Shoshin, Mushin, and the "Minds" of Budo

 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 have Buddha-Nature?"

Joshu replied, "Mu!" 

 Sometimes "mu" here is simply translated as "no," but it would be more like replying "negative."  Mu can't just be "no" because all things have Buddha-Nature.  So what is this mu?

I have often thought that mushin, from the perspective of Budo, at least, might be better thought of as "spacious mind."  It's not "empty" as in a vacuum, but luminous, spacious, and free to be anything.

Oddly enough, for the budoka, mushin can only be "attained" through a disciplined program of constant practice and training.  In this sense, the mind of spontaneity that mushin seems to imbue comes not through "acting spontaneously" or just "living in the now"—concepts "westerners" have about Eastern thought that is often a shallow reflection of a much clearer concept—but via a disciplined work ethic that borders on the slavish.  And this, unfortunately but rather expectantly, is often the very thing the modern martial practitioner tries to avoid.

You often read—at least in modern texts on Japanese martial arts—about the "5 Minds of Budo."  These are listed as shoshin, "beginner's mind"; zanshin, "lingering mind"; mushin, "no mind"; fudoshin, "immovable mind"; and senshin, "awakened mind."  Most of this, if I'm honest, is pretty much sensationalized.  It's not complete nonsense, don't get me wrong, but this is definitely the kind of stuff talked about and written by over-enthused proponents of budo.  It's not as if you were show up at your local dojo, you would be handed a manual on the "5 minds of budo," or anything similar, but this is exactly how it is often thought of by those who get their "knowledge" on the internet as opposed to an actual dojo.

Even though a lot of this is modernized, sensationalized, and taken out of context, these terms are mentioned by different authors throughout Zen and budo texts down through the centuries.  These "minds" have often exerted influence upon other Japanese ways; sumi-e, calligraphy, and chado (the way of tea) to name a few.  So I don't want you to think that shoshin, mushin, and these other "minds" are not important.  They are.  But they need to be understood in the proper historical and cultural—and therefore budo—perspective.  If not, then these minds cannot be "practiced" as intended, and the modern budoka will not be able to reap their benefits.  (For the sake of brevity in the remainder of this post, I will focus on shoshin and mushin.  I will save the other "minds" for other essays.)

For the budoka, shoshin is about having a "fresh" mind that is willing and open to learning new things.  This open, beginner's mind, when coupled with hard, disciplined training will, at various times throughout your budo workouts, lead to a state of pure mushin so long as you don't "think" too much about it as it's happening.  "Grasping" at it is the surest way to lose it.  For instance, if you are in the middle of a hard session that you have given yourself over to, you may find yourself thinking, "ooh, I just entered a state of mushin."  If you did do this, you would find that whatever state of mushin you did have, would fall away in that instant of thought, as would your shoshin, because thinking that you have attained something is NOT beginner's mind.

One of the keys is to not judge your mind states.  If you do judge them, you will constantly strive toward progress, which, oddly enough, will be the very thing that keeps you from progressing.  This is where the practice of zazen can be a great aid if used by the budoka!  With zazen, because it's such a one-focused path (even if that one focus is through "neither thinking or not thinking, but to dwell in the openness and to think not thinking") you will become capable—through slow, diligent, progressive practice—of observing your mind states without judgment but with discrimination.  In meditation, you don't chase after thoughts or seek different "experiences," but you don't push this mind-stuff away, either.  You learn to just let it be.  This is what it means, in traditional Zen parlance, to sit in the here and now, and let "mind and body drop off."

In budo, mind and body must drop off as well if mushin is to be achieved.  Zazen, in many ways, "expedites" this process by allowing the budoka to experience "mind and body dropping off" prior to it occurring in the dojo.

Zazen can also prepare you for the detachment that must accompany mushin if mushin is to persist as a regular state of training.  In zazen, if you seek after a "state" such as kensho or satori, then you can bet money that you won't attain it.  And if you try to hold onto these states when they arise in meditation, then they will fall away and you will lose it by grasping at it.  For these meditative states—and this includes mushin within budo practice—to arise and remain with the practitioner, she must allow the states to simply be without pursuing them or pushing them away.  Kensho, satori, and really all of the mind states in budo (to a certain extent, for they are different) are typically accompanied by a state of deep calm within body and mind, and once the budoka "tastes" this calm, she will often try to return to a state of mushin through calming the mind.  "This is like trying to pick up your paycheck before you've done the work," Roshi Richard Collins says of this mistake in attempting to calm the mind.  But you don't calm the mind, and therefore enter an "altered" state, through a technique because it's not a technique.  It is a result.  It's an indirect "calming."   If you concentrate on breathing, posture, technique—all the things necessary for successful budo regardless of shoshin or mushin—then the mind and the body will calm down of its own accord.  These mind states will then be natural, not esoteric, concepts.  And mushin will seem just as natural as the falling of leaves and the changing seasons.