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Concentration A full moon reflects in a silver stream at night. As we watch this reflection, bits of leaves and grass pass through it. They are briefly and fully illuminated by it but pass easily through it, never attaching to that reflection. When we sit za zen, our mind is the moon's reflection and our breath is the stream. Instead of trying to empty the mind, we let thoughts intrude on our concentration but do not attach to them. Our thoughts are leaves and grass. Let them be fully illuminated but then let them pass completely and easily through the mind; concentration returns to our breathing. In combat, the mind is still the moon's reflection but the opponent becomes the stream. All thoughts must pass through the mind quickly. Any attachment to thought will be fatal. Particularly, attachment to "I don't want to die" is lethal. Once attachment to life clouds the vision, the fight is mostly lost. All thought must pass quickly so that we can return concentration immediately to the opponent. Thought is five times slower than reflex. If we free our reflexes from the sticky mud of thought so that they may fight for us effectively, our thinking mind will watch our actions as though watching a video. Reflex is that much faster than thought. To draw a related analogy: in tennis, we are aware of the court, the opponent, the weather, spectators, birds... every part of the experience. But only the ball is the stream, the breath, the opponent. If we can get to that place where only the ball exists, where everything else shrinks away, then action slows. Everything but the ball grays away to the periphery, and the ball takes on a clarity and brilliance that enables us to hit perfect center-of-the-racket shots; this is perfect concentration and, incidentally, tennis at its best. The stream, the breathing, the opponent, and the tennis ball are all the same... a thing we must absolutely concentrate on to achieve a goal. To do otherwise is to doubt the outcome and, by that doubt, to create failure. There is a blurring between the unstoppable will and an accomplished task. In feudal Japan, swordmakers wished to make swords that would cut armor and armormakers wished to make armor that could not be cut. One day a competition was held: An expert swordsman would attempt to cut a helmet made by a famous armormaker with a famous swordsmith's blade. As the swordsman approached the helmet with sword overhead for a vertical cut, the armormaker could sense that in the swordsman's mind, his helmet was already cut. The armormaker interrupted the swordsman on a pretext of making an adjustment to the helmet. This broke the swordsman's concentration and he now failed to cut the helmet. At a recent karate demonstration, I asked one of my students to break three one-inch boards with a slap. Even though he has done some training in this area, I knew he had not done this kind of break before. I was asking him to do it for the first time in front of about 40 spectators. As he approached the boards, it was clear to me that he was not going to succeed; I knew he had not already broken them in his mind. He took a few deep breaths and struck but failed to break them. I moved close to him and growled, "They are already broken! Put your hand completely through them!" He struck again and shattered them. I then set up a patio block and broke it so quickly that several people in the audience complained they missed it because I didn't take a moment to pause dramatically above the task. There was no need to pause. In my mind, the block was already in pieces on the floor. The actual strike was unimportant. To survive combat, one must eliminate all thought and concentrate completely on the opponent. Then, when his will flickers, when doubt manifests itself in his breathing or his gaze, when his reflexes become stuck in the quagmire of thought, in your mind he is already cut through. The movement of your blade is secondary and unstoppable.
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