I’m set to grade for my Nidan, or second degree black belt, in karate in just two weeks. It’s a nerve-wracking prospect, not the least because it comes with a question-and-answer component that focuses on the theory of martial arts, and outside factors that influenced it to become what it is today. One of the most significant among those is Zen, and so today’s post is my attempt at connecting some dots between Zen and classical martial arts.
What does Zen actually mean?
In order to grasp how Zen relates to martial arts, it helps to have a basic understanding of what Zen is. To wildly oversimplify, Zen is a practice that is centered around the pursuit of enlightenment; in order words, a complete shift in understanding about the nature of the universe, and one’s role in it. In Japanese, this is called “Satori.”
To help practitioners get there, Zen employs several tools: sitting meditation, moving meditation, and koans. All of these tools are meant to aid practitioners in emptying their mind: of limiting beliefs and viewpoints of the nature of the universe, of one’s sense of self, and even of the desire to empty one’s mind (mind-boggling, I know).
As the belief goes, only once the mind is an empty vessel can it be ready to rebuild a new viewpoint on the nature of the self and the universe. The belief is that the mind is at its most powerful when it lets go of conscious, logical thought.
The concept of “emptiness” is central to the practice of Zen, but it’s also integral to the study of martial arts.
Emptiness in Martial Arts
Zen’s influence on the martial arts extends all the way back to the Samurai. One of the most challenging aspects of training with the katana wasn’t the techniques for using the sword; it was in the mind of the wielder. If you’ve ever played tennis or golf, you know that a huge chunk of the game is played between the ears; in other words, in your own mind. You could train for years, only to psyche yourself out at that crucial moment, and miss the shot.
Now, imagine that happening on the battlefield, where “missing the shot” means you’re dead. The stakes were high, and the samurai needed a tool to help them refine their mental technique in addition to their physical.
Zen, and its focus on the emptiness of the mind, turned out to be the perfect tool. If the mind is truly at its most powerful when it is completely empty of conscious thought and desire, then that must be the ideal state for the mind on the battlefield. An empty mind on the battlefield means that the samurai wasn’t focused on which technique to use, or trying to predict what the opponent was going to do; it was simply left blank in order to automatically react to the opponent’s intent and actions using the appropriate response.
This emptiness of the mind has a term that is used among martial artists: mushin, or “no mind.” In his Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi wrote about this concept, referring to a cluttered mind as a form of sickness. His view was that it was sickness to think of winning the fight, and it was sickness to think of not losing. It was even sickness to think about ridding your mind of sickness, because it means you’re still fixated on something. Only by letting go of all thought do you rid your mind of sickness on the battlefield.
Zen in Martial Arts Today
That same philosophy still exists in our martial arts training today. When we practice ippon kumite, which involves and back-and-forth exchange of strikes and blocks between two partners, the defending student readies themselves by trying to empty their mind and let their body intuitively react to the strike. Trying to predict what the opponent will do and ready a block for that is the most common mistake beginners make, and it usually involves them producing the wrong block and getting hit.
The point of the exercise isn’t to successfully block the strike every single time; it’s to train your mind not to think in attempting to do so. Over time, dedicated students realize that the intuitive mind is way, way better at blocking/countering than the conscious, active mind.
This emptiness of the mind has a term that is used among martial artists: mushin, or “no mind.” In his Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi wrote about this concept, referring to a cluttered mind as a form of sickness. His view was that it was sickness to think of winning the fight, and it was sickness to think of not losing. It was even sickness to think about ridding your mind of sickness, because it means you’re still fixated on something. Only by letting go of all thought do you rid your mind of sickness on the battlefield.
Wrapping it Up
While Zen may not have had much influence on the physical aspect of martial arts, it played a central role in the mental aspect, and has for hundreds of years. Whether you recognize them as principles of Zen or not, the mental fortitude we as martial artists are trying to cultivate essentially stems from Zen philosophies and beliefs.
When you watch a sensei who has been studying martial arts for decades move almost impossibly-fast to block the strike of a decades-younger attacker, you’re not just witnessing martial arts in action; your witnessing martial arts made into all that it could be as a result of Zen. It’s something we should all keep in mind as we continue with our training.
