senshincenter

Too true - and yet, somehow the mind sharpens, can be sharpened. Thus, let us ask then: How does that happen? By use or by non-use? Does it happen outside of fear and pain or through a reconciliation of fear and pain? I'd say "by use," but by a particular kind of use - right use, and I'd say that fear and pain must be a part of training - that they are far from being antithetical to training. I'd say the easiest way to hone the mind by right use, and to make fear and pain a part of training (such that such exploration remains safe and productive), is to pair our minds with an already wizened mind. This would be where humility would again have to come in since here we are talking about the mentor-disciple relationship - a key tenet of traditional Budo training - and one would have to learn to defer the impulses brought on by things like fear and pain in order to risk a new way of being - a way of being that will in all likelihood make no sense initially since it is not speaking to the part of ourselves that we have most often listened to up until then.