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aphobos
19th August 2006, 04:28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin

Has anyone here experienced mushin? Is it relevant to you?
Do you have a meditation practice in addition to your martial arts practice?

joe yang
19th August 2006, 06:00
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin

Has anyone here experienced mushin? Is it relevant to you?
Do you have a meditation practice in addition to your martial arts practice?

I think I've experienced it, regularly, during use of force encounters in corrections. It's like everything slows down, your thought process speeds up and you see openings and opportunities, have time to review tactics, select one and and respond before the "window" closes. What's really funny is my last few years on the job we started video taping a lot of cell extractions for legal purposes. We found them very valuable for review and training purposes too. And the taped incidents were always much shorter, faster and violent than my recollection.

I might add I consider myself a mediocre martial artist and athlete at best. I never achieved this state in training or in tournaments, never won a trophy and regularly got my butt kicked in class. I do think training through fear, frustration and failure laid a foundation for achieving what I believe to be mushin.

I also note I had four years of very formal training in TM in college and practice to this day. I suspect that achieving mushin is one of the benefits of traditional martial arts training many people miss from non traditional training and/or self annointed super soke.

Tatsushinden
19th August 2006, 08:23
I experienced this state very soon in my own training

First it was just a moment in meditation practice we did at every beginning and ending of class,but it was soon cultivated as a constant awareness.

I believe it was just naturally,because at a very young age i experienced being on the brink of life and death trough an accident.

trevorg
19th August 2006, 22:46
I have discussed this matter many times with friends of different ma systems, particularly with a muay thaih master who was brought up in a buddhist temple in Thailand, and also a hypotherapist here in the UK who works with medical practices who refer special cases.

When I began training my sensei used to place us in this position at commencement and conclusion of training and used to tell us how to breathe and imagine a golden flow going over the top of the head, down the back and through the stomach.

When I began teaching I used to use the same method and quite often had students fall over sideways, half asleep. I used to kid myself I was teaching meditation, but in reality of course this was just an advanced state of relaxation and possibly a form of self-hypnosis.

Meditation is an entirely different thing and one I am not qualified to comment upon.
Trevor Gilbert

joe yang
20th August 2006, 02:38
Trevor, don't underestimate your experience. While martial arts is not meditation, it is possible to achieve a meditative state through martial arts practice. At the same time you can not practice meditation with out entering into a relaxed, self hypnotic state. (anything else is contemplation)

TM ritual has many similarities to the opening and closing rituals in some martial arts and yoga for good reason. "Cleansing" rituals are a nice physical Pavlovian memnonic trick to relax the body and ease our cluttered minds quickly. My two cents.

aphobos
20th August 2006, 17:16
Yes, I agree with Mr. Yang that relaxation exercises and meditation can serve the same purpose.
The things that get in the way of my practice of meditation are the same obstacles in my study of martial arts and even in my life. Meditation and martial arts are great arenas in which to work with those things. Dropping physical tension, mental anxiety, self-concern, and the continuously running reel of daydreams puts me right into the moment, which is where I need to be, whether it's combat or life.
I rarely hear of instructors teaching meditation or coaching awareness in martial arts. I'm glad to hear the Trevor Gilbert does so. My opinion, which I humbly put forward, is that martial arts training is more valuable for the heightening of awareness and self-control than as combat training.

"In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. ... War was a sure safeguard of sanity..." -Orwell, 1984
The same principle applies to the individual, of course.

trevorg
20th August 2006, 22:58
Trevor, don't underestimate your experience. While martial arts is not meditation, it is possible to achieve a meditative state through martial arts practice. At the same time you can not practice meditation with out entering into a relaxed, self hypnotic state. (anything else is contemplation)

TM ritual has many similarities to the opening and closing rituals in some martial arts and yoga for good reason. "Cleansing" rituals are a nice physical Pavlovian memnonic trick to relax the body and ease our cluttered minds quickly. My two cents.

Hello Joe

I keep seeing your name pop up all over the place so here is my first reply ( am only an occasional poster) on any post to you, so Hi !

