#Has more morals than the entire council did in act 1 to an extent-

[inkperch]

...Lmao, I knew Cait would be terrible at having a villain arc-

[bookwyrminspiration]

your marelliana post has me thinking about fintan and marella again so...........here goes.

i absolutely adore that fintan is teaching marella. bc 1) THEYRE FINALLY USING FINTAN FOR SOMETHING IMPORTANT! 2) he's 100% the best person to teach her about pyrokinesis (from a "how much knowledge would he be able to pass on" perspective) and 3) imo it is....such a good way to show fintan's character? and wonderful set-up for more use of him in future books? because fintan teaching marella (and teaching brant to an extent but v much marella) showcases that what he wants more than anything is the reacceptance of pyrokinetics and in general just....good things happening for the elves? and it helps humanize him in the way that it gives us something he cares about, something he really, truly believes in (because iirc he was the one asking to train her) and will put effort into, even if that doesn't work well for him! like, marella's an enemy combatant, the smart thing to do (from an evil mastermind persepctive) is to just. not teach her anything? or purposefully mislead her? and yet it seems like everything he's teaching her is genuine. marella's just better with her pyrokinesis in general and that's such a cool thing? and it really really sets up the continuing idea in keeper that good and bad aren't clear-cut- i mean, we've got the former main antagonist being a mentor figure to a character while still being an antagonist. that's just! that's so good! and of course i want him and marella to bond. i think it would be really interesting to see, especially since they're, y'know, both pyrokinetics and therefor would probably manage to understand each other in a way many other people couldn't. they share a ton of the same struggles that no one else can ever really get and that's so important for both of their characters. and i think it would be....very, very interesting if marella picked up some habits from fintan. honestly i just want more marella and fintan content. separately or not. i just....i wants it! give me the marella and fintan content!

- pyro

oh yes! i kind of neglected to talk about Marella in one of my recent posts about Fintan, so thank you for bringing it up again!

i think it would've felt strange to just completely shut off Fintan from the story because he's been so integral for so long, working at the head of things and constantly affecting Sophie's life. So he's now involved second-hand through Marella because i'm like 87% positive he's the oldest/most experienced pyrokinetic in the series.

but! it also does something more! it humanizes him and gives him real, consistent goals. he's been attacking the elven world and killing people for a hot minute throughout the books, so we naturally come to associate him with oh, he's the bad guy and he wants to do bad things. But he doesn't! he's told us himself that his goal is to create a society where no one has to be forced to hide an essential part of who they are (this is a general summary, but the way i've phrased it kinda sounds like he'd also fight for queer rights so, i count that as a win). He'd not all death and desctruciton, he does that to try and regain his status as someone with an ability as that was taken from him. and training marella is consistent with that! it may have been like a shocking "wait what?" moment for some of us because we've come to associate him so heavily with bad things, but it makes so much sense.

he wants pyrokinesis back in their society. theres a young pyrokinetic who has no idea how to control her ability (aside from whatever Forkle taught her, who as far as we know is not a pyrokinetic) just out there, confused and alone. Not only does it make such much sense for him to train her, he's done it before. He took in Brant and trained him. Now he's working with Marella. I'm sure he'd love to escape that little prison cell of his and get back to doing some of the big work, but until then he can help Marella and that's still making progress in his mind, just on a much smaller scale than we're used to. But it could lead to a helluva lot more, I mean the council are aware of her ability and are allowing her to train. that's significant progress! that's what Fintan wants!

you're absolutely right: it just further shows that the "good" guys aren't good and the "bad" guys aren't bad. they're each a complicated mixture when you look closer. Fintan, one of our big "bad" guys, is doing something we'd consider to a be a beneficial and moral action, completely changing how we've seen him so far. Yes, he's talked about his true motives before that, but I don't remember him acting on it before. Also the way you phrased it--him being a mentor while still being an antagonist--was an insightful way to put it and I love it so much. like yes!! he's helping a main character! but he's not helping them, if that makes sense. he's not trying to get them any closer to their goals or achieve anything they want, him helping Marella is something that personally benefits him at the same time as her.

