Essays From The Master

The fangs of the Viper
In the Komuso Ryu one learns secondly the Way of the Viper which is in brief the manipulation of emotions through tools as fuel for ritual and the manipulation of emotion as a tool. Most know that if they do not take steps to avoid showing it what they feel is easily picked up by those around them. This is the reason that the way of the viper is linked to both emotion and to the personality because the expression of emotion is a part of the personality. What emotions one expresses in the outer world affects the response of others in that others seek to increase or lessen that emotion or seek another response altogether. This is not about thought but rather feeling or sensation and as such logic cannot be easily applied to it. Emotions are largely reactions to stimuli and rarely are they proactive; when they are proactive in nature these emotions are seen as manipulations by the masses. Manipulation via proactive emotion is the active element behind the arts such as music and film; this is also why such arts are regulated by “the powers that be” because emotion influences thought.
Emotion and desire are linked and similar but by no means the same; emotions are feelings while desires are bodily cravings for a thing which can be but is not always tied to emotion. Emotions evolve based on experience while desires are largely the result of inborn instinct. Emotions and desires are both rooted in the reptilian part of the humanoid brain as are dreams which are how and why dreams feel real because through desire the dream is transmitted through to the body. By training the self to respond to particular cues rather than random stimuli an adept can manage his desires and be proactive with his emotions to a degree. To understand emotion ask yourself one question why does anyone express an emotion other than to get a particular response which makes one the servant of the one that one is seeking a response from. The reason may not be conscious but it is there all the same and by rooting out such triggers one makes the unconscious conscious tearing down the veil between dream and the mundane self giving one these triggers as tools to use.
To harness one’s feelings as tools expose yourself to the ideas that repulse you on an emotional level and those that draw one emotionally. Compare one’s own triggers to what you know triggers others, take the time to learn general triggers as opposed to particular triggers making a mental record of both. Being armed with active control of one’s triggers takes the tool of those triggers away from others one can endure pain by a “positive” memory or bring reality to a disguise through emotional ease. With enough study an adept can use his emotions to stimulate those in others by using one’s own to trigger those of others with the understanding that once an emotional bolt is fired by an adept the adept has no control of it. If we truly would make emotions our tools we must see how we ourselves use our emotions and the emotional responses that we seek, that we need. Understand one’s own emotional motives and one tames the inner viper and makes it serve one’s self. The last step in this taming of the inner viper is to know that one must feel emotions and not control them all the time because to do so creates a weakness that others will exploit. One must know when to feel emotion and when to form emotion into a tamed viper which is one’s weapon.