouraged, in the guise of freedom. This is the path to slavery and death.
Healthy culture encourages impulse control, the channeling of limbic energy to constructive purposes. Healthy culture teaches the difference between right and wrong, between wholesome and unwholesome, distinguishing behaviors which yield happy results from those which yield unhappy results.
As children we learn these things. We act on them. At a coarse level, physical behavior is trained. At a middle level our speech is trained. At a subtle level our thought is trained.
The great part of the human brain is devoted to impulse control. We learn, reflect, plan, execute and collaborate by means of this. Work, family, community, and mastery depend on it.
As our society declines and shadows fall, as turbulence increases and chaos threatens, our own training can become the critical factor in maintaining our health, dignity, character, community and future.
Our inner training is essential. It is not a part time avocation. It is central. It pervades our lives, giving meaning to our experience and purpose for our action. It is not designed to let us tolerate the oppression and horror of modern life. It is designed to transform it, to transcend it and to replace it with a life that is holy and good.
That is what I am describing in this series.
Our approach to mind training draws on traditional, thoroughly tested methods, with a fresh application, giving access to the tools of transformation to everyone who wants them, providing an alternative to oppression.
***
Post Copyright © 2024 Jeffrey Brooks, photo by Iveth Allman
***
read True Karate Dō by Jeffrey Brooks
“One of the best books I’ve read in years, inviting and compelling. Jeff Brooks moves effortlessly from martial arts to Buddhism to consciousness studies, self-transformation, and related fields in this wide-ranging and Illuminating study that has much to offer both novice explorers and veteran practitioners. A splendid achievement.”
— Philip Zaleski, Editor, The Best Spiritual Writing series