Lake Tahoe 

Gassho and Kokoro

At the beginning of every class, or almost every class, we do a series of exercises. The Japanese word for this sort of calisthenic exercise is undo. These exercises derive from the Goju style of karate created by Miyagi Sensei in Okinawa in the early part of the 20th Century. In devising these exercises Miyagi no doubt borrowed liberally from the Chinese, whose influence on the southernmost island of the Japanese archipelago was immense.

More than a thousand years before, many Chinese had themselves borrowed from their southern neighbor, India, and adopted Buddhism as a philosophy of living on par with the naturalism of Lao Tsu and the social conservatism of Confucious. The story of Buddism's migration from India to China is an interesting one. In India, Buddhism competed with Hinduism for market share, so to speak. It did very well, as we can see by its continued existence today, two thousand years after the Buddha's death. However, after awhile some of the "old school" Buddhists grew disenchanted with the politics of the large organization that had arisen around the practice of Buddism and sought a return to simpler ways. One of the disenchanted monks, Bodhidharma (known in Japan as Daruma), left India for its northern neighbor, China. There, Bodidharma is said to have sat for nine years in meditation, seeking enlightenment. To maintain his health, legend has it that he devised exercises borrowed from the characteristics of the wild animals he observed in the mountains where he meditated. The Shaolin Temple arose from Bodidharma's spiritual/physical exertions. The Shaolin monks became more than adept at Bodhidharma's exercises, primarily for the purpose of defending themselves against roving gangs of thieves who plundered the Chinese countryside. The Temple thrived but yet again internecine politics arose around the basic practice.

When Buddhism was adopted by the Japanese from their Chinese neighbors nearly a thousand years ago it underwent a another decisive transformation. The motivations behind this change were not unlike those of the Protestant movement of Martin Luther in Christian Europe and the earlier revision of Buddhism by Bodhidharma. With Buddhism Japan, characteristically, sought a more direct apprehension of The Mystery, one stripped of unnecessary adornment and intercession. Thus, the Japanese removed everything from the practice of Buddhism except the basic act of sitting. Just sitting, or shikantaza, forms the essence of Cha'n, or Zen, Buddhism. It is this practice that we attempt in the dojo, sitting either in seiza or on the seiza benches.

Looking around the West LA Seido dojo, you can see echoes of Buddhism's story in the Daruma dolls sitting on the counter of the front desk and by the shinzen. You can also "see" it in gassho, the exercise that often concludes the undo at the beginning of class. Gassho signifies the dissolution of our existential duality. By bringing the two hands together, two become one and the illusion of separateness is dissolved. Gassho signifies that the boundary of our ego is mometarily erased and the unity of life is experienced as it is.

The distant echo of Indian Buddhism is also found in the three movements associated with gassho, the bringing of the hands from above, in front, and below to the mid-chest area. These three actions point to, respectively, the Buddha, the Sangha and the Dharma, the three jewels in the crown of Indian Buddhism. The Buddha represents the ideal of non-attachment acheived through meditation, the Sangha represents the community of meditators, and the Dharma represents the path of Action undertaken by the meditator in his or her everyday life.

At the core of this crown is The Mystery, the immediate apprehension of the source of all Life that lies beyond words, beyond thought. It is not by accident that all three roads, the Buddha, the Sangha, and the Dharma, lead to the heart.

Seido karate-do is a "whole-hearted" practice. The word for heart in Japanese is kokoro. While kokoro refers to "heart" as it is commonly understood in the West, the Japanese word also designates the function of the mind, which is both emotional and intellectual. We can readily grasp the intellectual aspect of mind, but what is meant by the mind's "emotional" aspect?

Simply put, the mind's emotional aspect is understood as our "intention." When we act with intention we access our beliefs, those principles which give meaning and motive to our lives. Seido karate-do offers us an opportunity to examine our actions as expressions of our motives. Our highest purpose is to align what we do with our principles. Anything less produces a "half-hearted" effort.

Seido is a "whole-hearted" practice. Seido means "the sincere way", the way of whole-heartedness. As with Buddhism, there are few prescriptions for action in Seido. Instead, there are suggestions which you are asked to investigate for yourself to see if they're helpful in your life. Or not. The choice is your own, as is the process of examination.

By beginning each class with gassho, we remind ourselves of our fundamental creativity as human beings. Kokoro and the three tools, or jewels, are available to each of us in our creative process. What we do with the profound creative power of intention is also up to each of us. Success often depends upon commiting yourself to the goal with your whole heart. Gambatte kudasai (please do your best)!

See you in the dojo. Osu!

