Nagare: Sanshin to Mushin


As individuals our actions have very little chance to change the way the Universe is running because Nature does not take our human desires into account.  The meteorite that crashed in the Yucatan 65 millions years ago might have been obeying the laws of the Universe, the dinosaurs didn’t agree with it crushing them all!

As we cannot influence what is outside our Body&Mind (B&M) complex/entity, we must recenter our actions for the exclusive benefit of ourselves by flowing and drifting aimlessly within (or on top of) the outside world. The B&M has to learn to achieve “total coordination” in order to develop this natural ability to flow.

The 流れ(flow, nagare) is more than a movement it is above all an attitude in Life, and this is exactly what I have  been learning during the last 26 years with Hatsumi sensei. We train to suppress the thinking and analytical process in our actions. This is the secret of Hatsumi sensei’s budô.

In a real fight if you are (body + mind + intention + analysis) you are dead . Fighting is about reacting without intention 無想 (musô), and not about having a perfect body shape, a fantastic mind, and a lot of intentions!

Our first objective is to find this unity and  instead of being three (body, mind, and consciousness) to become ONE. This unity is possibly achieved by training thoroughly the fundamentals and the basics of the bujinkan.

Unity is  結束 (kessoku) but the first kanji is 結 (like in yûgen) from which we understand that from the ONE we can find the invisible nagare and become ZERO.

When the practitioner reaches this level of “oneness” he gain access to the “zero state” of 無心 (mushin) he can flow without intentions on the stream of Life.

And the proof is that  無心, mushin has also the meaning of “innocence”, like the innocence of a 3 year old kid (cf. sanshin no kata). leads to mushin.

“3” becomes “1” and “1” becomes “0”

Author: kumablog

I share here on a regular basis my thoughts about the Bujinkan martial arts, training in Japan and all over the world, and

One thought on “Nagare: Sanshin to Mushin”

  1. This has to be one my favorite posts of yours. I can re read and re-read and read this again and again!

    Thank you for making something that seems complicated into really simple words which ease understanding of the true concept of nagare!
    Love & Respect
    Anjaan
    http://www.buj.in

    Like

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