"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 lucious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!"

Paul Reps, Editor, Zen Flesh Zen Bones, Tuttle.

Now that's living in the moment!

Why do you suppose the writer chose to make one mouse white and one black?

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.

Chose Your Path Carefully

"Buddhas are rare. They are so radiant, inspiring, and exemplary that they lead millions of people for thousands of years. The further we follow the path they have walked, the closer we will get to the fruits they have won. But in this lifetime we are likely to lack some strengths and to have many common human frailties . . . In every setback, whenever we are knocked down, there is no better time to activitate what we have developed from [Vipissana mediation]. Every moment is new, and an opportunity from which we can benefit no matter how long a chain of problems we have yet to solve."

Paul R. Fleischman, MD, Karma and Chaos.

For the martial artist, there are some helpful points in this passage by Dr. Fleischman, including the exhortation to get back up when we are knocked down, and to call on the inner resources we develop through training. I don't exactly agree with the assertion that following the path of Buddha will bring us closer to our own enlightenment. Character development is a very personal journey, and blind adherence to a system of thought can lead to mindlessness (in the worst sense of the word). Chuang Tzu would have advocated breaking from tradition. Siddhartha, in Hesse's book, had to leave the religious schools in order to find himself. The established systems are tools - they help to guide us but should not be followed unless they are in accord with one's path.

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.

The Heart of Budo

"The basis of true training in swordsmanship is to forge the spirit."

- Yamaoka Tesshu, The Heart of Budo

Budo is more than just learning how to fight . . . real budo is a way of seeking and grasping the meaning of life. It is a particularly good tool for this because of its long history of development and refinement by people who understood that budo is a lifelong quest for personal perfection. The Japanese penchant for organizing and refining, applied to arts that naturally involve all aspects of a person, has created a razor-sharp spiritual instrument that can cut right to the core of what is real or true.

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.

The Turning Point

"Slowly the thinker went on his way and asked himself: What is it that you wanted to learn from the teachings and teachers, and although they taught you much, what was it they could not teach you? And he thought: It was the Self, the character and nature of which I wished to learn. I wanted to rid myself of the Self, to conquer it, but I could not conquer it, I could only decieve it, could only fly from it, could only hide from it. Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self, this riddle, that I live, that I am one and am separated and different from everybody else, that I am Siddhartha; and about nothing in the world do I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha."

-- Herman Hesse, Siddhartha, Bantam Books.

Similarly, most of us try on many hats as we learn the martial arts. It can take many years to realize that we can be ourselves as we practice, that our practice has value even if we do not adopt an artificial persona, that of our teachers, perhaps, or of a martial arts actor. It is only when one is fully oneself in practice, in fact, that one can make real progress in the internal goals of budo. Moreover, the genuine martial artist is the only true teacher of budo. By being genuine, the true teacher leads by example as well as by words.

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.

The Bow and Arrow

"When you learn to overcome temptation, then the arrow of intellect and the bow of action can manifest as trust in your world. This brings further inquisitiveness. You want to look into every situation and examine it, so that you won't be fooling yourself by relying on belief alone. Instead, you want to make a personal discovery of reality, through your own intelligence and ability. The sense of trust is is that, when you apply your inquisitiveness, when you look into a situation, you knonw that you will get a definite response. If you take steps to accomplish something, that action will have a result-either failure or success. When you shoot your arrow, either it will hit th target or it will miss. Trust is knowing that there will be a message.

"When you trust in those messages, the reflections of the phenomenal world, the world begins to seem like a bank, or reservoir, of richness . . . as a warrior, you are willing to take a chance; you are willing to expose yourself to the phenomenal world . . . You begin to realize that you usually fail when action and intellect are undisciplined or unsynchronized, and that you usually succeed when intelligence and action are fully joined."

-- Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.

I had been looking for a way to explain some of the esoteric personal growth aspects for the advanced iaido practitioner, when I happened on this passage. It captures the key concepts of fearlessness, ceaseless study, and action. When you have read everything written by the Japanese about Zen, pick up one of Trungpa's works. He's not afraid to address many ideas that Westerners regard as mystical or magical, which lie beyond the commonly discussed "internal" aspects of martial arts training.

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.

Enlightenment

"One day it was announced by Master Joshu that the young monk Kyogen had reached an enlightened state. Much impressed by this news, several of his peers went to speak with him.
"'We have heard that you are enlightened. Is this true?' his fellow students inquired.

"'It is,' Kyogen answered.

"'Tell us,' said a friend, 'how do you feel?'

"'As miserable as ever,' replied the enlightened Kyogen."

--Source unknown. Cited at http://www.futurehealth.org/enlightenment_quotations.htm.

Photo Courtesy of John B. Gage, Foreign Department, Kokusai Budoin (IMAF).

My ending for the story: Later, Kyogen was kicked out of the temple.
Master Joshu said, "That good-for-nothing Kyogen was always moping around!"

Nicklaus Suino teaches iaido and other martial arts at seminars throughout North America. Information about his seminars can be found at www.artofjapaneseswordsmanship.com. He teacher iaido, judo, and jujutsu at the Japanese Martial Arts Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan.