Chapter 7, Why the Marriage Works

One man may conquer ten thousand men in battle while another man may conquer only himself... yet this man is the greater victor.

      -- The Buddha (Dhammapada)

Every Zen practitioner is a warrior and the Code of the Warrior, Wushidao (Bushido), defines his objectives and governs his actions.

In medieval Europe, the Paladin, a religious knight who trained in the heroics of championship, was expected to be brave, modest, pious, generous and courteous to his foes even as he impaled them on his lance or cleaved them with his sword. Likewise, the Wushi, the Chinese Paladin, was expected to conform his conduct to the high standards of a spiritually refined knighthood.

It is no accident that martial arts were traditionally taught in monasteries. From the earliest days of the pancratium/yoga synthesis, it was seen that the surest way to produce a champion was to fuse in his character the ethics and humility of spiritual conviction with the wisdom which only meditation can provide.

In fact, it was always assumed that an enlightened man required very little in the way of additional physical training and conditioning to attain mastery in any martial art. As art transcends technique, martial art had to go beyond mere athleticism.

Without Wushidao, there could be skill in boxing, wrestling and kicking; but mastery would not inform the practice. Without Wushidao, there could be meditation as therapy or devotional exercise, but spiritual authority would not be attained. Therefore, in all regimens of physical training, the spiritual code of the warrior was given pre-eminence.

Depending upon such considerations as geography and politics, different varieties of the martial arts arose; but regardless of stylistic differences, the common denominator of all masterful performers was a peculiar spiritual demeanor, a demeanor evidenced by imperturbable humility.

What rationale and methodology did the master follow which conferred upon him such distinct advantages over any opponent who was not similarly disciplined?

We have all heard of a martial arts' master who, though old and, compared to his opponent, weak to the point of fragility, still manages to win. His defeated opponent will afterward insist that the master has an uncanny ability to read minds. What the master has is an uncanny ability to anticipate.

The moment his opponent begins to execute a strike, the master has already begun to block or parry and to follow through with a well-targeted counter-strike or riposte. Additionally, the master moves with effortless fluidity, without conscious consideration of a single move. He remains in a state of complete dispassion, going through the motions of combat without feeling the emotions of combat. He is able to remain calm because his ego is not involved in the contest. Let's look at how he accomplishes this.

Even though in his relaxed or casual moments the master may experience a comparatively high state of awareness, when beginning a contest he will nevertheless heighten this state by entering a meditative trance. To an observer, this shift of consciousness may be so subtle as to be imperceptible, yet the master has completely evicted his ego from the combat arena.

The method he uses to accomplish this is usually a simple triggering stimulus. First, he concentrates his attention on some object - think of a hypnotist swinging a gold watch back and forth in front of a person's eyes or a fortune teller staring into a crystal ball. In the martial arts the focal point is usually the body's center of gravity, sometimes called the Hara, which is a point deep in the abdomen where the aorta (the large blood vessel that exits the heart and travels down the center of the body) splits to become the femoral or thigh arteries.

Using specific meditation exercises (given at the conclusion of this series) the master trains himself to feel his pulse beating at his Hara or center of gravity; and, using concentration on this point as the triggering stimulus, he enters a meditative trance as he simultaneously balances himself around this center.

At this point, the master's ego-identity has vanished. He's no longer a person. He's simply a fighting machine. He's not wondering how good he looks. He's not wondering what he's going to do after the contest or even what move he's going to make next. He's not thinking, period. He has practiced his combat skills to reflexive perfection, and he lets his training take over, reacting automatically as he enters an intense Zone of egoless concentration.

This egoless state gives him several distinct advantages. He can react instantaneously; he can process fainter signals, signals which otherwise might be undetectable. He can respond to sensory data which his conscious ego might not notice or know how to interpret correctly, and he can prevent his own body from experiencing the deleterious effects of emotion or pain. And yes, he can even curtail blood loss should he be wounded. How does entry into this Zone facilitate such advantages? Let's examine the mechanics of an action/reaction event.

In order for a person to respond to a given stimulus, that stimulus must cross several thresholds. First, it must be noticed by an appropriate sense organ. Sensory organs pick up information in the form of energy: light energy excites the receptors within the eye; compression waves of sound strike the ear drum; heat energy directly passes through our fingertips, and so on.

Let's say that a student martial artist, a man with normal vision, is sitting in a dark room and that he's been given the instructions to shout "Yo!" whenever he sees a tiny green light flash. For him to respond, the light stimulus must be bright enough to excite the cones and rods in his eyes. If the light is too dim, it will fail to excite these receptors. But if it does excite them, it has crossed the first threshold: the SENSORY threshold.

The stimulus must then have enough energy remaining to travel along neural pathways to his brain. If it succeeds in making itself felt in the brain, it has crossed the second threshold, the PERCEPTUAL threshold. The brain records the green light event - it's now entered in the student's data banks, so to speak.

The student can "overlook" or otherwise pay no attention to this data (his ego may be directing its attention elsewhere or he may simply be daydreaming) in which case the light event is recorded in his brain without his being aware of it at all. Under hypnosis, he can retrieve the information. Consider the often cited case in which a bystander sees the license number of a getaway car but simply can't remember it. The visual stimulus clearly crossed the sensory and perceptual thresholds but, in the excitement of the moment, the data became garbled and the ego-consciousness could not process or memorize it.

Or, the student can access the "green light event" data in two ways. He can ego-consciously respond to it by thinking, "I see a flashing green light now. I'll do as I'm instructed and yell 'Yo!'." When this happens the stimulus has crossed the third threshold, the CONSCIOUS ACTION threshold. He has noticed an action and has considered and executed a reaction to it and he can usually recall this action/reaction event. If, for some reason, he is unable to summon a recollection of it, under hypnosis he will be able to remember the event.

To retrieve forgotten or overlooked data the confused ego has to be bypassed - transcended in the trance or hypnotic state. A re-entry into the perceptual threshold's domain has to be effected.

This retrieval technique is related to the second way the student can respond to a stimulus: he can experience it directly or unconsciously and then react to it automatically without his ego's involvement. We call this action/reaction event "subliminal". "Limen" is the Latin word for threshold. It is this direct, subliminal response that the master uses.

For very good reasons, the martial artist wants to prevent his ego-consciousness from interfering in the combat.

The ego's domain - the world of I, Me, Mine and Numero Uno - is the place we find those seven deadly sins: pride, envy, lust, laziness, gluttony, greed and anger... all those reckless, destructive motivations.

Whenever a stimulus is consciously acted upon, the ego evaluates the stimulus and decides what, if anything, ought to be done in response. If the ego does decide to act, it directs the body by sending out electrochemical messages to the appropriate muscles. In fact, the ego has an array of chemicals at its disposal which can influence and interfere with all body systems. Unfortunately, the ego does not always act in the body's best interest. Think about fear: Some people who are loquacious in their living rooms can't utter a meaningful syllable when standing in front of a microphone. The quick-draw artist at a gun club may find that his hand has turned to stone when he's suddenly confronted by a live, hissing rattler. We say that such individuals are paralyzed by fear.

Any emotion can be detrimental. A surgeon doesn't operate on people he loves or hates because his ego's involvement might prejudice his judgment. Lawyers, likewise, abstain from representing themselves for an understandable fear of compromising their own self-interests.

A person can become so angry that he will kill another person even though he knows that he, himself, might be punished later with imprisonment or death. We say that his reason has been consumed by rage.

The ego always sees itself as being at the center of a drama, the principal actor... the one whose feelings count.. the one who requires loyalty, respect and admiration. Egos, as we know in Zen, demand attention and they don't much care how they get it.

Animals don't see themselves as being in the center of a drama. Animals don't have egos; and because of this they respond efficiently and without prejudice. Their reactions are fast and direct and if they kill it is to satisfy hunger, not anger. Animals do not resort to mortal combat to settle territorial disputes; humans, providing they reasonably feel threatened, may kill anyone who intrudes into their premises. Male animals fighting over mating rights to females do not kill their competitors. If a rogue male enters a harem and dallies with a female, the dominant male runs the rogue off. A human male, on the other hand, will likely be excused if, upon catching his wife en flagrante, he dispatches her lover. Though the husband be a notorious womanizer who only vaguely recalls that his wife is a female, the stain upon his dishonored ego is naturally too great to be cleansed by anything less than the lover's detergent blood.

Again, animals respond faster than humans because animals don't have egos that interfere with their body's actions. Their responses are pure reflex, uninhibited by personal judgments. Which brings us to another reason martial artists don't want their egos involved in the action: Response times. Subliminal responses can be nearly twice as fast as consciously considered responses!

Animals do something else that martial artists emulate: they read an array of sensory signals - smells, sounds, and body and facial language; and these signals are invariably more reliable than verbal language or deliberate gestures.

