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I've been doing a little bit of reading about Zen and martial arts. And I came across this quote:
"You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair."
- Taisen Deshimaru
I found the quote here: Zen in the Martial Arts.
I don't really know a lot about Zen, but it's always amused me that it's a philosophical practice for both swordfighters and painters.
One of the principles behind Zen is that you don't think, you just Be. Or as Morpheus put it in the Matrix: "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me."
Thinking about an action, analysing it using the conscious mind, can introduce all sorts of doubts and hesitations. If you try to hit someone, you hesitate, and you miss. But if you just hit them, you bypass the analytical conscious mind and the 'subconscious' systems take control. The action seems to flow spontaneously.
John Lennon said he didn't write his best songs, they just came to him*. That's the aim of Zen.
Meditation teaches us to turn off the conscious mind, to allow the deeper lever to take control.
Which is all fine and well, provided these deeper levels know what they are doing.
And that is why we train. First we train with our conscious minds, learning the techniques, correcting them, repeating them so that they are stamped into our subconscious. Then we disengage, and let our "instincts" take over.
I put instincts in quotes because the word carries connotations of "natural' or "innate", and neither of those are true. Our instincts are learnt. They only feel natural or innate because they bypass our conscious reasoning.
First you train. Then you forget.
I can't remember where I heard that quote from. I think it was one of my Tai Chi instructors. First you train, programming your instincts. Then you forget, disengaging the conscious mind and letting the subconscious systems take control.
For an artist, this means free, spontaneous brushwork.
For a sword fighter, it means you act fast, and (literally) keep your head.
* I'm paraphrasing from memory here.
"You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair."
- Taisen Deshimaru
I found the quote here: Zen in the Martial Arts.
I don't really know a lot about Zen, but it's always amused me that it's a philosophical practice for both swordfighters and painters.
One of the principles behind Zen is that you don't think, you just Be. Or as Morpheus put it in the Matrix: "Stop trying to hit me, and hit me."
Thinking about an action, analysing it using the conscious mind, can introduce all sorts of doubts and hesitations. If you try to hit someone, you hesitate, and you miss. But if you just hit them, you bypass the analytical conscious mind and the 'subconscious' systems take control. The action seems to flow spontaneously.
John Lennon said he didn't write his best songs, they just came to him*. That's the aim of Zen.
Meditation teaches us to turn off the conscious mind, to allow the deeper lever to take control.
Which is all fine and well, provided these deeper levels know what they are doing.
And that is why we train. First we train with our conscious minds, learning the techniques, correcting them, repeating them so that they are stamped into our subconscious. Then we disengage, and let our "instincts" take over.
I put instincts in quotes because the word carries connotations of "natural' or "innate", and neither of those are true. Our instincts are learnt. They only feel natural or innate because they bypass our conscious reasoning.
First you train. Then you forget.
I can't remember where I heard that quote from. I think it was one of my Tai Chi instructors. First you train, programming your instincts. Then you forget, disengaging the conscious mind and letting the subconscious systems take control.
For an artist, this means free, spontaneous brushwork.
For a sword fighter, it means you act fast, and (literally) keep your head.
* I'm paraphrasing from memory here.
