Halting the Mind

"When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on any one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing in mind at all, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leave holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there."

"Glancing at something and not stopping the mind is called immovable. This is because when the mind stops at something, as the breast is filled with various judgements, there are various movements within it. When its movements cease, the stopping mind moves, but does not move at all.
If ten men, each with a sword, come at you with swords slashing, if you parry each sword without stopping the mind at each action, and go from one to the next, you will not be lacking in a proper action for every one of the ten.
Although the mind acts ten times against ten men, if it does not halt at even one of them and you react to one after another, will proper action be lacking?
But if the mind stops before one of these men, though you parry his striking sword, when the next man comes, the right action will have slipped away."
- Takuan Soho, The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom

As I was practicing Iaido the early morning heat, I had an ephiphany.

I have often lamented that I am someone who is slow of learning and slow of action, who lacks the grace of any good athlete or artists. To watch me do Iaido is probably more painful than my sensei or fellow students admit.

But as I was moving this morning, illumination occurred.

My concern in doing Iaido is that I am too mechanical, too slow. I get through one series of movements but I stop each step: foot here, arm here sword here.

But this morning, as I was practicing my unsheathing (nukitsuke), I suddenly realized what Soho was talking about.

My mind stops at each part: right step, left step, grab the tsuba, pull back on the saya in saibiki, draw and grab the saya with my left hand. As a result my movements are slow and disjointed.

But if I didn't stop at each movement, if I just moved through - to use Soho's words, my mind not halting at any one but moving through, things become flowing - not any faster to start out with, but flowing.

But as I practice this new concept, this moving without halting the mind, I suddenly realized that the same is true of life itself.

Too often as I try to do something I try to do it too mechanically, focusing on each step in turn instead of seeing the whole. Instead of moving through like a dance I let my mind halt on things - sometimes things which are relevant, but just as often things that are not relevant: anger, resentment, unfairness, injustice. These too are things which halt the eye and mind and distract from moving and doing.

Don't be mistaken: to not halt the mind is not to think and reason. It is not to practice good judgement or to do excellent work. What it means is to see the whole for what it is and complete each part while not being consumed by each section of it.

And so I will move through the kata and through the day itself, seeing each individual leaf but not sacrificing the sight of the whole tree.