so I had always just accepted the ease and clarity of the stories. Thinking about it now, however, I knew it couldn’t have been that easy. Now that I had lived through the training, seen the complexity and difficulty of finding truth and transforming the whole self through the experience, I knew that his story must have been much more complex than it sounded in the books.
“What about memories through time? Like an insight that breaks through only after several training experiences, sometimes years apart, or comes together in a seemingly unrelated moment when a phrase in a book or movie delivers the realization?” We had discussed previously how the mind can mysteriously recognize subtle insights out of small clues and artistic reflections. Sometimes the breakthrough comes at the most unlikely of moments.
He nodded. “Those are the deepest ones, aren’t they? That’s how the kuji work, they deliver themselves to you in mysterious ways, when the time is right. Inner vajra time. You’ll find a way to share these truths too.” He paused and looked at me. “You have to.”
CHAPTER 4
Physical Strength
The Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina, 2001. “The first kuji, Rin, is about strength,” An-Shu Hayes told the assembled training group. Some of us had read his books and therefore knew the name of Kuji One as Rin (臨 in Japanese, pronounced “reen” with slightly rolled “r”). A few even knew the old Chinese Taoist history that explained why the Japanese kanji character, which literally means “face” or “meet,” came to represent Strength.
“There are many kinds of strength,” An-Shu continued. “And if we were going to study Kuji One deeply, you’d want to look at all of them. But let’s start with physical strength, because it is the most clear and maybe the easiest to learn.”
Inwardly, I was worried. I didn’t want to do a bunch of calisthenics. I was more of a long-distance runner, and not much of a gym guy. Besides, I came to the seminar in the misty mountains of North Carolina to learn magic, not attend a high-school PE class.
As if he read my mind, An-Shu continued with, “Now we could study things like weightlifting to understand strength. That would be the most literal and direct form of the knowledge, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But here we’re talking about something different. Is it possible that by changing something in our own minds, we could access more physical strength?”
I stood up a little straighter. The group considered his rhetorical question. And then we got our first exercise to experience a taste of Kuji One.
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Exercise One – The Unbendable Arm |
Get a trusted training partner close to your own size and strength. Your partner is going to be bending your arm while you resist, but there are some safety considerations to setup first.
Face your training partner and place your forearm on their shoulder as in the first illustration. Make sure your elbow is such that it can bend downward (or else you’re going to turn this exercise into a dangerous and painful armbar).
Your partner is going to use their two hands to pull down on your elbow and try to bend your arm. Since they get two arms to do it, as well as the leverage of your arm braced on their shoulder, they have a good advantage. Just relax and let them do it gently once to make sure that your arm can bend comfortably that way. Once you have that established, return to the starting position with your arm extended and your forearm on their shoulder.
With this safe setup in place, you can start the exercise. First you will experience their strength while you resist using conventional strength. Tense up your muscles and try to resist, while they use their strength to bend your arm. If you and they are similar in strength, you’ll be able to battle them for a few seconds, but they will win out as your arm tires because they have two arms and a better position.
Now for the Kuji One experience. Instead of closing your hand into a fist and tensing up to resist, you will simply place your arm on their shoulder in a firm but relaxed fashion. Open your hand as if you were reaching for something behind them. Although you are going to stay in place, really reach forward, as if a loved one’s hand was just out of reach. Breathe out as you reach, imagining your breath coming out of the palm of your hand.
Your training partner will now use their conventional strength to try to bend your arm. When they start putting pressure on your arm, you might be tempted to forget your visualization and focus on fighting them, but for this exercise, keep your mind on reaching for the imaginary hand. Keep breathing deeply and relaxed, imagining the out-breath going out through your palm. Do your best to ignore the person struggling to bend your arm.
You are likely to notice a big difference in the ease with which you resist. If you and the other person are similar in strength, and you follow the directions correctly, you will be able to resist them indefinitely with this method. They will likely exhaust themselves trying to bend your arm and give up in fatigue, frustration, and amazement.
If you are significantly stronger than your training partner, you may find that you are able to resist the arm bend even with conventional strength, but you’ll still notice a difference in how easy it is with this method.
If your training partner is much stronger than you, they may be able to defeat your ability to hold the position even with this exercise, but you and they both will notice a big difference in how much force it took to bend that arm.
The author resists his training partner with conventional muscle strength.
The author channels the power of Kuji One to overcome his opponent’s muscular effort.
“There are limits,” An-Shu shared. “How many of you think it’s possible for a person to focus their energy and drive their fist right through a wooden board?”
Although To-Shin Do, our martial art, does not practice board-breaking, many people in the group had actually studied Karate or Tae Kwon Do before finding us, so they raised their hands with enthusiasm.
“Of course, because many of you have done it. I’ve done it too,” continued An-Shu. “How many of you think it’s possible for a person to lose their focus, slam the same fist into a similar wooden board, and break their hand?” Several of the group raised their hands with a grin, some of them displaying scars and misshapen knuckles from their previous martial art. “So we know that proper mental attitude makes a difference at some level.
“But what about this? How many think it possible that a person could ball up their fist, focus their energy, and shatter a porcelain sink?”
We looked around at each other. We wondered if it was possible. No one had ever seen it done, but we wanted it to be possible. A few of us tentatively raised our hands, trying to indicate our hope that he would show us how to do such a thing.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve seen some incredible things in my 40 years in martial arts, but I’ve never seen that done, and I’m not sure it is possible. And even if it were, what about punching through a car engine block? Or an armored tank? Or a mountain range? There is going to
