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Message |
| Posted By: |
Samurai |
| Date: |
25-Feb-2007-07:27:27 |
| Subject: |
To Win a Thousand Battles |
To win a thousand battles is not the greatest victory.
To subdue the enemy without fighting, that is the greatest victory.
I remember when I was a kid reading those words on a business card on my bulletin board. It was a business card that had something to do with the dojo I studied with.
We had a sensei who was nice. Over the years, I looked for other dojos in the hopes that I would find a nice sensei, but nobody was nice like the sensei I had when I was a kid.
He used to tell us a story about a fox and a cat. The fox knew many tricks. He could do circles. He could go this way and that. He could go up and he could go down. He could go side to side and fake left and fake right or hold still and pretend he wasn't there. He got to talking with the cat one day and comparing himself with the cat. The cat only knew one trick. All he could do was run up a tree and wait for danger to subside. The fox explained how clever he was to the cat because he knew many tricks. One day, a wolf came. The fox went this way and that. And the cat went up the tree. The wolf got the fox.
He used to tell us another story after that one. He would say if you were like the cat, what one technique in karate would you learn if you could only learn one technique. Then, he would tell us that it would be to run. If you aren't there, how can the opponent strike?
One day, in my young adult life, 10 years after hearing these tales of animals, I found myself walking down a city block after dark. Some homeless drunk types gathered near the edge of the sidewalk as was the scene in this area. One drunk seemed to stagger along the sidewalk in front of me from one side of the sidewalk to the other. I tried to pass on the outside and he staggered towards the outside in front of me. I tried to pass on the inside and he staggered to the other side in front of me again. I tried to get by on the other side again and without warning felt a fist in my jaw catch me from the side.
I had 3 thoughts. I was hit. I might get hit again. Run.
In the end, I was not hurt and lost nothing to the experience. Yet, I learned what my sensei had taught me worked.
In working with energy, we go through all the ordinary karmas of everyday folks at accelerated and amplified rates. Some days, we find fists coming at our cheeks from many directions at once in one form or another. Some days are hard. Some days are harder. And some days we'd rather skip altogether.
Occasionally, we forget to simply climb up a tree in our mind and meditate until the wolf has finished dinner. Some days, we get tired of running up a tree and start getting clever like the fox. And some days, the wolf eats cat.
Cats have 9 lives. Not 8 and not 10. So many second chances. There comes a point where we have one life left to get it right and we can't get it wrong this time because we have no more chances left.
How do you know when you get another chance to run up a tree and when you don't?
Ous,
Samurai |
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