C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  A Freewheeling “Translation” of the Hagakure with Commentary for the Modern Martial Practitioner Book One: An Introduction to the Way of the Warrior      What follows is a somewhat experimental post that I hope to possibly turn into a book at some point down the road.  I thought I would use my blog to post over the coming months what will essentially be the first draft of the manuscript, in between my more regular lifting articles and my somewhat irregular Budo essays.  I want to discuss, primarily, the history, philosophy, and practice of the martial arts as they are practiced in the modern world.  To do this—the subjects will be free-ranging—I am going to use The Hagakure as a springboard.  The Hagakure in English means “In the Shadow of Leaves.”  It's a popular bushido text written by the 18th century samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo to the younger samurai Tashiro Tsuramoto.  It is a great text, and for many modern martial ar...

 Shoshin means "beginner's mind."   Mushin means "empty mind" or "no mind."  When I was a teenager, and trained in a very  traditional Isshin-Ryu  dojo, my sensei always referred to it as "no mind."  The "mu" in "mushin" is a negation .  It's most well-known use in Zen is in the koan "Joshu's dog," which is sometimes referred to simply as the "mu" koan.  (If you're unaware, a koan is a Japanese Zen term that can be a story, a statement, a dialogue between two zennists, or, often, a question.  Its purpose—no matter the form—is to induce "great doubt" or "don't know mind" in the practitioner, so it's primarily a practice , though it's sometimes used to test a student's "progress" on the path of awakening.) "Joshu's Dog" (design by C.S.) The koan "Joshu's Dog" goes something like this: Someone asked Joshu,"Does a dog...

  Essays and Thoughts on  The Dokkodo Part Ten Resentment and Complaint are Appropriate Neither for Oneself or for Others "Clouds gather around the Enso."  The clouds represent fleeting thoughts.  The enso represents the stable, grounded mind of the Budoka. Have you ever been around a co-worker or an acquaintance who seemed to whine or complain almost all of the time?   I had an acquaintance years ago - a fellow budoka  - who trained with me at the karate dojo of my youth.  He was the kind of guy who others in the dojo didn't want to be around because he made everything  about himself.  If he hadn't achieved something, anything, then it simply wasn't his fault.  It was the fault of society, the situation in which he was raised, the fact that his genetics could have been better - the list could go on and on. There is nothing worse than this sort of pettiness. Success has nothing to do with the support you receive, or don't, not ultim...

 Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo Part Nine Never Allow Yourself to be Saddened by a Separation 16th century painting of Musashi (public domain) Another translation that I like of this musing is David K. Groff's that reads, "On whatever the path, do not be sad about parting ways."  If you are following a "way," then you must be prepared for the fact - inevitable some might say - that you will have to separate yourself from others who are not following the same path that you are embarked upon. When one first reads/hears a maxim such as this one or one similar, our initial reaction is to recoil from it.  We - as a human race - love our attachments!  Not only are we saddened by a separation, but we never want to be separated in the first place.  Of course it's natural for us to feel saddened upon separation, right? We are attached to many things other than just people.  Some of these attachments are subtle and we might not even be aware of what it is we are ...

Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo Part 6 Be Detached from Desire Your Entire Life Statue of Musashi and Kojiro in battle. (public domain) This passage seems a little odd when first we read it.  It's odd because, well, didn't Musashi desire  to be a good samurai?  Isn't it desire  that pushed Musashi to want  to be a great swordsman in the first place? But this saying isn't quite what it seems.  Roshi Richard Collins, author of No Fear Zen , has this to say: "The word for desire here, yokushin , suggests specifically selfish wishes, lusts, or cupidity, that greediness for physical pleasure or material accumulation that resists control."  In other words, you are to be detached from those things which prevent you from practicing budo.  Your desire  should be for attaining deeper and broader martial skills, not money or fame or to even be a fighter (as opposed to a martial artist).  Of course, just because one calls himself a martial artist...

Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo Part Five Think Lightly of Yourself, and Deeply of the World A scroll depicting kami Hachiman dressed as a Buddhist monk (courtesy of Wikimedia). The Bodhisattva Hachiman was well-loved by Taisen Deshimaru, the author of The Zen Way to the Martial Arts (quoted below). As with  most  of Musashi's musings, this one is another that seems at odds with modern sensibilities.  This is, of course, because the modern person's values are almost always the opposite  of the sayings in The Dokkodo .  Yet - and here is where "modern man" gets the most confused - when you think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world  you actually become much happier, more joyful, and more in love with life.  As the Dalai Lama says (and this is a paraphrase), "the purpose of our lives is to be happy."  But he adds that "happiness is not something ready-made, but comes from your own actions."  And how do you achieve this elusive happin...

Essays and Thoughts on the "Dokkodo" Part Two Accept Everything Just the Way it is Miyamoto Musashi kills a shark fish (Yamazame) in the mountains across the border of Echizen Province , by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (public domain) The very first "principle" of the Dokkodo is to "accept everything just the way it is."  But what does this mean for the warrior, and why did Musashi place so much emphasis on it?  For he must  have placed emphasis on it, otherwise it would not have been the first principle of his last work. Many years ago - as in MANY years ago; I was a teenager - my sensei told this anecdote one day at the end of class.   After a couple of hours of hard training, we sat down to do zazen.   This is paraphrasing, but he told us: “The glass is not half full.   And the glass is not half empty.   It simply is what it is.   Because if it’s half-full, then it’s ALSO half-empty, which means that it’s also neither half-full nor half-empty.   It ...

Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo Part One C.S.'s Note: I hope you enjoy the essays that follow in this series.  These essays are really the seed of a book idea I've had brewing for some time.  I have been apprehensive in starting it as a book, seeing the odd "niche" that it abides in might find it hard for it to get picked up by a publisher.  But niche as it MAY be, I finally decided that it would work best as a series of essays on Integral Strength, and we'll just see what happens from here. Contemporaneous painting of Musashi from the Edo Period (courtesy Wikimedia)       Terao Maganojo gazed at the dojo ahead of him.  Over the past decade - when he retired from one of his many successful duels - he always came here to refine his technique, to improve his speed, to perfect his timing, and to learn the history of the sword school in which he practiced.  But most of all, he came to spend time at the foot of his master.      ...