- – – – by Kimbal Anderson Sensei
To categorize before you see means you only will see what you determined you want to see.
When I was young and ambitious I wrote a whole article about training in the arts. Trying to show people who felt like that that was ridiculous: we shouldn’t have art and music and all that and it’s just waste of time… to show them this: the best scientist is someone who’s trained in the arts. When they look in the telescope, the microscope, the mathematics… when they look at things, they have developed their perception. They see things others do not.
And I was suggesting, of course, there needs to be a comprehension of that and also, I’m going to call it, a deep nurturing and appreciation of that.
I know as myself, I had a mentor once just stop me and say: “You know, men as artists in this time, have to make a statement, have to have this thing, have to say something… It’s all about some ‘voice’…”
And he said…
“I want to challenge you to make something beautiful. Just beautiful. From your point of view. Just make it beautiful. If you think you’re a good artist, just frigging make something beautiful. Drop all this other crap!” And so I did endeavor to do that.
And in the process, as I offer you artistic challenges with your life, I’m asking you make your soul an art, an art-form…
You know… a martial Art – if you take the words – is… to me it means… you bring together the martial – the forces – and you make it an artistic exploration.
A martial Way is to – once you’ve done that – determine you’re going to live that way. That the little moment of you is that: a beautiful work. My belief is that empathy, compassion, these other things… must be there. In fact, I’m going to go as far as – at least to my level of understanding – as to say that they are the basis of things. And that empathy allows a kind of compassion where you drop your socialized stories. And every person who comes to you first is a living being. First.
Not a sex or a gender, not an economic place, not a fear… All that…
That takes some bravery. It does. Because you don’t know… Come on now… We all live in a… Right now we all have PTSD. The kindest people I know now have PTSD from this whole thing. And they’d like to glom onto some answer: “I’ll just be this way with…” “If they say that, I’m just going to do that…”
And they’re no longer the eloquent, beautiful capacity any more…
So as martial practitioners, your work is creating your capacity for all things.
All kinds of capacities.