The dharma comes at us. Striking high and low. Do we hesitate, do we seek to overwhelm it with force? If it is an opponent, if it is an enemy, how must we react?
If the dharma strikes high and low, we must strike high and low. If it comes near, we must meet it halfway. As it retreats, we are retreating. This is how we overcome our opponent, by nullifying each of it's movements with equal and opposite force.
A divided self creates an enemy who will relentlessly strike at our heart. By mirroring it's advances we reduce it to what it is, a part of our own dancing rhythm. Each aggressor against us is a lost part of our soul. Is a forgotten part of our beating heart, our breath. Is apart of the living wholeness that we are now. With skill, we can embrace aggression so that we may truly embody peace. Not to overwhelm, not to subdue, but to end conflict through self-realization.
Through the art of combat we can strike with such surety that all opposition is forever ceased. As a mortal being, we spend each waking moment in the arena of combat. If there are no enemies in our physical landscapes, their is the eternal enemy present in our own mind. The calculating, competing, mind that sees all the world as a dangerous opposing entity. Whatever we may gain in this world is nothing compared to what we may gain by tackling this giant that dwells within us. Nothing in this world will end the war we have against everything else in the universe. This war is constant trouble, turbulence, anxiety, and uneasiness. Nothing in the world can end this war, if we do not deal with the issue at the root, it will forever spring forward to plague our existence.
It is not enough to postpone our suffering through temporary gains and gratification. Through avoidance and distraction. The terror of our lives is born from our own minds, not from any way the world is. To gain worldly riches may provide temporary relief and distraction, but it will not root out the origin of our suffering. Our luck will run out and we will find ourselves destitute and stricken once again, powerless to stave off the forces set against us. Wisdom is recognizing this root of suffering and distinguishing that which truly eliminates it from the countless other so called voices of reason that fill this world. Distinguishing this path from what is seen as common sense.
This sense is born from reaction to recognition of mortality, and our attempts to survive here in a hostile environment as best as we can, as well as from the madness resulting from our half-baked consciousness. What is known as common sense can do a lot to provide for us in this life, but it falls short of dealing with the heart and whole of the predicament we find ourselves in as sentient beings. It cannot because it is born from rejection of directly facing the monstrosity of consciousness that we awaken to as sentient creatures. One of its primary components is to avoid at all costs facing the naked reality of our existence. We turn to dreamy cultural traditions, beliefs, and archetypes and secure our bodies as best we can on this rock. But some day this rock will rock our boat and the party will be all over. Then what?
We must go beyond conventional wisdom if we wish to get to the bottom of the trouble we are in. We must pull back the curtain and see the terror that dwells in each human mind and heart. How we attempt to prettily cover it with culture, and fail every time. We must see the limit of this behavior and thinking, and recognize how deeply flawed and shallow it is. We must be willing to go beyond it. If we truly wish to be free. We must go all the way beyond it. Into the unknown of the Abyss.
My fist does not make a ripple in the water, it has no technique.
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