Statutes of Musashi (right) and Kojiro on the site of
their duel on Funajima Island (now called Genryu-to
Island), Shimonoseki
Whew! I finally finished reading the entire volumes of Musashi, the epic Samurai novel today. It's so good that I simply could not put it down so it took only 10 days to go through 1.45 million Hanzi (Chinese characters) in 1,300+ pages. (I read the Simplified Chinese edition from Hubei Province.)
It is full of Zen wisdom and is a kind of book I would read over and over again in the rest of my life. As it is an extremely long story, I will just talk now about an episode very close to the end of the story. I love this part. I guess it is already a classic episode that many people have already known, though...
Just a few hours before the official duel with Kojiro on a tiny island, another young sword master, Musashi takes a long time and quietly draws pictures at his hostel. The people around him get frustrated by Musashi's unhurried attitude and worry that he may not really willing to fight with Kojiro. He draws these pictures for the inn's master and the boatman who will soon take him to the duel for memories.
And after he goes on aboard a boat, he starts carving an old and cracked oar into a wooden sword. He carves the wood with a short knife slowly and quietly.
He draws pictures not because he was reluctant to fight. He carves a wooden sword not because he has forgotten his own. But he quietly prepared for his duel by making his consciousness focused on manual work. As both painting and carving require high level of concentration, you cannot do these well if you think much. And it is vice versa.
When you are doing a good manual work, you are absorbed into it and very unlikely thinking much... Actually that's the reason why a Zen novice starts his training from cleaning and washing dishes.
By drawing and carving, Musashi empties his mind. He knows very well that thinking much about how he should fight with Kojiro would not help him much. After many years of training, he has learnt that the most reliable thing is what has already been completely a part of him so that he does not have to think about it at all. (Such a state is called Unconscious Competence by practitioners of Neuro-linguisic Programming - NLP.) He has decided to let his unconscious mind prepare for the duel.
Emptying your mind is a good way to achieve excellence because it is the highest level of trust you can grant to your unconscious mind. If you can do this, your unconscious mind will be so glad that she would co-operate with you, providing you with all the available resources.
2 件のコメント:
i don't think you wre a cat in your past life.. i think you were a monk
:)
I first thought that how a sex maniac like me could have been a monk in my previous life. But yes, I was a monk in a past-life therapy session.
I was a monk in a Medieval European country in the session. I was persecuted and was expelled from a city as a lawless. Then my head was chopped with an axe by another lawless... Quite miserable...
But after the session, my long-term neck pain was gone.
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