Essays From The Master

The sage has said: “What is death but life unveiled? Without conceit and without self-deception.” In every path one is led to reflection, one has a choice as to which reflection one invests in. One has the choice of the mirror of truth that shows one one’s strengths and weaknesses or the choice of Orochi’s mirror that creates illusions or shows one what one desires to see. The one that would be a master makes the mirror of truth his own and learns how to shatter Orochi’s mirror, hence the meditation and Kenjutsu technique of that name. A part of the trial of reflection in any path is the fact that the two mirrors appear to be exactly the same, it is what each shows that makes them different. In so much that is the will that invests one in a vision of the truth it is the will that divides the real from the unreal as well as being able discern subjective things from objective things or the transpersonal from the personal. Through its link to the will the blade, and all it symbolizes, is revealed as the master’s mirror, that which reflects truth, which allows one to break through so many illusions that the masses in the world are conditioned to accept as truth. Just as the sword divides the living from the dead by taking one life in order to preserve the life of the one using the sword so the mirror of truth divides strength and weakness et al. To know one’s weaknesses is to be able to forge new strength by resisting that weakness, this makes the weakness a fuel for strength until that fuel is burned up.

When the first fuel is used up of one’s weaknesses one must move on to one’s lusts and other base desires, one must use all to shape and hone the will which leads to clarity as to what is and what does not in terms of reality. To choose the mirror of truth as one’s blade and elect to shatter Orochi’s mirror is to affirm that one is not bound to the world, status or anything of the kind because these are all images from Orochi’s mirror, because one has found the void and used it as the gateway to the Kokoro or the Heart of All Things. The link to the void is why this teaching is linked to the third verse in the central mantra of the Komuso Ryu of Nin Do: “I have no home, I make the void my home.” This is also why this teaching, like the mantra verse, is linked to fire because fire can equally, warm, cook, destroy or illuminate if one is willing to cultivate and manage that flame, it is how it is used that makes the difference; the same as the difference between the two mirrors. If one can understand the two mirrors one can realize that one’s reflections needs no outer construct or affirmation because one can elect to not need such the same way one can affirm an outlook or not. To have a personal reflection or perspective is to create a balance between the absolutes of truth and illusion which allows for personal truth that does not negate objective truth. In terms of combat this teaching takes the form of playing into the enemy’s expectations as well as creating false impressions in order to influence what the enemy does or does not do as part of the combative interaction.

This teaching can make a combative interaction into some other type of interaction such as a contest, a conversation or a dance or even nothing at all. The grasp the teaching of the choice of reflection in an active way is to reveal an example of Nin Do, the Silent Way, blending the esoteric insight with a practical method. In the same way that one can choose the space of one’s reflection, one can use one’s reflection space to change one’s perspective on things such as failing being an end or having the chance to improve. Choice of reflection, perspective and investment of will shows the power of the individual to be subjective or objective or realize the balance which does not impose their subjective or sense of the objective on others. With the master’s mirror one gates to decide what is and what is not even as to the states of life and death.