Everything is like this. To make a scarecrow for the mountain fields, one fashions a human figure and puts in its hands a bow and arrow. The birds and beasts see this and flee. Although this figure has absolutely no mind, if the deer become frightened and run away, insofar as it has fulfilled its function, it has not been created in vain. This is an example of the behavior of the people who have reached the depths of any Way. While hands, feet, and body may move, the mind does not stop anyplace at all, and one does not know where it is. Being in a state of No-Mind/No-Thought, one has come to the level of the scarecrow of the mountain fields.
Takuan Soho | The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman
The scarecrow is effective because he is of no mind.
The wanderer who is of no mind has no anxiety.
Like how the scarecrow does not fear its purpose, neither will the wanderer who pursues The Way, who pursues Zen, who seeks to keep their mind pure.
The farmer who chases the birds and the beasts is emotional. His mind is full of emotions. He is angry the birds and beasts exist, he may question why they eat his crops, and not his neighbors. He may even let the birds and the beasts ruin his day, which makes him less productive, which makes him angry at his wife and children, which damages his mastery over his familial relationships.
Hate is a relationship. Hating your enemy connects you to them and makes you their inferior. Hating is overcaring.
Do not hate your enemies.
Be apathetic to them so emotion does not cloud the judgment of your mind, which prevents you from thinking clearly, which prevents you from effectively dealing with your enemies.
Purity of the mind
Think of the mind as a glass of water with a little sediment at the bottom.
Anxiety swirls the glass and clouds the purity of the water.
Zen keeps the sediment at the bottom of the glass, keeping the water pure.
When your water is dirty, you must cleanse your glass. Cleanse your mind with meditation.
A wanderer must seek to be pure of mind at all times. This concept known as Mushin. Soho writes about this in The Unfettered Mind.Soho wrote The Unfettered Mind as a letter and a gift to Yagyū Munenori, a Daiymo and master swordsman during the Edo period.
You can read the great wisdom of a warrior monk today.
The pursuer of mastery on a specific path eventually loses their mind. Or better put, they shed their mind and no longer think about their pursuit of mastery, the work of it, because they have become it. They have purified their mind on the path. Their water is pure.
The scarecrow is borne to serve its purpose. The wanderer has reached a milestone of mastery when they have lost their mind, like the scarecrow.
The Buddhist priest Bukkoku wrote: “Although it does not mindfully keep guard, In the small mountain fields the scarecrow does not stand in vain.”
Losing your mind on the path means the wanderer has reached a sufficient level of mastery where they do not think about their path, because the wanderer and the path have become one. They flow together, like dancers.
When a wanderer and his path are flowing they do not know where they are or what time it is. The wanderers’ mind is gone, fully surrendering to the guardian Muse of their chosen path.
The scarecrow embodies the state of No-Mind/No-Thought–Mushin.
Mushin is the ideal state of mind for the wanderer.
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