than that. Scratch the surface, and most are also seeking some ill-defined mystic dimension to existence. I’m no different. But it’s hard to admit out loud.
We come to the dojo looking for magic of a sort. The lucky ones who stay long enough find it. But it’s a subtle thing, almost too fragile to bear direct examination. You glimpse it in the elegance of movement, the beauty of the sword’s arc. Sometimes it’s brought home to you by the subtle, warm buzz of integration you can get while doing a move correctly. Other times, it’s just in the feeling you get on entering into the training hall after a hard day in the world. The dojo is stark and bare and quiet. You set your gear bag down, a soft weight of uniforms and pads, and think: Home, this is home. And you forget for just a little while about the rest of the things pressing down on your life.
But with Yamashita, there’s more to it than that. It’s not about comfort. If anything the experience is an exercise in constant strain, of having the horizon of your own potential stretched further and further until you can hear the fibers scream. In Sensei’s training hall, the students have all been studying the arts for years, so on some level we all know that this is what’s in store for us. Most karate students, for instance, start out practicing a series of fundamental exercises, kata. As time passes, there are new kata, greater challenges to be met on the path to black belt. And when you finally stand there, with a black belt tied around your waist for the first time, you think you’ve really arrived somewhere.
And you have, of course—right back at the beginning. Because the first thing they make you do when you get promoted to the dan level of black belt is start on the novice kata all over again. Only now, the sensei say, are you really ready to begin practice. And you sigh and get to work as the horizon seems to grow a little more distant again.
Yamashita no longer spends much time watching my form or correcting technique. In that, at least, I have won his confidence and a measure of approval. He now has me pursue more intangible things.
Sometimes the Japanese discuss ri, the quality of mastery that sets the truly great apart from the merely competent. It’s the combination of many things: experience, practice, skill. And insight. You can analyze it all you want. I have. The subtle melding of perception and sensitivity with the lightning spark of muscle synapse. Easily described, but hard to reach. I’ve spent years with Yamashita, laboring at honing the technical details of my art to a razor’s precision. And the process had made me feel changed, altered in a significant way that seemed to me to be at the heart of why I did what I did. But now my teacher appeared to take this as a given, and is focused instead on a completely new set of challenges. He wishes me to develop ri. I understand the quality, but pursuing it is tricky. Every time I sense the approach of ri’s clarity, it slips away again. Skill isn’t enough. And skill is what I’ve worked on for so long. For me, it’s like arriving to play in the major leagues after years of apprenticeship, only to find that they’ve changed the rules of the game.
Why this surprises me is a mystery. You think I’d be experienced enough to know that with Yamashita, like life in general, what you tend to get is less than you hoped but more than you bargained for.
Yamashita’s hands are thick and savage looking, better suited to grasp a weapon than to hold a book. He met me at the dojo entrance as I came in before the evening class. Students were scattered throughout the cavernous room, going through the small personal warm-ups we all do before class. I bowed at the door and to my teacher. He held up a hand.
“Wait,” he ordered.
I stood and looked at him expectantly. Cast a glance around. There didn’t seem to be anything significant going on. The light was fading outside and the fluorescent lights pulsed faintly. The wooden floor shone from a recent cleaning.
“What do you sense?” Yamashita asked.
The usual, I thought. But I made myself very still in the door’s threshold and tried to focus. The wash of traffic from the street was a faint underlying murmur. Lights buzzed high up in the ceiling of the training hall. Students talked quietly to each other, but watched us surreptitiously. “Anticipation,” I finally told him.
“So?” Yamashita responded. “Hardly surprising. Is that all?” He sounded let down. “We should work more on your capacity for greater sensitivity…” he said.
“Haragei,” I sighed in response. The Japanese use the term to cover a wide variety of non-verbal communications. In the world Yamashita and I inhabit, it’s a bit more of a focused concept. The more advanced sensei believe that there are emotional and psychic vibrations dancing in the air—invisible, but real despite that fact. And you can, with proper training, learn to sense these things. I’ve experienced haragei, usually at moments of great stress. But Yamashita’s sensitivity is vastly more subtle. And he thinks mine should be, too.
I’m working on it, but I’m still a Westerner. My ability to access haragei comes and goes, and the harder I grab at it, the more it slips away. Yamashita must have seen some hint of the feeling of frustration in my expression. “We will talk more about this later,” he told me.
Which was when he handed me the book. I looked at it, puzzled.
“Changpa Rinpoche,” my teacher said.
I saw the name on the cover and perked up. “Oh, sure. There was an article about him in the Times, oh, maybe two or three Sundays ago.”
“Indeed. He runs an institution called the Dharma Center in Manhattan. He speaks to many different groups on the internal dimension of existence.”
I grinned ruefully. “They say he’s prescient. That’s why he’s so popular. For every ten people interested in Tibetan Buddhism, there are about a thousand who’ll come to see a mind reader.”
Yamashita waved the irrelevant detail away and continued. “You are unfair. This man has been making quite remarkable presentations across the country.”
“Does he bend spoons with his mind?” I asked.
“Burke, please. Behave yourself. I have known this man for many years and I respect him greatly. He could be an interesting resource for you…”
“For me?”
Yamashita sighed. “You have accomplished much with me, Professor. But now you struggle on another level. And sometimes, the very familiarity of a teacher’s voice makes it hard to hear…”
“I’m paying attention Sensei,” I protested.
“Of course you are. But…” One eyebrow arched up.
“Some of the more esoteric stuff is hard for me to get a handle on,” I admitted.
“Surely you do not doubt the reality of the things I speak of? After all these years?”
I nodded slowly. “I’ve seen some remarkable things…”
“You have done more than see these things, Burke.” He saw me fidget. “Yet?” he prodded.
“Look,” I said, “when I see stuff in dojo that looks amazing, I remind myself that it’s like any magic. Most of it’s sleight of hand. Good technique. The laws of physics. It’s complicated, maybe, but not mystical.”
Yamashita smiled. “So… even after all this time?”
I shrugged. Yamashita looked at me for a moment. His eyes can be hard and unfathomable.
