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Old 06-19-2009, 04:39 PM   #16
Erick Mead
 
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Dojo: Big Green Drum (W. Florida Aikikai)
Location: West Florida
Join Date: Jun 2005
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Re: "No Mind" - What is it?

Quote:
Jun Akiyama wrote: View Post
As I've posted before, Mihály Csíkszentmihály describes this mental state as a state of "flow":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

-- Jun
Or, .. if, like me, you have ADD, it is the way we just are normally, when nobody is bothering us ... hyperaware, either narrowly or globally, and without much conscious direction of our attention. We have a different problem -- not in finding mushin, no-mind, but finding fudoshin -- immoveable mind. Lack of mushin means you are "outside" the action and thinking about it instead of being wholly within in it without having to think.

ADD people's attention is very fluid. When people bother us, we are forced to lose our natural tendency toward mushin -- and so we need to develop fudoshin so we hold onto our natural manner of awareness. "Normals" conversely, have no problem being perturbed from the task at hand, (and for this reason are often unfairly deemed "boring." ) But because of their rather "viscous" attention, they miss stuff globally that should prompt action, because it is "outside" of their understood task awareness. They need help cutting off that lingering attention. They are related. Normal people have a harder time getting in the door of mushin -- ADD people have a harder time staying inside it.

When people intentionally bother us ADD-types, by demanding attention, they interfere with our normal "within the moment" awareness We HATE that. We have to either consciously ignore them to give attention to what we are doing, which is unnatural -- or ignore something else to give them the attention they are so inconsiderately demanding, which is also unnatural. Did I mention we HATE that?

It is, as I say, bothersome ... When I started training, people trying to hit me bothered me, and interfered with my awareness.

The key in martial arts was coming to the point where, having people trying to hit me ... no longer bothers me.


Putting this in mythical terms (hey it's Aikido) -- whether you are easily disturbed from mushin or have difficulty achieving it-- whether of either type -- you also need fudoshin. Fudo Myo-O carries two instruments -- a sword and a rope: the sword cuts off stolid attachments and the rope binds flighty desires. He serves both types ... .

Cordially,

Erick Mead
一隻狗可久里馬房但他也不是馬的.
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