Essays From The Master

Ruthlessness to some, even most, is a negative idea but in Komuso Nin Do ruthlessness is the ability to endure and do whatever is needed to see one’s will manifest. To be ruthless one must be so first with one’s self, find one’s limits and go beyond them if one is able to. To the degree one cannot go beyond one’s limits is the same degree one is unable to be ruthless and depending on how it is used that same degree can manifest as a virtue or as a weakness. If one roots one’s will in ruthlessness and proceeds from it one has set a course that one is willing to endure, sacrifice and give for in order to prevail. This sense of ruthlessness is a union of Fudoshin, the immovable heart, and Mushin, no mind, with the shin or spirit, the heart or the center being the key. Setting the will is Fudoshin and doing it is Mushin, it is “no mind” because once set one is prepared to deal with and do as needed to see one’s will manifest as one has set. The fact that Shin or Kokoro is the key to both the immovable heart and no mind should show that on one level of reality the spirit, mind and the center are one and the same. Ruthlessness need not be negative if one can set one’s will to do anything for a negative end one can do the same for that which is positive, one must start by knowing one’s self and one’s limits. It is held in the Komuso Ryu that right action is a higher form of apology but if one proceeds from ruthlessness as right action from the start then one will not need to apologize as much to begin with.

Those willing to be ruthless that often end in negative results often end so because they put the Mushin before the Fudoshin, they put the elements out of order. If one uses Mushin without Fudoshin one is reduced to a thug, a brute that is open to every force that is outside of one’s self. One can learn more about Kokoro or Shin, that links these two elements, in the void book of the Book of Five Rings because the void is that which cancels out all that would distract the individual from the center; be that center the heart, the mind or both. Setting one’s will demands one know one’s will and what one is willing to enforce with it and what one is not willing to which allows one to be ruthless to the degree that one is. If one takes the time to know all of that and thus define one’s will then one can ruthless from the start and not have to build up to it through anger and the like or use right action to restore harmony, one that is clear in their ruthlessness can take right action without thought; this is also known as “knowing without knowing.” If one finds the inner place of “knowing without knowing” one has also found an inner balance that is common to the beasts of the wild, one never needs to teach the primal mind to know the scent of its mother or that pain hurts. One that is able to be ruthless must take steps to know when not to be ruthless, when to invest in others, when to care so that one does not lose the connections that make being ruthless worth it. This will to endure or ruthlessness as right action will cause things to appear to slow down and thus give one greater options with which to do one’s will.

If one takes the tact that one can be ruthless with right action then one has the means to overcome things like pain or other sorts of torment used to break the will by those that would be tyrants. With ruthlessness through the union of Fudoshin and Mushin the individual has the option of enforcing those things that benefit only one’s self or would benefit more than one’s self. If one is ruthless with one’s self as to one’s chosen path then one can set one’s will and use the path to deal with those things that would take one from the state of Mushin. By harnessing the seeming negative of ruthlessness through the union of Fudoshin and Mushin, one is electing to be responsible what one endures as a part of achieving one’s goals by the means of the path that one has chosen. Choosing right action through ruthlessness is electing to be free through the sacrifice of excuse.