Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
“The Japanese term Mushin [無心: innocence ; insentient (incapable of feeling or understanding things; inanimate [not alive; show not sign of life; lifeless]); free from obstructive thoughts; to pester someone] is a shortened version of the Zen expression "mushin no shin" which translates as "the mind without mind" or "no-mind-ness." This means a fully awake and aware mind not fixed or occupied by emotion or thought (implying the eyes or any other sensory input also not fixed or occupied on any specific awareness, action or target).” - Christopher Caile, Mushin: The State of Mind posted on FightingArts.com
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“Mushin thus implies a state of mental clarity, awareness and enhanced perception (sensory and intuitive) known as pure mind, produced by the absence of conscious thought, ideas, judgments, emotion (fear and anxiety), pre-conception, or self-consciousness. It is a state of total awareness and reaction not impeded by higher mental function or emotion, a mind more open and reactive to subtle sensory input, intuition and spontaneous action. It is a mind that is totally calm -- a mind not influenced or caught up in events or others emotion, thus a mind more able to freely perceive and respond.” - Christopher Caile, Mushin: The State of Mind posted on FightingArts.com
You probably already know that Caile Sensei’s articles have inspired many karate-ka and you can imagine that your practice and training have absorbed many concepts posed in Caile Sensei’s articles. Sooner or later because words and thoughts and beliefs matter to you a great deal that one day the concept is going to change. Today I pose a change in regard to the concept of, “Mushin.”
Let me be so bold as to provide you a resource that if you read and study it, then you too will allow some concepts such as mushin evolve into a more effective concept.
To perform what many believe is mushin, many people therefore assume that one has to remove and become without feeling, i.e., without the obstacle of emotional interference. It is said in the first paragraph above, “This means a fully awake and aware mind not fixed or occupied by emotion or thought.”
The reference is: Barret, Lisa Feldman. “How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain.” Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. March 7, 2017.
I have a vast library collected over the years of study, training, practice and application of my martial discipline, karate of Okinawa (Isshinryu). Over the years many of those publications have held top honors in my list of the best of the best until today. I have placed this reference at the very top of the top of the top simply because it speaks to many concepts that are taught and practices and studied in martial disciplines be they art or simply “jutsu.”
This recommendation and on a publication that is not directly, somewhat indirectly tho, about and on and a martial art/karate oriented book. Yet, the more I study its meaning, the more I find it of benefit and especially of benefit to the karate-ka and martial artist who truly seeks out enlightenment.
First, in order to be alive our emotions are the driving force of our evolution and survival even in the iTech Revolution in which we live today. There is just not an app for this … yet. It is literally impossible to live and act as a human being without emotion or thought. What makes us human and what makes our minds sentient is a process whereby perceptions and concepts are formed and stored by words and actions of others in our environment and that means thinking, feeling, experiencing then creating the concepts that make the skills that allow us to function. We would not exist if not for our minds, our emotions and the teachings and experiences that our sensory systems are exposed to from the moment of conception to babyhood to childhood to teen years to adulthood to senior years to the final breath at deaths gate.
We don’t want to achieve being fully awake because people today go through life awake yet unaware. If one wants to create a inspiration to others then say that Mushin means to be fully aware and informed while understanding with focus that is not disturbed, distracted and frozen by our emotions and external random thoughts. Note: It needs more work and you can imagine how it is more effective because it addresses the reality of how our brains work in the manufacture of our perceptions to beliefs to the very reality of our individual worlds.
What actually happens if you are only awake, define awake, and aware, define aware in the situation and moment, not fixed in emotion or thought, then you realize you are nothing and because of that nothing you are unaware and subject to inability to take action. In short, this type of inaccurate words and thinking leads to “the freeze” of mind, body and spirit.
In order to fully understand this concept, one of many concepts, you have to allow that words, word patterns and the accuracy of their meaning drives how we create concepts in relation to our own experiences both past and present moment along with our current concepts in order to create and believe and apply a proper concept that will allow actions of an appropriate nature for that present moment.
Take another look at the definition found on the term mushin: The Japanese term Mushin [無心: innocence ; insentient (incapable of feeling or understanding things; inanimate [not alive; show not sign of life; lifeless]); free from obstructive thoughts; to pester someone]
Take special note that part of the definition is about being incapable, not alive, showing no signs of life and lifeless. There is a hint within the defining words that create concepts in our minds all leading toward the creation of our reality and those words are not conducive to the actions necessary to make martial practices and applications work.
Words matter AND word patterns matter AND definitions of words matter AND learning effective, appropriate and well defined words matter AND learning effective, appropriate and well defined and understood word patterns matter!
Bibliography (Click the link)
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