Engaging with What Is
“Stone sharpens the blade.
Stones sit still. Water babbles.
Water erodes stone.”
“I love my pain. ”
When you encounter an emotion or sensation, don’t try to push it away or ignore it in preference of ‘correctly’ completing the form. The form was what gave you that experience to work on, so it’s already doing what it needs to do. Your job is to use what it gives you as a means of finding a truthful moment, free from the burden of judgement, tension, self, or ego.
If it is discomfort that you feel, go into it and don’t ignore it. Where is it centred, what is its quality, is it sharp edged, deep, numbing, radiating, pulsating, constant? How does it change the quality of the muscles around it? What restrictions does it place on the form? We are trained to run away from discomfort, but discomfort is part of the experience and therefore needs to be encountered, explored and accepted. The pain is a fact, an element which limits some possibilities, just like any action includes its own limitations, but rather than focusing on that, given the fact, what else is possible?
Often the exploration of our tension and blocks become a catalyst for emotion and a reminder of the individual ego. We feel the discomfort of repeated action in our muscles and panic, or for those that find enjoyment in the challenge, a burst of determined energy, or combativeness. These ego traps take the participant out of the state they are intending to practice, and the action reverts to merely exercise.
Alternatively, one may feel tension released as an emotion, a pure and unencumbered expression of authentic feeling, which is the goal of the exercises. Releasing these in the expressive moments, the shakuhachi or prelude in the stomp exercise for e.g., is exactly the purpose and practice, but to do so consciously, aware of the energy created by the oppositional tension of attempting to hold back what is too large to hold. Within the exercises that are not expressive however, the focus remains on being able to access this place, rather than express it.
Discomfort in the exercises may also result in the engagement of the mind and thought, particularly for those pre-concerned with the form – am I doing this correctly? How am I being perceived? What am I doing this for? When will this show some dividend? How much longer? I need to work on my cardio. What will I do for the image work? These thoughts pull the participant out of the exercise and its purpose into the future or the past, or again to some emotional or ego response.
Going into these phenomenon as they occur is just as productive as going into any focus on breathing, or the quality of the form itself. These are all simply another point of focus on which to concentrate, like a mantra repeated over and over again until you go beyond the superficial level of intellectual contemplation or ego response and use your awareness of this one thing to quieten the multitude of other stimulus that otherwise preoccupies your consciousness.
We can learn from our pain, discomfort, and confusion – often faster and more effectively than from pleasure and understanding. We habitually explore the easy practices to find a place of truth, rather than confronting the obstacles we ourselves have placed in our path. Becoming aware of these limiting factors and our attitude toward them is the first step to accepting and integrating them into our existence as individuals and actors.