I undertstand martial arts is not meditation, but that meditation could be a part of it. All I am saying is that the brief amount of time usually given at the beginning or end of a session is not enough to count as meditation, but perhaps it is a prelude. Ergo, students cannot possibly be in a meditative state.

It is also said, I believe, that if Sanchin is practised for a continuous period of time a similar state can be reached.

Trevor Gilbert

trevorg
20th August 2006, 23:02
Joe, here is 2nd one.

Anyway mushin is not meditation but a state of no mind, which perhaps we could call in our western way a state of utter tranquility when the mind is empty of all clutter and able to receive even the minutest detail without the requirement to analyse it.

Mushin itself is not meditation ( I accept we may be crossing wires here but I was looking at the original posting for clarification) and is a state that is reached during combat or moments of extreme trauma when the mind suddenly has complete clarity.

Trevor Gilbert

don
20th August 2006, 23:31
"For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles."
Plato (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/ion.html)

Also,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0880118768?v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060920432?v=glance

Cufaol
21st August 2006, 00:02
hello everyone! I read Don's post and the following popped up in my mind :

"Poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility. A rhythmic play with words, colours and emotions. A genuine medium of expression that reverberates in the vales of rhyme and the sands of time."

-William Wordsworth-


Just felt like charing this.

cheers, C.

joe yang
21st August 2006, 02:30
Hello Joe

I keep seeing your name pop up all over the place so here is my first reply ( am only an occasional poster) on any post to you, so Hi !

I undertstand martial arts is not meditation, but that meditation could be a part of it. All I am saying is that the brief amount of time usually given at the beginning or end of a session is not enough to count as meditation, but perhaps it is a prelude. Ergo, students cannot possibly be in a meditative state.

It is also said, I believe, that if Sanchin is practised for a continuous period of time a similar state can be reached.

Trevor Gilbert

Trevor, I think there is some wire crossing here. I see the opening and closing "ritual" of my martial arts training as similar to the opening and closing "ritual" of my yoga and TM practice. The opening ritual is a prelude to achieving a meditative state. It is not meditation.

I try to practice all my arts in a meditative state. I do not always succeed. The ritual opening helps. It is not meditation. Martial arts and yoga is not meditation. Only meditation is meditation.

joe yang
21st August 2006, 10:17
I submit this quote from the previously linked Wikipedia reference.

"Mushin is not just a state of mind that can be achieved during combat. Many Martial Artists, particularly those practicing Japanese martial arts such as aikido or iaijutsu, train to achieve this state of mind during Kata (Waza, or patterns) so that a flawless execution of moves is accomplished - that they may be achieved during combat or at any other time. Once Mushin is attained through the practicing or studying of Martial Arts (although it can be accomplished through other arts or practices that refine the mind and body), the objective is to then attain this same level of complete awareness in other aspects of the practitioner's life."

More or less what I'm trying to say. Having studied or practiced quit a bit of TM, yoga and maritial arts hand had many years of professional experience in unarmed use of force I find it easier and easier to reach what Western science calls a beta state of conciousness more and more regularly. That is not to say I am not totally misquided, delusional or disturbed!

trevorg
21st August 2006, 12:13
I submit this quote from the previously linked Wikipedia reference.

"Mushin is not just a state of mind that can be achieved during combat. Many Martial Artists, particularly those practicing Japanese martial arts such as aikido or iaijutsu, train to achieve this state of mind during Kata (Waza, or patterns) so that a flawless execution of moves is accomplished - that they may be achieved during combat or at any other time. Once Mushin is attained through the practicing or studying of Martial Arts (although it can be accomplished through other arts or practices that refine the mind and body), the objective is to then attain this same level of complete awareness in other aspects of the practitioner's life."

More or less what I'm trying to say. Having studied or practiced quit a bit of TM, yoga and maritial arts hand had many years of professional experience in unarmed use of force I find it easier and easier to reach what Western science calls a beta state of conciousness more and more regularly. That is not to say I am not totally misquided, delusional or disturbed!

Hmmmm, Wikipedia - the self fulfilling encyclo. You're the one who said 'misguided, delusional and disturbed' but hey there are a thousand sources and ten thousand interpretations.

