The three kata of our approach to mind training are:
1. the cultivation of mindfulness,
2. the cultivation of concentration, and
3. the investigation of experience.
I am referring to these as mind training “kata” because they are forms we use to cultivate skill. In this sense they work like the physical kata of karate. They are not theories or dogmas. They are guides for practice.
This is significant because forms of mind training associated with martial arts reject structured mental activity. This has left practitioners stranded and confused, despite their sincerity and hope. Our approach remedies that.
Context
We urgently need an antidote for cultural decay. People’s minds are disturbed, and their bodies are unhealthy.
Squalor, dullness or excess appear to be the range of life’s possibilities.
Disconnection from friends and family, make us lonely.
Alienation from the natural world deprives us of place and purpose.
Meeting the demands of modern, urban life makes us sick.
Motivation
Mind training and physical training are the prescription. With good training we will find our way, recover our humanity, and fulfill our potential.
Community
Mind training, like our physical training, works best with personal instruction. Recordings, books, videos or audio files can be helpful. But the presence of good spiritual friends who model the skills, techniques and values of these traditions, is the essence of real training.
Foundation
Real mind training cannot be done as if it were separate from the conduct of the rest of our lives. When we practice in stillness our body rests on our seat. Our mind rests on our moral and ethical conduct. That is the stable foundation of our training.
Without that foundation our lives are turbulent, and our minds are harassed by sense experience through memory, feeling, craving and desire. That disturbance prevents effective mind training.
Continuity
We are continually cultivating the quality of our minds. If we learn what to do and what to avoid, what is wholesome and what is unwholesome, if we train ourselves to be continually aware of the condition of our body, speech and mind, we optimize our training.
The use of forms
There are many karate kata. Each style has its own set of kata. And its own approach to using the kata to good effect. In mind training there are many kata and many approaches to using them, as well.
These are the most prominent mind-training kata from the earliest strata of the tradition. There are infinite variations. They are not opposed or separate. They overlap, share techniques and methods. Each provides a valuable ideal toward which to strive:
Four foundations of mindfulness (body, feelings, mind states, mind objects);
Four right exertions (preventing unwholesome states, abandoning unwholesome states, producing skillful states, increasing skillful states);
Four bases of power (will, effort, consciousness, analytical skill);
Five faculties (conviction, effort, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom);
Five strengths (a deeper command of conviction, effort, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom);
Seven factors of awakening (mindfulness, investigation, effort, joy, tranquility, concentration, equanimity);
Noble eightfold path (right understanding, intention, speech, action, livelihood effort, mindfulness, concentration)
Also important are:
The three contemplations (impermanence, dukkha, non-self)
The three practices (abandoning, dispassion, cessation)
As we practice our mind training kata we monitor our technique and execution. We improve, habituate and master them, and our own body and mind. As in physical training, we embody these skills so that we can use them spontaneously, as conditions change.
The next article will detail the three primary mind training kata in our style: the cultivation of mindfulness, the cultivation of concentration, and the investigation of experience.
These three can form a complete path. There is no limit to what we can do with them. In physical training, the number of kata you know is not important. How well you use the ones you know, is.
The mind training kata work this way. We can explore endlessly, gain new insights and perspectives, and deepen our results. By relying on well-made kata we can proceed, systematically and thoroughly, to our goal.
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Post copyright © 2025 Jeffrey Brooks, MountainKarateNC.com, Yamabayashi Ryu, Mountain Karate Dojo, in the mountains of western NC.
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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