Why do you do what you do?

Continuing from my last post, martial arts is one of my personal spiritual practices, and has been for a long time. It is a good example, but not the only example, of something that is seemingly "normal" that can be made into a tremendous opportunity to evolve yourself and grow. As I talk about martial arts over the next few posts, substitute your own activity into all the spaces where I put the words "martial arts", and you will see that the concepts I'm giving are the same for your activity too.

It's all about the intention behind your actions.

Draja Mickaharic once gave me an analogy. He said life is like treading water in a really deep dark pool. At the bottom of the pool is a priceless diamond, and everyone knows that getting the diamond would be a good thing. The problem is that the diamond is too deep to get it. A person cannot hold his or her breath long enough to swim down that far. Most people struggle to get the diamond but never do, and in their despair they give up and drown. They think that since they could not get the diamond, they've "lost" the game. However, there are other people who view the whole scenario as a test to better themselves. They realize that they can't get the diamond, but that doesn't matter to them. The game is actually about learning how to hold their breath longer so they can swim deeper and deeper each time, and one day maybe eventually they will be able to get the diamond. The act of bettering themselves and the journey of working towards that diamond is what matters to them.

Both the people who drown and the people who view it as a test are doing the same actions: they are trying to get the diamond. The ONLY difference between them is how they view the situation, and what their intentions are.

Intentions change everything.

So goes the same for martial arts. Why do people do martial arts? There are all kinds of reasons. Some people want to learn to boot some head. Some people want to learn to break as many bricks as they can, with their head. Some people want to learn self-defense or street smarts. Some people want to get lots of exercise. Some people want to be sports champions and get lots of trophies.

All these things are fine. They all represent different intentions behind doing the same set of tasks. My intention was to learn about my own body, emotions, mind, and spirit. I was lucky to have a class that focused on that aspect. Few of them ever do.

The style I practiced was mostly composed of Wado Ryu, which is an Okinawan style of karate. Later on I got into other things, and before that I had done Goju Ryu, an Okinawan style with some similarities, as well as several years of fencing. On the side, I did a lot of full-contact medieval combat with historical re-enactment groups, but that was not for spiritual purposes. That was purely for booting some head. (I too like to boot head once in a while!)

The father of Wado Ryu, or more correctly, Shotokan karate, was a man named Gichin Funakoshi. Though he was the father of Okinawan karate in the United States, he was also the person who brought the idea of karate as a spiritual practice into the mainstream of thought. Before that time, karate was for life and death. You needed it to survive on Okinawa in the 1700 and 1800's. In the 20th century, however, things cooled down a lot over there, comparatively, and other reasons for practicing karate became more noticeable. Particularly, this man was fairly enlightened to the aspects of doing karate to build character and uncovering your connection to Oneness.

Funakoshi came up with 20 precepts.