How about this one from Columbia Encyclo:

"Mushin (無心) is a state into which very highly trained martial artists are said to enter during combat. The term is shortened from mushin no shin (無心の心}, a Zen expression meaning "mind of no mind". That is, a mind not fixed or occupied by thought or emotion and thus open to everything.

Mushin is achieved when a fighter feels no anger, fear or ego during combat. There is an absence of discursive thought, and so the fighter is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation. At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next move, but what is felt intuitively.

A martial artist would likely have to train for many years to be capable of mushin. This enables combinations of movements and exchanges of techniques to be practised repetitively, until they can be performed spontaneously and without conscious thought".

I think the real point is that everyone has the facility within themselves to achieve mushin and it is the case that non ma people achieve this sort of intuition in moments of extreme trauma. And the big question is; what is the purpose ? To ensure you win, not a kata competition or to achieve flawless kata, but in a fight.

Anyway, a classical discussion which has the habit of drifting off the point. I dont think I have ever achieved mushin in the sense that it comes purely naturally after many years training (34 in my case) but every now and again it all clicks into place. I think tai sabaki has a place in it too somewhere.
Trevor Gilbert

MarkF
21st August 2006, 14:29
I dont think I have ever achieved mushin in the sense that it comes purely naturally after many years training (34 in my case) but every now and again it all clicks into place. I think tai sabaki has a place in it too somewhere.
Trevor Gilbert


You have just described contest,at least a combative one. If it is the number of years one trains I haven't found it yet. With 43 years, 22 of then in judo conpetition doesn't do it, I doubt it will now. Tai Sabaki included. However, there are those times things just happen when a winning move happens, your mind is somewhere else, or 'no mind.'
it happens and you do not know what it was you did until the moment passes. It isn't any different in a fight. The only difference is that the moment to adjust ma-ai and survey the fighting area is much shorter. the one thing they have in common. In a fight, or ideed, war, you do not know what is going to happen until it ends. Fighting a war is also similar but it takes much longer to get there. Battles over inconsequential pieces of land, the winner gets the Medal of Honor even though it meant nothing to either side except to the five thousand lives lost (those are the heroes), because no one needed the runway planned and never used. That is one too many minds.

I do not need to defend judo at this point, but the next post is when the attack begins.;)


Mark

trevorg
21st August 2006, 16:02
You have just described contest,at least a combative one. If it is the number of years one trains I haven't found it yet. With 43 years, 22 of then in judo conpetition doesn't do it, I doubt it will now. Tai Sabaki included. However, there are those times things just happen when a winning move happens, your mind is somewhere else, or 'no mind.'
it happens and you do not know what it was you did until the moment passes. It isn't any different in a fight. The only difference is that the moment to adjust ma-ai and survey the fighting area is much shorter. the one thing they have in common. In a fight, or ideed, war, you do not know what is going to happen until it ends. Fighting a war is also similar but it takes much longer to get there. Battles over inconsequential pieces of land, the winner gets the Medal of Honor even though it meant nothing to either side except to the five thousand lives lost (those are the heroes), because no one needed the runway planned and never used. That is one too many minds.

I do not need to defend judo at this point, but the next post is when the attack begins.;)


Mark

I didnt know we were playing the numbers game, if that is the case I started amateur wrestling 14 years before karate, total of 48 altogether, but hey who's counting ? All I would say is that if you've being doing judo for so many years you must have some idea of tai sabaki at least.

I am not used to the swift repartee that is part of this site's regular users so I am sorry but I am just not getting what you are saying. How can you say you get a winning move when your mind is somewhere else. That just cant happen. What you appear to be saying is in agreement with what I said about the (for me, rare) moments when we do achieve mushin, but its more a revelation than the result of constant practice.

I disagree entirely about war when you say that nobody knows whats going to happen until it ends. It isnt just a game of chance you know, it is good generalship. Read the Art of War to find out more.

