Essays From The Master

In most cases one starts the path to learn to defend themselves or to be able to see to a mission. Once one can do these things and perform the acts that one has chosen to do, why does one keep training beyond to be able to keep doing all of those things? Nin Do, the Silent Way, is not just a martial method, it is a Do, it is a way of life and not only life as a warrior and all of that but a life in full, leaving no facet left out. One that is on the way must make one’s self train beyond the fight and apply the way to all aspects of being in order not only to live but to thrive in life. To thrive in life means to not limit one’s self to the martial or the spiritual that together compose the way but use those things to make the most out of all else one does in life. This means taking the health and diet teachings of the way out of their usual context and use them to have vitality even when one is not deep in the path. In practical terms this means that one trains and so forth because one enjoys it not simply because one has to, one must transform the edge and rush of the drive to train into it being something one does to because it brings more to life. Once one has this sense of joy in the doing of the path one has the option of expanding how one applies what one knows to helping others to cultivate the same quality of vitality in life. This goal explains why being a teacher of the Silent Way demands understanding, benevolence, courage and wisdom.

In historical terms, training beyond the fight recalls the fact that the Koga region of Japan was known for producing doctors before it was known for the Silent Way. Given the root with doctors does not mean that one must be a medical person or anything like that but the root does open the way to being more than it is when one is first starting to train. When one has found the joy that is the cause to train beyond the fight one should look to find ways to use the discipline one has to improve one’s life in all areas and thus make one’s self an example for all. Through the joy and discipline born of training beyond the fight one will find that one is naturally in the flow of the Heart of All Things simply by being rather than through meditative thought or ritual action. This combination of joy and discipline will make opportunities more apparent and will draw persons of a similar nature to one which will aid one in the doing of one’s will. One does not loose one’s edge or cease to be the martial artist or spiritual person that one has become through training, rather training beyond the fight allows one to see the flow of the Heart of All Things, the Kokoro, at work in the mundane world even to interactions between persons. In the Komuso school of the Silent Way the way as it applies to living life is identified with the moon and the person on the way is in a sense a shadow facing the moon. To be a shadow facing the moon is to be a reflection of a reflection of a source of light, this double reflection points to the substance in the shadow that one is.

If one can harm and control the level of that harm one can aid others in having themselves restored as to vitality which leads to health and the traits that many conflate with youth. Before one can aid others, if one elects to, one must see to that vitality in one’s self which points back to this principle of training beyond the fight. If one can move freely with stealth and enter where and how one wills one can bring notice to the things and persons that deserve it or expose secrets that should not be hidden. Training beyond the fight is the answer to the various traumas that arise from having taken the Silent Way for one’s self. By training beyond the fight one is actually aiming to cultivate more of life and to make more of the life that one already has had and that one has in this moment. Training beyond the fight means that the adept is using all that the path has given them to make one’s life worthy to be recalled in eternity.