C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

  Budo as Embodied Practice Integrating Mind, Body, and Spirit "Mind, Body, and Spirit as One" (design by C.S.) “Mountains and waters are the expressions of old buddhas.” ~Eihei Dogen This quote from Dogen comes from his masterful “Sansuiko,” or the “Mountains and Waters Sutra,” an insightful and rather poetic work (as are all of the great zenji’s pieces) written in the 13th century.  If Dogen would have been a follower or a practitioner of budo—as many of his spiritual descendents would come to be in the following centuries—he may have added, “and fists and feet are nothing other than the Way.” Or not. But there is nothing cute (or trivial) about such statements.  They are expressions of a deep, somatic truth.  The “spiritual” is not something otherworldly, but is expressed—and, therefore, encountered—in the mundane, the material, and the everyday; in mountains and waters, in punches and in kicks. This is the reason that budo is not true budo unless it contains a ...