We've all heard of a poker face. The expert card player trains himself never to reveal pleasure or displeasure or to give any inadvertent clue to his true intentions. He looks for such signals in the faces, tics, or mannerisms of the other players.

Boxers, too, train never to "telegraph" a punch, that is to squint an eye or raise an eyebrow prior to striking in a specific way.

The fact is that we human beings have inherited from our primate ancestors a variety of facial and body signals; but in the course of evolution, our mushrooming cerebral cortex with its commanding verbal abilities has largely replaced our non-verbal signaling system. Somebody can approach us with hate in his eyes, but if he warbles, "Good to see ya', old buddy!" we go with the verbal message and discount that look of hate.

Our cerebral evolution has also caused us to discount olfactory signals. We all know what a roach motel is... roaches check in but they don't check out. Glue keeps them in, but what gets them to check in in the first place is the chemical attractant added to the glue. The roaches are responding to a mating odor stimulant. Human beings also give off a variety of smells... pheromones.. that signal an existing emotional state.

When encountering a large dog on a leash, we ask, "Does he bite?" and we instinctively extend our relaxed, palm-down hand to let the dog smell that there is no scent of aggression on our skin.

Alexander Pope, the English poet, related that despite the protesting snarls and barks of his great dane, he permitted a flattering acquaintance to become his house guest. To his chagrin he learned that the guest had stolen many valuable items. Pope thereafter insisted that his dog was a far better judge of character than he was.

Fear also has an odor and at a subliminal level we detect that odor. Olfactory data have the most direct route of all to the human brain; and if a combatant senses, i.e., unconsciously smells fear in his opponent, he's ahead in the game. Clearly, he doesn't want to experience fear lest he signal his opponent that he is aware of the weakness of his own position. Fortunately, fearlessness is a universal characteristic of the truly spiritual person. The Zen man understands that death is nothing to fear. He is immersed in the safe Zone of the Divine, i.e., he has truly taken refuge in the Buddha. On the other hand, he's not stupid. He wouldn't likely volunteer to be drawn and quartered on the rack. But martyrs there are aplenty; and none has a reputation for cowardice.

Naturally, guile is a combatant's weapon. An attempt is always made to mask one's real intentions. This is simple strategy. An attacker doesn't announce the time and place from which he will launch his missiles. Just as certainly, the wise bully does not tell the Judo expert that in five seconds he's going to kick him. Zen training at every level denigrates verbal communication. The often inane language of koans is intended to demonstrate how untrustworthy words can be. Especially when life or property is at stake, words can be a great enemy. Flattery and deceitful assurances may cause the ego to enjoy comfortable feelings of safety which will annul suspicion and relax a guarded stance. Threats and innuendo may create fear and confusion. To whatever extent a combatant succumbs to deception or fear, he yields his own resources to his opponent.

Verbal messages are conscious messages and conscious messages fall under the control of the ego. The task of the martial artist is clear: he must keep his ego from getting involved in the contest, yet he may not suspend intellectual control. Hypnosis or drugs may make him egoless, but they will require him to surrender control of his judgment and will ultimately lessen his awareness.

The master further demonstrates his acute awareness by immediately determining not only which hand or leg his opponent favors, which is clearly valuable information, but also which eye his opponent favors. In the use of weapons the combatant is always taught to keep his "eye on the target". When the hand or foot is the weapon, the favored eye will just as surely aim at the targeted area.

Anyone can discover which eye he favors by selecting an object on the wall directly in front of him. He lets his nose lineup with the object and then extends a thumb until it covers the object, while remaining midpoint in his gaze. He shuts one eye and if the object continues to be covered by the other eye, that other eye is the one he favors. If he then shuts the favored eye and looks out through the other, his thumb will be seen to shift several inches to the side of the favored eye.

Meditation, by definition the state, par excellence, in which the ego is transcended while awareness is enhanced, will alone provide the martial artist with the means to achieve this necessary state of mind, or, more precisely, No Mind.

But the meditative, egoless state has even more to offer the martial artist. Let's go back to the student who was sitting in the dark room hollering "Yo!" whenever he saw a dim green light flash. Let's say that every time he correctly yelled, he received some food. If the student was hungry, an extremely dim green light could provoke a shout. In fact, a light that he might have been able to detect only half the time might have its odds of being seen appreciably changed. He might see it 90% of the time which means that the additional positive motivation of reward could cause him to lower his sensory and perceptual thresholds and to respond to more subtle signals.

Of course, he will have acted too quickly for conscious consideration; and so the question then becomes, "Who or what inside his head is responding to the reward?"

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