“The hand must be like a bamboo leaf, the feet like rolling logs, the eyes like a flitting sparrow, the heart like a polished mirror, and the mind must always remain in its beginning.” - A quote attributed to Rev. Kensho Furuya
The best martial artist has a starting over mindset. Every morning when a martial artist wakes up, they should think to themselves that they are starting over. I don’t mean starting over from a negative or defeated sense. I mean starting over from the Japanese sense of shoshin (初心) which means “original intention” or what Zen Buddhists refer to as “the beginner’s mind.” To have a beginner’s mind is to have a mind that is wiped clean and freed from all the baggage that one has accumulated from the trials and tribulations of life and all of its social conditioning. In Japanese, yarinaosu (遣り直す) means “to start over.” Yari means “to do” and naosu means “to fix.” Understanding this, starting over is to do something better because we have, theoretically, fixed it and would then become more successful. Interestingly, we can see this yarinaosu or starting over mentality in author, Brian Tracy’s Zero-based Thinking. He said, “Practice ‘zero-based thinking’ in every part of your life. Ask yourself continually, "If I were not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it again today?" If it is something you would not start again today, knowing what you now know, it is a prime candidate for abandonment or creative procrastination.” So, each morning, we should adopt Brian Tracy’s approach and think about starting over. In starting over, we should think about the things, habits, situations, or people which have served us, helped us, or were of some benefit to us. Those things which are a benefit to us, we should embrace or accentuate. Those things, people, or habits which are not beneficial or are not supporting us, we should move away from them. We should also carry this same starting over mentality into the dojo. Furuya Sensei used to say, "Cut off your head and leave it outside the door.” What he meant was that we should leave the cares, worries, and baggage of the external world outside. The dojo is supposed to be a sanctuary or a place of respite from the outside world where we go to improve ourselves. However, the dojo is just a place. It can only become a sanctuary when we can step over the threshold without the cares of the outside world. In a sense, we have to walk in with a cleared state of mind or as if we have “cut off our heads.” A martial artist is a person who is trying to better themselves. One way to do this is to take a regular inventory of ourselves and those elements in our lives. The best time to do this is in moments just after we wake up where our subconscious minds are supposedly in the most susceptible state and open to suggestion. By taking an inventory and using “knowing what you know now, what would you do or do differently,” we can imprint our subconsciousness for success and seemingly start our lives over. This is something that any person can do martial artist or otherwise. A true martial artist is an alchemist because they have the ability to change themselves and they do this by continually starting over.
Today’s goal: Think about those things which don’t serve you and wipe the slate clean.
Editor's note: We attributed this quote to Furuya Sensei because we cannot be 100% sure it was from him or written by him as the source is not verifiable.
Watch this video of Brian Tracy explaining Zero-based Thinking