As to the incoming attack, I shall prepare my mind in readiness. Funny, its gone blank already...
Trevor Gilbert

Chris Thompson
21st August 2006, 16:31
I mostly read E-Budo out of curiousity, as I practice a Western art rather than any form of budo. But this discussion raises an interesting question for me. "Mushin" can be experienced in Western fencing styles as well, but it's something we don't really talk about or train for. It just happens spontaneously sometimes that you find yourself doing the right thing at the right moment without any conscious thought. But in normal training, we definitely encourage students to use conscious thought while fighting. For instance, if you put a little too much weight on your forward leg to create a false impression of vulnerability, and then withdraw the leg and counter to the head when the opponent takes the bait, that is not "mushin" but a deliberate pre-planned ruse. You can never predict or control when you're going to have one of those brilliant flashes of "mushin," but you can apply ruses like this and win with them consistently. Yet I have seen posts on E-Budo in the past that implied that one should never apply conscious thought in a fight, and encouraging beginners to try to use "mushin" right from the start. That always seemed problematic to me, because if I had to bet on either strategy or inspiration, I'd pick the one I can predict, control and train for. Any thoughts?

trevorg
21st August 2006, 17:22
I mostly read E-Budo out of curiousity, as I practice a Western art rather than any form of budo. But this discussion raises an interesting question for me. "Mushin" can be experienced in Western fencing styles as well, but it's something we don't really talk about or train for. It just happens spontaneously sometimes that you find yourself doing the right thing at the right moment without any conscious thought. But in normal training, we definitely encourage students to use conscious thought while fighting. For instance, if you put a little too much weight on your forward leg to create a false impression of vulnerability, and then withdraw the leg and counter to the head when the opponent takes the bait, that is not "mushin" but a deliberate pre-planned ruse. You can never predict or control when you're going to have one of those brilliant flashes of "mushin," but you can apply ruses like this and win with them consistently. Yet I have seen posts on E-Budo in the past that implied that one should never apply conscious thought in a fight, and encouraging beginners to try to use "mushin" right from the start. That always seemed problematic to me, because if I had to bet on either strategy or inspiration, I'd pick the one I can predict, control and train for. Any thoughts?

The only way I could possibly describe it as an innocent in these matters is that what you achieve during combat is what we would term intuition. some people have it and some dont. However, it is maintained in budo that this state can be achieved by constant practice, particularly of the mind, but I am afraid I am light years away from that so it would take someone far more experienced than I to give you a fulsome answer.

What I do know is that I am very intuitive anyway and it is this which perhaps helps me just once in a while to experience mushin.

Clearly, if you practice feints and ruses sufficiently enough and are well versed in the application and understanding of those techniques then you will begin to see it in others and so be a few steps ahead of the game all the time - bit like chess. The level to which we all aspire is when our mind is utterly empty thus the opponent's mind is hopefully more full thinking about the environment, battle, opponent, moves etc.
Trevor Gilbert

trevorg
21st August 2006, 17:27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin

Has anyone here experienced mushin? Is it relevant to you?
Do you have a meditation practice in addition to your martial arts practice?

Hi Merik

It is probably helpful if mushin was separated from meditation although there may very well be parallels between the two ie both requiring a highly developed state of mind.

Trevor Gilbert

aphobos
22nd August 2006, 01:36
Hi Merik

It is probably helpful if mushin was separated from meditation although there may very well be parallels between the two ie both requiring a highly developed state of mind.

Trevor Gilbert

Yes, mushin and meditation are different, though I wish to emphasize the strong connection between the two. "Mind of no mind" is one objective (or result) of meditation in Zen Buddhism.

My interest in the original question of this thread sprang from the following material from <u>The Sword & The Mind</u>.
{begin quotation}
More specifically, the emphasis on the mind in the <i>Heiho Kaden Sho</i> was a result of [Yagyu] Munenori's association with Takuan, a distinguished Zen master of the Rinzai sect. ... Zen is thought to have a special appeal to the warrior because of its stress on a highly regulated way of life, simplicity, discipline, and the equation of life and death. ... But there is no doubt that [Takuan's two treatises on Zen and swordsmanship] helped promote the notion of <i>kenzen itchi</i>, "Swordsmanship and Zen are one." Zen as described by Takuan essentially is a means of achieving a perfectly contained but totally liberated mind.
{end quotation}

As I understand it, Takuan was a mentor to Miyamoto Mushashi.
"The pursuit of swordsmanship as a means of reaching a higher awareness was a matter of great concern to Musashi, as it was to Munenori."

