Swordwork and the Uncluttered Mind

When practicing any true martial art, you must give away your thoughts.

It is a frightening thing. Analytic thought is the human superpower.

Of course, you should study. I will break with every zen teaching known to man to say further; sometimes your mind should be troubled. Some issues should churn you up, fill your head with questions. Sometimes there should be a mighty struggle, chasing an idea, a technique. Sometimes you should narrowly scrutinize yourself, every move you make; or go over something that just happened in meticulous detail.

Just not when you go into deep internal training or when you enter combat. At that time none of those things matter anymore. Do you think that you are twenty people, each one of whom can keep track of one of the things you are holding in your mind? You are just a simple human. You don't have room for both your training questions and your opponent in the field of your attention. So let everything else go.

There will be some other time when those things will matter again, and then it will be their turn to be looked at.

Before combat, planning is wonderful. You can get there early and give yourself the high ground. You can analyze your opponent and realize he leaves himself open in a certain way. You can figure out a way beforehand to get your opponent worked up at the outset of the fight. But you have to set down such strategic baggage before you can reach any high martial level.

Remember, humans don't multitask. You must choose between fighting and planning.

“[We say] 'Relate to your mind as if you were sleeping', because at the moment of falling asleep the various thoughts and preoccupations of daily life that are an obstacle to the emergence of combat lucidity subside. Ordinary thoughts are like spots on a glass pane – only by wiping them away can we arrive at a clear view.” – Tokitsu Kenji

Why not to have a complex, detailed, step-by-step plan (even just “Imma use this technique”):

♦ If your mind is full with the way you think reality should happen, you will not have room for how reality does unfold. If you even notice reality properly in the first place.

♦ If the situation changes and you have to discard a plan before you can come up with a new movement, it slows your reaction time. Just having to compare reality to your plan and determine whether or not you can proceed takes a split second of precious, precious time.

♦ Comparisons and analytical thinking are big processes. They have pretty much nothing to do with what your body is doing. Don't take your mind to that zone.

Don't divide yourself between what you thought ought to happen or what you think you ought to be doing and what actually is happening and you are doing. Remember, all of you needs to be in every movement. Not still lingering on something that only exists as a possibility.

Normally, when your eyes observe something, they send it to your subconscious mind which very quickly makes a picture and submits it your conscious mind, which more slowly analyzes the picture, identifies some problems, and makes a plan to deal with it. Then it sends marching orders to your muscles and body, which try to carry them out.

It is a somewhat delayed process. Men complete it more quickly than women, because women's brains spend an instant longer on analysis and get a more complete understanding. This gives women a better picture in emergency situations, but means that men react faster.

There is a better, more complete and faster response available to all humans: to not invite the conscious mind into the process at all.

Have you ever touched something hot, and felt your hand jerk back before your slow (but mighty!) conscious mind even realized that the thing was hot? Have you ever seen a small child start to fall and caught them – safely, securely, and without hurting them – before you had time to blink or think? Probably every parent has, at least once.

Every movement of combat should exemplify the same wild grace. It should have the same formless unpredictability. This is the essence of a real martial art.

Once I stood in a group of people, some of whom had never really played a sport before. Suddenly, a soccer ball came flying in at high speed from overhead. Those who had played sports a bit ducked or dodged automatically. Those who had never played any sports were rooted to the spot for an instant, as their brains observed, analyzed, and came up with a decision. And two athletes automatically reached up their hands to catch the ball; the volleyball player caught it quite naturally and without any hesitation. He didn't need to hesitate or think. His body understood the situation and could handle it alone before he even realized what was coming at him.

But it requires a profound practice of the required motions for your body to do them alone.

Have you ever driven somewhere you did not intend to drive? Towards your old office, perhaps, or toward the grocery store when you meant to go somewhere completely different?

This is a marvel. Without any input from your conscious mind (which would have taken the car where you actually wanted to go), your clever subconscious and body can operate a complex several-ton machine as they drive. They follow every law, every stoplight light, take the 'right' turns to take the car to their chosen destination, observe traffic conditions and adjust to them, and take you safely and perfectly to the destination they picked out for you. The moral of this story is that you are capable of immensely complex, flawless actions without needing to 'think' or 'process' in the slightest.

Our deepest and cleverest thought is very slow. Our normal thoughts – the kind that we are aware of and have almost all of every day of our lives – are somewhat slow. But our bodies process information at an incredible speed, and respond at the speed of reflex.

Your conscious mind will never, ever produce the speed of a true warrior for you. It's not what brains were built for. Brains are built to carefully analyze things piece by piece and make order from chaos, with a preference for things the brain has seen before and is comfortable with.

In other words: Brains are predictable.

“Any trace of conscious thought destroys your equilibrium, and a sharp opponent will seize on that opening in an instant. Thought obstructs nature and hinders true function. Do not think, do not act; follow the movements of nature, and self will disappear. Without a self there will be no one to oppose you in Heaven and Earth.”

—- Issai Chozan

The brain is a wonderful tool for producing thoughts. Some of those thoughts are actually relevant and useful: interpreting the past and imagining the future. The human brain is meant to put together long, slow chains of logic and creativity which lead to us figuring out important things: to let us plan what we have to do now to be able to still have something to eat when all the summer fruits are gone, to mull over a conversation we had a week ago and come up with a theory as to what was bothering that person, to remember and think and study and figure out and hope and plan. Our mighty brains are very valuable at what they do, and we should be grateful to them.

