THE INNER WARRIOR

When I pick up a jian (Chinese metal sword) or bokken (Japanese wooden practice sword), when I pick the a sword, I’m practicing commitment, focus and clarity and creating flow, precision, firmness. With each movement of the sword I empty my internal space and clear my mind, sweep it clean, reset it. I firm, strengthen and polish my body-mind. Not by force but with decisive precise sharpened elegant lithe lightness that’s the nature of the sword. Once you have experienced it through your body with the sword as your teacher, you know it and can and will apply it to other areas of your life. That is your cultivation of your Inner Warrior.

I remember those moments in the temple long ago that I started to understand this – in the afternoon moving with the sword in any weather - hot, cold, dry, rainy; and any inner weather – happy, unhappy, comfortable, in discomfort, focused, scattered. These ever changing weather patterns started to fade away with the growing clarity and firmness that the practice with the sword started to accumulate within my body, my inner system.

In the mornings, picking up the broom and sweeping the temple courtyard – I realise I could do the same. Even sweeping is a practice… hold the broom, settle into focused calm, be present, with each sweep precise firm yet flowing clarity grows… The same digging the potato trenches in the garden later on, with chopping the wood, cooking, washing the dishes, the same generating qualities through knowing how the body and the whole inner system needs to set up, move, respond, understanding the inner moves, the internal settings…

Against the backdrop of thousand years’ old sanctuary of the temple and the Wudang mountains all around, the Celestial White Horse Mountain, I’m changing myself from within step by step, movement after movement, breath after breath…

The next step: Later on, back home in the ‘valleys’ (everyday life back in Europe) – physically away from the beloved mountains and the sustaining temple field – I pick up the sword, the broom, the brush, a pen, a chopping knife in the kitchen and my body and my inner self, the system within, remembers – clarity, relaxed firmness, spaciousness of the mind yet precise focus. Practice accumulates. I learn other application of this internal experience and mechanics of learning, understanding, applications in new context…

The next step: Application of the same principles and states within situations that are chaotic, stressful, threatening to the nervous system... Sometimes I manage, sometimes I don’t – both teaches me a great deal, shifts are happening, my system is in natural rhythms, ongoing flow of processes of resets and recalibrations.

The world is a big dojo, a big temple, and with each step, each movement and moment of presence I understand better how to use these lessons and gifts, (even if sometimes wrapped in seemingly unpleasant wrappings), to grow and blossom. I no longer suffer as a victim of circumstance, when things are stressful, uncomfortable or painful I may grumble, I may vent, but I don’t tend to fall and suffer because the world and whole life has become a temple ground and I know my tools of practice, learning and living more expanded life. Not because I’m a master, but because I’m on an experiential life journey of self-mastery. I practice, I explore, I play and laugh, Yin and Yang in flow because I’m committed to LIFE, not just survival but thriving too. I no longer aim to be perfect, instead I aim to be true. I no longer aim to achieve, I aim to be present.

Firmly under my feet unfolders a destiny path - a path of Adventure, a path of the Dao.

Gratitude to all teachers, brothers and sisters, lineages, supportive fields and currents.