Also, this is from the same book quoted above, though it is an excerpt from a letter from Iemitsu, third shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate, to Yagyu Munenori, his instructor in swordsmanship.
"Item: I don't use swordsmanship to have fun or to kill time. These past few years I've been practicing it with an ever deeper sincerity, because I've found that you understand swordsmanship as a matter of how to control the mind and you handle swordsmanship at will. ... Unless I can control my mind and make it follow my will, I don't think swordsmanship has any use."

There is not a better articulation of all my thoughts and feelings on martial arts than these words.

joe yang
22nd August 2006, 03:26
I have shared what my limited experience in mushin with the caveat that I may be misquided and deluded as to what I experienced and how I came to that state. I will leave it to our superior intellects to carry on the debate. I for one can no longer tell who is in agreement, who disagrees, who is being witty and who is being contentious for the sake of hearing themselves talk.

trevorg
22nd August 2006, 10:42
I have shared what my limited experience in mushin with the caveat that I may be misquided and deluded as to what I experienced and how I came to that state. I will leave it to our superior intellects to carry on the debate. I for one can no longer tell who is in agreement, who disagrees, who is being witty and who is being contentious for the sake of hearing themselves talk.

Oops. I thought I was sharing my very limited experience too, so not to be accused of having a superior intellect and liking to hearing myself talk I am outta here as well.

Trevor Gilbert (still not used to the swift repartee)

joe yang
22nd August 2006, 12:59
Trevor, appologies, I really enjoyed this thread. It isn't a topic that comes up often. PM sent.

trevorg
22nd August 2006, 15:50
Trevor, appologies, I really enjoyed this thread. It isn't a topic that comes up often. PM sent.

Thanks for the PM and answered it. On that basis, on with the fight on the other plane.

Do you not think that mushin is also present during moments of extreme trauma such as the well documented story of women lifting cars to rescue trapped children ? Could it be the same ? It is certainly a moment of absolute clarity of purpose when the mind must have put aside all other thoughts such as fear etc.

I often wonder if it is the same brain action as when you see an accident happening to you all in slomo.

Is it the same area of brain that allows you to focus to such an extent that you can force out pain or ignore the fact of potential pain altogether such as in tameshiwara ?
Trevor Gilbert

Trevor Johnson
22nd August 2006, 19:12
I often wonder if it is the same brain action as when you see an accident happening to you all in slomo.

Is it the same area of brain that allows you to focus to such an extent that you can force out pain or ignore the fact of potential pain altogether such as in tameshiwara ?
Trevor Gilbert

As a thought, it may be experienced in different ways by different people. For myself, I've had a few times where my conscious mind got out of the way and let my body do its thing, while focusing on the general strategic aim of the encounter. I find that I hit harder and move far better when that happens.

aphobos
22nd August 2006, 20:17
The state of mind that you reach in a crisis may indeed be the same. Friends and family have told me stories of crises in which the experienced the event in a sped-up awareness (making everything seem slow) and with an impersonal and matter-of-fact detachment. In my father's case, he reacted by performing a difficult physical feat.
That is all accidental though; that state of mind is not brought about by will.
However, I can't see any way to answer your question without speculation and theorizing. I cannot distinctly recall an occurrence of that kind of awareness in my experience.

joe yang
22nd August 2006, 22:31
Do you not think that mushin is also present during moments of extreme trauma such as the well documented story of women lifting cars to rescue trapped children ? Could it be the same ? Trevor Gilbert

Absolutely. Things certainly slow down during accidents. Western science recognizes three levels of brain activity I believe, alpha conciousness, beta conciousness and unconciousness or sleep, which also has levels. Our meditative state, in discussion is beta conciousness. It can be reached through training or in a crises. It is not exclusive to Eastern disciplines or the martial arts. I think it comes naturally to gifted athletes. It may also come naturally to martial artists who grow up in Eastern cultures where Taoism, Confuscionism and Budhism create certain expectaions.

