“If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world.” It is said that Takuan sought to infuse the spirit of Zen into every aspect of life that caught his interest, such things as calligraphy, poetry, gardening, and the arts in general. This he also did with the art of the sword.”
Takuan Soho | The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman
When the warrior monk Takuan Soho speaks of The Way, he speaks of Bushido and Zen philosophy. Bushido being The Way of the samurai and Zen being the way of the monk.
Bushido philosophy includes the pursuit of mastery over martial arts with weapons like the sword, bow, spear, and even the gun.
Zen pertains to purity of mind, or the state of no mind, known as Mushin.
As a warrior monk, Soho combines the warrior code of Bushido with Zen, the pursuit of mental purity.
Soho wrote The Unfettered Mind as a letter and a gift to Yagyū Munenori, a Daiymo and master swordsman during the Edo period. Takuan saw the sword not only as a weapon of warfare, but a path to follow to self-mastery.
The Way is the Way of mastery, which is the path of fulfillment.
The world will try to change you and if you let it, you will be taken off the path, away from mastery, and away from fulfillment, and you will not be satisfied with your life, because you are not fulfilled.
Following trends instead of your spirit
The outside world is loud. It is crucial to develop self-esteem so that the voice inside commands more than the voices outside.
The world does not have your best interests at heart, because the world doesn’t know you, or what you desire, or what will bring you fulfillment.
The world doesn’t care about you. The worldly voices exist to fulfill their needs, and those voices shout loudly in an attempt to convince others to join them.
Those who are loud are calling out to get a need or a want fulfilled and most of the time they do not care what it costs or who it hurts–so you must look out for yourself and your people with a composed demeanor.
No matter what is happening to the world, no matter what the masses are pursuing, you must follow your spirit to ensure you are on the correct path.
Following trends cannot bring universal fulfillment to the masses because each individual has a unique path to death and the uniqueness starts at birth with unique DNA and continues to differentiate based on billions of interactions on the path that leads to death.
Trends fulfill those who create trends, not those who follow them.
Do not unconsciously serve masters.
Paying attention to paths outside of your own
It’s easier to follow your spirit when you do not feed your mind data that is off your path. Nearly all the data on social media is off your path.
Paying attention to the paths of others, or the paths of organizations, prevents you from giving all of your attention to your path. You will progress to mastery faster by paying attention to your path.
Paying attention to the paths of others means picking up their baggage and carrying it down your path which can only slow you down.
Celebrities are a tool used by the lost to distract themselves from pursuing fulfillment on their path.
Observance of celebrity is a vice.
Celebrity doesn’t mean famous, you can celebritize a friend, child, or romantic partner where you worship them and do not pursue mastery on your chosen paths.
When you celebritize someone close to you, you become baggage on their path. Parents must guide their children down the path without weighing them down. A good friend is not baggage, but someone to walk the path with.
You may show a child or a friend the beginning of a path and see if they walk it but do not push them down that path if they falter due to a lack of interest. Provide counsel, encouragement & guidance if they falter due to adversity.
It is crucial to understand the difference between disinterest and difficulty. Walk away from disinterest, walk towards difficulty.
You will not find fulfillment in another. You will only find fulfillment on the path. This can include the path of a relationship, but not the celebritization of the person you are in a relationship with. It is crucial to understand this difference.
Parents must ensure they continue to pursue their own mastery when they have children. Parents must never live through their children.
Paying attention to the news
Paying attention to the news is carrying the baggage of all individuals the news is covering.
The news does not focus on the positive, because the lion is more engaging than the apple due to a built-in survival mechanism to prevent the individual from pursuing the apple when the lion is laying under the apple tree.
The news understands that the lion is more engaging than the apple and uses this survival mechanism to encourage the masses to pay attention to their news so they may profit from it. The news uses the individual for profit.
What happens across the world does not affect you. If something is newsworthy for your life, someone will tell you, or you will observe something newsworthy and share it.
The news is gossip on a larger scale.
When you pay attention to the trends of the world you take your focus off your path, moving farther away from fulfillment.
Regardless of what the world does, regardless of what is trending, stay true to your Way, stay true to mastery, and you will continue to find fulfillment.
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