Your brain spends most of its time deeply engrossed in things that are not currently real. Memories (your interpretations of what was), plans (an option of how some things might go, someday), books you've read and movies you've seen, your work issues, your emotions and what might – or might not – be causing them, your physical desires (sleep, food, that spasm in your foot to go away) … Brains aren't terribly good at Right Here Right Now.

Analytic thought is something no other creature in this world can begin to compare to us with; the great human superpower. With it, we have performed miracles: concertos, skyscrapers, heart surgery, baking contests, parliaments, running shoes.

Because analytic thought is such a marvel, it is easy to come to trust it above all else, to try to stream it constantly. The raw power of conscious thought tempts us to try to use it to micromanage our lives: to make every decision, interpret every impression, control every physical function. Because it happens inside us and because when it is operating it becomes very difficult to 'hear' or feel anything else happening within, many people fall into the trap of thinking that they are their thoughts: that the activity of their conscious brain is somehow the purest, truest expression of who they are.

This is a huge problem on many levels.

Brains are easily tossed around by outside influences. We all like to think that our thoughts are some sort of pristine, untouched machine that functions flawlessly … but all the experts assure us that this just isn't the case. In fact, it's not even close to true. Exhaustion can make us ask existential questions, adrenaline can make our thoughts choppy and disjointed, advertising can make us think we want to buy something, belief can make you disbelieve conflicting evidence. No brain is perfect, and 'mental illness' is a universal human state to some degree or another. False memories can happen, and some times the brain spits out random thoughts that make no kind of sense in the situation. Have you ever stood on a height, and had a strange urge to jump off? Or held a knife, and had the totally unlike-you thought that you should stab yourself or somebody else? Most people have. Those are not you, thinking. Those are little parts of your brain, trying out various thoughts, because creating thoughts is the brain's job. You reject those foolish ideas, because you are not your brain.

“You believe that you are thinking your thoughts, but it is more like they are thinking themselves through you.” – Lev Ivanov

“Feel what you feel, but don't believe everything you think.” – Psychology proverb

There is a you that exists entirely independent of the brain your were born into. It is not affected by whether you are intelligent or not. If you were to receive traumatic brain injury tomorrow, your behavior might change somewhat: but the inner you would still be yourself, struggling to operate a different and damaged instrument.

There is a you that exists entirely independent of your thoughts.

And it is quite the warrior, if you allow it to be.

Musashi said in his Thirty-Five instructions on Strategy that it was worthwhile to learn to tell, looking at an opponent, “where his mind is excessively full and where it is absent.” 'Excessive fullness' is also known as fixation.

“I am asked in what part of the body one should put one's mind. I reply: If you put it in your right hand, your mind will be taken by your right hand; if you put it on your eyes, your mind will be taken by your eyes; if you put it on your right foot, your mind will be taken by your right foot. No matter what part you put your mind on, it will be absent from the rest.

So where should you put your mind?

No place. If you put it in no place, it fully and thoroughly expands throughout your body.” – Takuan Soho

Any moment you fix on any one thing – the fact that his foot is coming toward your face, the tip of your own sword, the technique you want to pull off next, what just happened, how your twisted ankle hurts – you will not be paying attention to other essential things. Study after study has showed that human beings don't multitask. We merely flick our attention back and forth between things. In other words, we alternate where our minds are absent.

Ancient swordsmen called those fragmented moments of inattention 'gaps' and said to aim for them: those tiny pieces of place and time where your opponent is fixing his attention somewhere else. If he's momentarily focusing left, you are going right.

So don't sit all your attention on any one thing. Let it all float in your awareness all at once. After all, there is no one specific thing for your mind to grab hold of and focus intently upon. There are no things. You are on the Bridge which floats in the void of an uncreated world. There will be no things until you create them. (And as you create them you will let them go.)

Fixing on any one thing is a certain method to leave other things unseen. As Takuan Soho said, “When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on any one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves are not there.”

Besides, you shouldn't put your spirit into his foot, your sword tip, some future hypothetical movement, the past, or even your injury. Your spirit should be inside your body. Your whole body. It should be whole-heartedly in the action you are taking Right Here, Right Now. That one thing – this single moment – cannot possibly overfill your mind. This leaves your senses free to sense properly.

“Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.” – Ueshiba Morihei

The Japanese call this state Mushin: the mind of no-mind.

There are no thoughts. You can't hold on (grab on) to anything. You have to let reality run through you like a river....or perhaps you run through it.

In the ordinary way of life, your mind jumps from one object or concept to another, much like a frog hopping from lily pad to lily pad. It leaps, it stops. After a moment, it leaps again. Your mind cannot be the frog. It must be the river itself. A river moves like a live thing, always flowing, never stopping. If there are obstacles, it merely flows around them. When your mind is empty of objects – concrete destinations – it can flow without stopping.

Have you ever seen a stream pick up a huge rock from its bed and carry it along? No, it burbles over or around the stone, and out to sea. Be like a stream: leave big things (like concrete thoughts, important actions, and emotions) exactly where you mentally found them. Don't stop on any of them, don't try to wipe them out from existence, don't attempt to pick them up and carry them with you. Only that way will you have your arms empty for the next moment's armful of events. And such wholehearted action teaches immense and very different lessons of its own.