C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

On the Physical Practice of Zazen and its Application to the Martial Ways      This is the 2nd part in my new series on the Budo Zen path for the martial artist.  Although this series is written for the martial artist, I hope that even those of you who may be lifters might benefit from its insights.  In many ways, it is as much about the intersection of Zen and physical practice in general, meaning that some of its insights will carry over into active pursuits outside of the Asian martial arts.      My intention is for this series to be practical.  I hope that it does have some degree of depth to it but, at the same time, my wish is for it to be easy to understand and easy to apply, though you do have to apply it.  Not applying what is written here would be akin to reading my pieces on strength training but never actually working out.      The cornerstone of Zen is the practice of zazen or ...

  A “Nothing to Do, Nowhere to Go” Practice for Contemporary Budoka      In my last “Budo Zen” article on hard work, I mentioned at the end how a lot of practitioners don’t like—or, at the very least, don’t know what to make of—the goalless practice in Zen of “nothing to do and nowhere to go.”  If there is nothing to do and nowhere to go then what is the point? This is a common enough refrain, and it’s what I would like to explore a little further here.      Goals are needed in life.  That’s the first thing that needs to be understood.  You are not going to achieve much (in many aspects of your life) if you don’t have a clear goal, and a means to get there.  Often, when it comes to lifting, I discuss on this blog how too many lifters—bodybuilders, strength athletes, and, yes, martial artists, too—will often allow the means to justify the ends .  This is the wrong approach.  If you allow the “means” (...

  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 ...