“Disciples should not be preoccupied with their own faults or those of others. When they study someone, they should seek out the good within him. The good lies deep within, and must be found.”
Peter Deunov
How do you become strong, powerful, and dynamic without descending into chaos and violence? How do you live an intense life, without being destroyed or going too far as so many have? These are some of the most profound questions that Martial arts Masters and philosophers have grappled with for centuries. Some such Masters understood that by giving themselves over to violence and chaos, which may seem pleasurable, an individual eventually develops their worst tendencies within, and to top it all off: self deception to justify such behaviour.
Many fighters strut about with an arrogant attitude towards others, even when no one is being hostile to them. This belligenerant attitude is often developed as a protective shell. It is is aimed towards others, as a means of warding off opponents, but actually ends up developing the very antagonism in others that they work so hard to fight. It’s a case of the old general who always fighting the last war. In other words the aggression seen in others, directed towards us, is often a result of our behaviour, a reflection, rather than a separate constituent part of the process. Put differently, people are aggressive towards us because we are at the same time aggressive towards them. Aggressive behaviour, then, must be combated at the source: Ourselves.
Many instructors will tell a young student “You simply do such and such a move to overcome an attacker”. And that’s the end of it. However, many people want to learn to overcome their sense of inferiority, not simply react against an antagonist to feel tough. However, It is often this sense of inferiority that is displaced onto other individuals rather than dealt with properly. Soon the supercharged ego, fueled by winning at all costs, finds enemies everywhere. When one opponent disappears another quickly takes their place in the form of somebody looking at them the wrong way, or chatting up their girlfriend, or whatever. Then you will have a horrible inner monster to contend with. This is the real enemy, and the battle against this is the very definition of “inner martial arts”.
By feeding kill or be killed attitude many fighters end up becoming the very thing they despise, because there is a certain reciprocal relationship between the antagonist and the antagonised. They both relate to each other on the same level and need each other. This is why when a bully is stood up to, the one who was bullied by them often fills the vacuum created: By becoming the bully themselves and finding a victim. “Those that lie down with Dogs get fleas”. In other words, don’t descend to this level.
The thing the bully and the victim share in common is that they both define others and themselves as either winners or losers in some narrow sense of a particular outcome. In martial arts the aim is to turn a loser into a winner. But the one can’t exist without the other, and they often gain all their confidence from relegating others around them to a lower position. In doing so, they work at this lower level themselves and get stuck there. Sometimes I get the impression that this is their only goal. If they really are determined to see it that way, let them go ahead, but a true fighter does not fight the enemy on their home turf by sinking to their level. You might say “I was told never to back down, and to always make the first move”. Yes that’s true, but move to a higher level and from that vantage point do your worst.
Doing away with others never puts anything right, inward disorder and chaos still continue long after the opponent has been defeated. You are better off avoiding those determined to be physical aggressors as a means of developing positive forces and energy. That is why The famous swordsman Yagyu Munenori said “What is gained or lost by winning of losing is trifling…It is not to kill people, it is to kill evil”. Because by destroying others with violence you create evil, an inner chaos. However, by saving them, in other words diffusing the situation, you destroy evil. This is the higher goal of Martial arts, an ideal if you like, that you will never find lacks opportunity for its practice. In fact, this is the only real goal of martial arts so why consider all kinds of contradictory notions? I know there are some rare occasions where fighting can’t be avoided but I’m not interested in that because generally speaking it can be.
So what I am saying is you should transform your oppositions attitude towards you by your gestures, expressions, bearing, energy, and attitude. That is why so many Masters of Tai Chi in the old days spent all their time practicing harmonious movements. By using these potent weapons properly you will transform opponents, and you are perfectly within your rights to use them whenever you like. This is work worthy of the highest esteem. These are the weapons I recommend cultivating principally unless you want others to despise you. Yes, because it is in your power to influence the behaviour of others for better or worse.
