Essays From The Master

To make a sanctuary of fear, silence, death and darkness
In the invocation of the crescent moon the sanctum of the ninja is defined as being fear which is said to be equal to silence, death and darkness. Fear is an awareness of threat which requires self awareness one must know what is and is not one’s self, in order to know what is a threat to one’s self. To know one’s self enough to know fear is knowledge enough to know when to speak and when to be silent. Part of being effective in the Silent Way is the ability to listen or otherwise pay attention and perceive when and how to act. All fears are shades of the threat to self that manifests to the body as death and so by coming to terms with death and making it change rather than an end one is free from the hold of said fear. Death becomes change through acceptance of the fact that nothing that exists now can be made not to exist only changed in form.
Death is linked deeply with the colors black and red as well as darkness as a spiritual concept. Due to the link between darkness, death and the “fear of death” darkness is often linked with moral evil. By making fear and silence into constructive forces in one’s life and using them to see death as change one’s perception of darkness also changes. It is said that the common man avoids loneliness but the wise man makes it his refuge. The same can also be said of darkness because the light polarizes all things, dividing things into light and shadow while darkness reduces all things to their essence because in order to stand out in darkness a thing’s light or power must come forth from within. By coming to terms with death as change and actively using silence to gain objective insight fear is made to serve the individual becoming a sixth basic sense making one aware of the bio-electrical output of life through what disturbs it.
With this “sinister” form of a sixth sense an adept can learn to navigate in darkness whether actual or symbolic i.e. symbolic darkness would be depression or deception, by sensing the flow of life or the presence of non living things by the holes they represent in the flow of life. Where those without the means to navigate freely in darkness and would avoid it the Komuso adept has no need to. Free from fear the Komuso adept has access to what the darkness conceals giving the adept an edge and so power over others. What the masses avoid as a result of being of a herd mind the ninja of the Komuso Ryu makes his sanctuary and in so doing is joined to what the masses fear in the minds of the masses. To make fear an aid to one’s self is to inspire fear, to embrace silence is to break the power of words used by others. To make death change is to do away with the illusion of a finite life; to embrace darkness is to be beyond light and shadow being as pervasive as darkness its self.
It is well known that the colors red and black appear the same at night and both are linked to death as well as to the historical Koga Clan from which the Komuso Ryu originates. It is said by some that the world of the ninja is “blood and death” but the knowledge of the sanctuary of the ninja puts this legend into focus. The ninja makes fear, death, silence and darkness his sanctuary in which he finds knowledge and power, the halves of truth, just as he makes truth its self his weapon if need be or his means to heal if need be.