Tatsushinden
22nd August 2006, 22:46
There is an interesting book on these matters:Zen and the brain,written by an academic who goes deeply into the neurological mechanisms of meditation and mushin amongst other things.

Very insightful

trevorg
22nd August 2006, 23:01
There is an interesting book on these matters:Zen and the brain,written by an academic who goes deeply into the neurological mechanisms of meditation and mushin amongst other things.

Very insightful

What is the title please
Trevor Gilbert

trevorg
22nd August 2006, 23:09
Absolutely. Things certainly slow down during accidents. Western science recognizes three levels of brain activity I believe, alpha conciousness, beta conciousness and unconciousness or sleep, which also has levels. Our meditative state, in discussion is beta conciousness. It can be reached through training or in a crises. It is not exclusive to Eastern disciplines or the martial arts. I think it comes naturally to gifted athletes. It may also come naturally to martial artists who grow up in Eastern cultures where Taoism, Confuscionism and Budhism create certain expectaions.

So, if we draw the parallel of beta and slomo when our mind , as Aphobos says, is in a matter of fact state ie dealing with the matter in hand in an abstract way, it follows that the state of no mind is also abstract.But the point we all seem to be agreeing on is that mushin can only be achieved by constant practice. As all our practice is of the physical kind (I have yet to meet a master who teaches me mind practice in karatedo) it seems that it is possible to reach this level of attainment in the same way that ki can be invigorated by constant physical practice so that we can draw it out at will rather than wait for some dramatic moment that draws upon our innermost depths of psyche.

Trevor Gilbert
(howzabout that one then ?)

Tatsushinden
23rd August 2006, 08:01
the title of the book is:''zen and the brain'' by James austin M.D.

joe yang
23rd August 2006, 13:28
So, if we draw the parallel of beta and slomo when our mind , as Aphobos says, is in a matter of fact state ie dealing with the matter in hand in an abstract way, it follows that the state of no mind is also abstract.But the point we all seem to be agreeing on is that mushin can only be achieved by constant practice. As all our practice is of the physical kind (I have yet to meet a master who teaches me mind practice in karatedo) it seems that it is possible to reach this level of attainment in the same way that ki can be invigorated by constant physical practice so that we can draw it out at will rather than wait for some dramatic moment that draws upon our innermost depths of psyche.

Trevor Gilbert
(howzabout that one then ?)

Yes, I agree.

trevorg
23rd August 2006, 15:10
Yes, I agree.

I have this sort of feeling that I've been flirting around with one of those mind battles described in Eric van Lustbader's books, but as its all gone totally blank I feel in need of a rest now.

Trevor Gilbert.

joe yang
23rd August 2006, 18:35
It's simple, I agree with your last comment. I think it mirrors my understanding. Maybe we agreed all along but we were misunderstanding each other.

ichibyoshi
25th August 2006, 16:26
I'm gonna be the smoky lamp now...

From the very little I know of Zen gleaned through practice, and listening to "teisho" (Zen lecture by experienced monk or priest), my understanding of "mushin" and where it comes from is closely connected to other ideas about 'Eastern' concepts to do with the mind, body and something called Emptiness (ku or sunyata).

Firstly in Zen the body and the mind are not seen as separate, so that training one naturally affects the other, because they are not in fact one and other.

Secondly mushin is a manifestation of Emptiness. Emptiness is not an absence or nihility, but a... beyond both something-and-nothing, which is a... where a response or an intuition (to an attack for instance) can occur that is perfectly appropriate. The metaphor of a mirror is often used: the mirror reflects back what is before it so fast as to be instantaneous, and also without adding anything of itself.

Therefore there needs to be, as far as I understand it, a high degree of faith not only in one's training, but also in the creative possibilities of Emptiness, that allows one to surrender completely the desire for conscious control or dominance over the situation at hand. In that way mushin is intimately linked to sutemi, or throwing away the body(-mind).

Interestingly, I have often heard mushin translated into English by Japanese people as "clear mind". Doesn't have the same ring does it?

And to answer the OPs question, yes. :)

b