On Mt. Baldy, California 

Dented, but Undaunted

Nana korobi ya oki is the core belief of Seido Karate. It assumes that life is challenging and that we sometimes fall, unable to meet the challenge. Still we get up, undaunted, embracing our own spirit, our own capacity to prevail. The alternative, to stagnate or dwindle in spirit and action, is simply unacceptable.

Where do we fall, generally speaking? There are certain patterns to life and these patterns, like the embusen of the kata we practice, have pivotal points. We tend to fall on the pivot because we are changing direction, going off the well-trodden path.

We each embark on certain, predictable missions in our lives. We go out into the world to secure basic necessities, relationships with others, a reputation for ourselves, a power base, a true vision and a capacity to see life's blood flowing through everything equally. Each of these separate missions require that we re-orient ourselves, both inwardly and out in the world. Each mission indicates that the previous mission, necessary and good though it may have been, has in some way failed us. We discover the need to grow past what we once saw as a goal on the horizon. What once was the future is now behind us.

It is important to recognize when our spirit has grown. It may feel like a failure or a death of sorts, but without these moments of change, these pivotal moments when we recognize that we must once again put on our battle gear and fight for a new life, life would lose its flavor, and our heroic journey would truly end.

Seido practice is many things to many people. But what it offers to everyone equally is the opportunity to experience challenge in a deep, mindful way, the better to appreciate the lives we live. Just as importantly, it restores our ability to appreciate the lives of others. Feeling this deep connection with others, our heroic journey is not in vain. Train hard. Gambatte kudasai.

See you in the dojo. Osu!

Pine Needles, Yosemite National Park 

Millenium Challenge

In 2000, the U.S. Joint Command Forces, a sort of think tank within the military, began planning a war game named Millennium Challenge. The scenario of the game was as follows: a rogue military commander had broken away from his government somewhere in the Persian Gulf and was threatening to engulf the entire region in war. He had a considerable power base from strong religious and ethnic loyalties, and he was harboring and sponsoring four different terrorist organizations. He was virulently anti-American. There were two teams in the game; the Red Team, which played the rogue forces position, and the Blue Team, which played the American military position.

The Red Team was small in number compared to the Blue Team, which had every war technology in existence at its disposal for the game. The Red Team had technology, too, but it was miniscule compared to its opponent’s. Prior to the game’s start no one expected the Red Team to win.

The Red Team’s leader, a former American Colonel by the name of Paul Van Riper, had some radical (for the military) ideas of how to deal with the scenario he was given. He had his team analyze their options BEFORE the actual engagement. They figured that Blue Team would go after certain of their assets, like communication and power systems, first. So they devised plans for acting without these resources. Then they trained their basic skills, like troop movement and low-tech communications (using couriers on motorcycle rather than satellite phones) over and over and over again until their forces felt confident of these skills.

As important as these preparatory actions were, what truly distinguished the Red (rogue) Team from the Blue Team was its management system once actual fighting began. The Red Team allowed its leaders in the field make decisions without having to check back with central command before acting. Van Riper and his leadership group described their role as being “in command but out of control.” While errors were made by the Red Team, their “messy” organizational system had one overwhelming advantage: allowing people to operate without having to explain themselves constantly turns out to enable something called “rapid cognition.” Rapid cognition is like the flash of insight we sometimes get that produces the solution to a nagging problem. The Blue Team, on the other hand, held endless meetings with charts and computer screens and the whole Power Point misery we’ve all experienced. In the midst of battle, the Blue Team was overwhelmed by its own attachment to massive but useless information processing. It was a classic case of “paralysis by analysis.”

The Red Team won the Millennium Challenge in 2 days.

The world we live in is afloat in information. We’re barraged by “news” and entertainment options, and purchasing choices, and lifestyle decisions 24/7. A cell phone comes with a 200-page User Manual. A trip to Starbucks provides us with dozens of options FOR COFFEE. Its crazy-making and worse, this surfeit of information in minor matters can cloud our judgment when something really important confronts us. Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Blink, details how this has come to pass and what strategies exist for dealing with it. Its an interesting read, but yet another bit of information that floods our minds.

Karate-do offers us a way to practice being “in command but out of control” in our own lives without referring to a book. Our practice reduces the “noise” of the 21st century that threatens to engulf us and allows us to hear and respond to our intuition. Call it Rapid Cognition or A Funny Feeling, our intuition is a valuable resource, perhaps the most important resource, when faced with having to make a decision.

At a certain point, we have to acknowledge that more information won’t help us. Karate-do, or “moving zen” as Kaicho sometimes refers to it, can be viewed as a practice of paring away the things that no longer serve us in order to better appreciate and cultivate those parts of life that do. By simplifying, but not over-simplifying, we allow ourselves to be more available to the moment before us. Being available, we meet what is here, now. Our lives, and the lives of the people around us, are enriched by our simple presence. Gambatte kudasai!

See you in the dojo!