also I do think it would be fascinating if Fintan was framed as more of a nurturing character, caring intensely for the people he chooses to take under his wing, which now includes Marella. I can imagine him trying to get through to her, to connect with her, reminding her that just because the council is letting her train doesn't mean they're open and accepting. To step back and analyze everything they say and don't fall for their tricks and give in like he did. Just...him trying to protect her and keep her safe the way he wasn't. he has experiences and fears and hopes that Marella can connect to! They share something no one else in the entire fucking world does. Brant is dead. They're the only pyrokinetics left right now. That is such an intense bond--real quick, it does remind me of Sophie's situation with Bronte. They're the only two inflictors and Bronte was kind of like a minor antagonist until they started training together and got a whole lot closer. What if the same happens with Fintan and Marella? (except there wouldn't be the unnecessary cruelty sophie experiences because Fintan genuinely wants to help Marella). Just a thought. I think it would be neat.

also: just having a main character, Marella, starting to form these connections with an influence that has been portrayed as wrong and bad? she has the potential to bring a whole new approach to the way everyone does things. and i really hope she does!! i think it would be so cool. i desperately want to see her form a bond with Fintan, someone obviously outside of the realm of "good" and take that and apply it to her own morals and figure out what she personally believes and wants to do.

pyro you're absolutely right. Fintan and Marella content please and thank you, shannon!

[crusherthedoctor]

Can we have some unpopular Sonic opinions?

I tried to cram in a lot, so I hope this satisfies you. :P I tried to stick to the ones that I haven't brought up quite as often, since by this point, we all know that I think IDW's storytelling is dire, SA2's story is overrated, X Eggman is an embarrassing portrayal (at least from season 2 onwards), Blaze shouldn't be handcuffed to Silver, Shadow's backstory had issues with or without the Black Arms, Neo Metal Sonic looks silly, etc. But anyway, here we go:

- Knuckles may be tricky to incorporate into plots that don't relate to Angel Island, but making him obsessed with his duties is no better than having him forget about Angel Island entirely.

- I like Marine, and never found her annoying. Oh, I understood what they were trying to do with her, but I honestly wasn't put off by her, and found her Aussie lingo more endearing if anything. Since her debut was during the period in my life where where I couldn't stand Sonic himself, I instead thought he was irritating (and hypocritical) for getting annoyed with her for doing shit he would often be guilty of.

- Silver is just as guilty of being shoehorned into games and plots as the Deadly Six are. Having more fans than the latter is irrelevant, since we're still talking about a character who constantly has to time travel in order to be present.

- Speaking of Silver, if he has to stick around, please do something different with him. They've pulled the doomed future routine multiple times now, and it's been boring every single time. I wasn't interested when it involved Iblis. I wasn't interested when it involved Knuckles drinking the edgy Kool Aid. I wasn't interested when it involved a council of dumbasses... give it a rest already.

- The Tails Doll can work as a mildly creepy thing, with maybe more to it than meets the eye when it's time for a boss fight or what have you. But the memes about him stealing your soul are just dumb, and I thought it was dumb even back in my teenage youth.

- “Eggman is supposed to be clownish!” Yeah, well he's also meant to be a genuine villain with a 300 IQ. These qualities don't have to be mutually exclusive.

- “Sonic is supposed to have attitude!” Yeah, well that's not the same thing as being an absolute cunt. Sonic was only ever meant to come off as having an edge compared to Mario. He was never meant to be a GTA-tier protagonist.

- Rouge is not a villain, and never was a villain. Literally the whole point of her role in SA2 was to reveal that she was working against Eggman and Shadow the whole time, albeit using sneakier tactics to do so. You'd think all those people who exult SA2's story would remember this, but apparently not. She barely even qualifies as an anti-hero, since aside from stealing the Master Emerald, she rarely does anything morally questionable otherwise. She's got a lot more good in her than people give her credit for.

- Captain Whisker is a better Eggman Nega than the actual Eggman Nega. And as far as robot characters in this franchise go, Johnny's design is pretty underrated.

- I don't like Iblis or Mephiles, but I DO like Solaris, and it annoys me that it was out of focus for most of the story due to all the time spent on its less interesting halves. Had they kept the backstory with the Duke and his experiments, and worked from there, I think they could have provided an interesting contrast with Chaos (since Solaris can also qualify as a monster with a sympathetic backstory) instead of recycling the surface level schtick.

- Black Doom may technically be just as bad as Mephiles, Nega, Scourge, Mimic, etc, since he's yet another villain with one-note characterization and fucked over Eggman. But because he never gained a disproportionate fandom, he doesn't annoy me to the same extent. It's easier to ignore him by comparison, and his Dr. Claw voice and face shaped like a lady's delicate part make him enjoyable to mock.