The method of harmony, fighting without fighting, also works on your self against emotional strain and trauma, often brought about by endless petty struggles of the kind you’re better off without. Unfortunately, this idea lacks any kind of a tough guy imagery associated with “the fight game” and therefore people lose respect for you. Instead, in the market place, you’ve got to pull the wool over peoples eyes with emphasis on certain styles and slogans. Yes, then you are a force to be reckoned with, a somebody. A simple philosophy of sacrifice and hard work is too “simplistic”. However, sacrifice, that is gaining something greater than winning in the narrow sense, allows for peace of mind against all that life throws at you. But if you go around with this philosophy people take zero interest in what you have to say and look at you like you’re a man from Mars.
Personally, knowing I could do some serious damage with a punch, that’s enough for me, I choose not to do it. There is no need to have a death wish by becoming a martyr for some cause, a hero that is unbearable to others in the impression he gives off. That is often what the self destructive attitude is about: A secret wish for defeat, and end to the constant challenges life throws at us. Once you have gotten over this obstacle, which should overcome on the path to truth, why go over it again and again? Why not see the challenges within instead, they are far more high stakes and numerous.
Most fighters think they have to show the other guy who’s boss. To them, fighting means possibly getting maimed or crippled, or becoming mentally unwell, living this way even, and that’s just the way it is. Either that, or the other guy may suffer the same, it’s 50/50. Personally, I have no desire to be limited and victimised by this stupid attitude, I’d rather put an opponents aggression to sleep at a distance. That is the true meaning of “fighting without fighting” or the so called “esoteric energies” of the ancient spiritual arts. You must not think of their powers in the literal sense2. No, it is not a case of taking some potion made by a tribal leader, or receiving the blessing of some sage to gain supernatural powers. Nor is developing a tough “iron skin” a literal phenomenon. Has anyone ever explained this to you?
Of course nobody ever thinks that there might be some truth to these legends, symbolically speaking. You might say “That’s a load of rubbish, where are you getting this from?” On the contrary, enchanting someone under a spell or getting rid of them from a great distance of “10,000 leagues away” as detailed in the Art of War by Sun Tzu, simply means destroying their efforts before they are close enough to do harm. This is the the real art1.
You must simply ask yourself: What is the best way of ridding myself of antagonists so I can get on with the real work of living? It is that simple. You will then be able to synchronise your thoughts to all situations, because they require peaceful settlement. If a Country goes to war they cannot at the same time advance their civilization optimally. However, if they go about diplomatically defusing situations they can then get on with proper work. It is only when Countries become Barbaric that they thirst for war rather than advancement. So you have to convert the thirst for war against individuals into a thirst for war against evil. There is then coherence in everything you do, because you then have one goal, rather than dividing your forces towards war and then trying to build on top of the ashes.
Just look at how people are hypnotised or seduced into wasting their money on all sorts of rubbish, no one would have any trouble denying these modern day “dark arts”. In the same way they are goaded into battles they don’t want. This is the lower self talking, the instinctive and reactive vestige of the past2. At the moment many people are content to give into these tendencies without using will power3, as if it was the norm. Be under no illusion, if you don’t use will power to think well of others, yourself, and your own future progress, you will be as susceptible as anyone else to despair and chaos.
Everyone knows the benefits of positive thinking, so why not apply it to what most people consider negative things by seeing the best elements? The more you do this the more perceptible you will become in making something out of apparently nothing. You can’t count on your physical skills, or even on your mental toughness, because simply exchanging punches with some maniac is always a 50/50 game, as Steve Morris often points out.
References
1 See Signs and synbols in Martial Arts Part 2 https://harmanater.com/2020/06/06/signs-and-symbols-part-2-pedagogy-and-the-art-of-war/
2 See The higher and Lower self in martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/04/the-higher-and-lower-self-in-martial-arts/
3 See Will Power https://harmanater.com/2020/05/10/will-power/