C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Zen Budo and the Path of Striving for Achievement      “Decay is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.” ~the final words of the Buddha       “The image of Buddhism has gone through quite a lot of change over the years. Nowadays people don't tend to associate Buddhism with striving so much as with peace and withdrawal, with being rather than doing. Whatever would old Shakyamuni think of that?       “Buddha pointed out that things are impermanent and you might take it from that that he was suggesting that it is futile wasting effort on things that are not going to last. However, the original moral was probably just the opposite. Buddha put a new spin on the idea of karma, remember. Karma had been taken to mean that you are what you are because of what you did in your last life so there is nothing you can do about it. This logic underpinned the caste system and it still does. This was a ...

Budo, the Pursuit of Excellence, and the Goal of Practice      There are many who take up Budo for the wrong reasons.  Often, especially for young men, it has something to do with wanting to be tough or the desire to be the “baddest man” in the neighborhood or something of a similar nature.  Many who do take up the Budo for this reason, however, find that it ends up giving them something much more than they had realized at first.  It not only gives them purpose, but it aids in killing the ego rather than building it up.      In my last “regular job,” after I had retired from working in Engineering and before I took up my love of writing as a full-time profession, I worked at a non-profit with “at-risk” young men, ones who had been in some kind of trouble with the law or who had been incarcerated for one reason or another.  The non-profit I worked for helped them to find jobs in various sectors and then trained them i...

Is this “Forgotten” Principle the Key for True Physique Transformation? Some (Slightly) Rambling Thoughts and Musings      I suppose the slogan “your body becomes its function” isn’t exactly “forgotten,” but it is little known—oh, and it also makes for a catchy little subtitle.  It comes, supposedly, from the “Bulgarian system” of training.  I first read the pithy saying when I shelled over something like $50 for the “Big Beyond Belief” manual, a.k.a. “Serious Growth 3,” sometime in the early to mid ‘90s.  Written by Leo Costa Jr. and, believe it or not, Tom Platz, even though Platz had always trained in the exact opposite manner of every training principle the book touted, it was hugely marketed in all of the bodybuilding rags at that time.  If you were around, and training, back then, there’s very little chance that you don’t remember it.  Its subtitle was “the most effective muscle producing program ever!”  So, yeah, it was pre...