May 12th, 2010
To be king
Nature is ruthless and so to be one with nature is to be ruthless as well
When people conceive of nature they oft times attribute sensibilities and innate values that the people in question possess when in reality in an objective sense nature has neither mercy nor malice, no morality at all. In the symbolism of Asia often the Earth and authority over the Earth is symbolized by a tiger; in the Komuso Ryu the tiger is the emblem of the art of combat as well as the Ku or mind-body continuum. The tiger is the animal symbol of the Jin mudra which is “premonition of danger” and the fifth verse of the Komuso Ryu’s mantra “I have no eyes; I make the flash of lightening my eyes.” There is some evidence that large cats tigers, lions and jaguars, much like sharks, pick up on the bio-electrical output of all living things which is why this verse of the mantra, its mudra and its totem resonate with the element of wood which is symbolic of external life-force. To be “aware” in any sense is a matter of being reception and being receptive that is a calculated vulnerability.
The Komuso ninja denies having “eyes” because to have them in the usual sense is to be entrapped by the limited scope of “five senses” or mundane reality. The flash of lightening is the energic grid that the organic layer of life on the Earth emits which is known to most when lightening flashes from the Earth to the sky and sense by a minority as Ley lines, lines of dragon fire or the currents of Yin and Yang known in Feng Shui. To assert that one’s eyes are the flash of lightening one is making one ’s self open to the ebb and flow of the lines of force on a tactile level. As each living thing emits an aura and nonliving places and things can hold an imprint of the auras of living things an “aware” mind will sense when one’s aura comes into contact with another aura whose vibration will relate the intent of the origin of that aura. On another level to be aware via the flash of lightening is to simply not discount any possibility.
It is said in Japan that “men are not tigers through they strive to be”, the Komuso ninja by being aware life-force to life-force or aura to aura strives to set aside his humanity and understands nature objectively, ruthlessly like a tiger, like nature its self. Once armed with the objective awareness the ninja is then able to act in accord with his individual will, rather than simply respond to what is as a tiger would, an individual is not a tiger because an individual is far more than a tiger. The tiger has been called “the master of the Earth” or king of the world. Because the individual can be ruthless like a tiger each individual has the potential to be a master or king. The individual can be a king of the world in ways a tiger could never be because the individual while able to be ruthlessly aware of the ebb and flow of life like a tiger, the thinking individual, is not limited to responding to its instincts as a tiger would be.
To be aware via the “flash of lightening” is to be an independent individual who rather than being in isolation is strong enough to be open to input outside of there individual scope and not be overwhelmed in the process. This is not emotional empathy rather it is the ability to know where one’s perceptions end and where objective awareness begins. One must be one with nature, its cycles and so on but also respect where the individual starts and stops.