- Likewise, while Lyric is also on the same level as these other villains, it's easier to dismiss him because I was never invested in the Boom games anyway, and being an obvious alternate universe (compared to Sonic X or IDW, which retain the Modern designs and plot elements), it never had an effect on the main series. I also unironically like his design, and if nothing else, at least this snake didn't start a hypnotism fetish across the internet.

- Sally - and the rest of the Freedom Fighters for that matter - have had their importance in the franchise severely inflated. They may have been lucky to be the face of popular media (SatAM and Archie), but they're not these magnificent entities that the game characters are but a speck of dust in comparison to. Having a “legacy” doesn't make them more entitled to shit than any other character, old or new.

- Conceptually, the treasure hunting gameplay is one of the better alternate gameplay styles IMO. But it was let down in SA2 by its one track minded radar (the levels may have been big, but I don't think that would have been an issue on its own if the radar was better). If they brought it back and made it more like SA1's treasure hunting, I'd be all for it, although it would probably be better suited for a spinoff title.

- This goes for a lot of games, but when it comes to 2D, I prefer sprites over models. Not that the Rush models are bad (though the ones in Chronicles sure as fuck are), but the sprites in Mania and the Advance trilogy are just so charming and full of character.

- I actually like Marble Zone. Yeah, the level design is a bit blocky, but I love the concept of an underground temple prison, mixed with lava elements in a zone that otherwise isn't a traditional volcano level.

- I also like Sandopolis Zone. Again, completely understand why it's not the most popular zone around, but I've been a sucker for the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic since childhood (you can thank Crash 3 for that), and Act 1 is visually stunning.

- I prefer the JP soundtrack for Sonic CD over the US version overall... but I also prefer Sonic Boom over You Can Do Anything.

- SA2's soundtrack isn't bad by any means - I love Rouge's tracks, and The Last Scene is one of my favourite pieces of music - but as far as variety goes, it's a step down from SA1's soundtrack.

- If Sonic X-Treme had been released, it probably would have been unenjoyable and confusing. Whatever your thoughts on SA1, it was probably the better option between the two as far as Sonic's first legitimate translation into 3D goes.

- I have no qualms with Modern Sonic and the other Modern designs and characters, but I also fully acknowledge that changing gears from Adventure onwards - and doing it with a great amount of fanfare - was always going to create one of the biggest divides in the fandom, and fans shouldn't act surprised that this happened. The fact that they felt the need to hype up a new design and direction in the first place (compared to Mario, who has mostly been the same since the beginning, with only the occasional minor change with little fanfare) also indicates that they weren't confident enough in Sonic and his universe being the way it was, which often gets ignored by all the “SEGA have no confidence!!!” complaints you see with their recent games.

- Unleashed did not deserve the incredibly harsh reviews it received back in the day... but it doesn't deserve its current sacred cow status either. It had more effort put into it than '06 to be sure, and I can respect that, but much of it was misguided effort, and even if you like the Werehog, you have to admit that the idea came at the absolute worst time. The intro cutscene may be awesome, as is the Egg Dragoon fight, but 2% doesn't make up the entire game. Chip was also quite annoying, and I wasn't particularly sad when he pressed F in the chat at the end.

- On the other hand, while Colours definitely has its shortcomings, and people have every right to criticse those shortcomings, a lot of its most vocal detractors tend to have a stick up their arse about the game because people actually enjoyed it, and it had a gimmick that people actually liked. Yes, it may have been the first game to have those writers everyone hates, but then SA1 was the first game to give the characters alternate gameplay styles and have other villains upstage Eggman, so...

- Forces is absolutely not on the level of '06. It's nowhere close. A game being flawed does not make it the next '06, clickbait YouTubers. Or should I say, the game they want to retroactively apply '06's reception to, since they've been trying hard to magically retcon '06's own quality...

- To echo @beevean, ALL of the 3D stories have their issues. SA1 is probably the most well-rounded of them on the whole, but even that one isn't perfect.

- To echo another opinion, although I do love SA1, I'm not crazy over the idea of a remake, and would prefer them to just take Sonic's gameplay from SA1 and work from there. Because with a remake, you're stuck in a hard spot: Do you keep it the way it is bar the expected graphical upgrades, and risk accusations of not doing anything to actually improve the experience? Or do you try to address past criticisms, and risk the wrath of the fans who will inevitably go on a #NotMyAdventure crusade about it? What people fail to consider is that the Crash and Spyro remakes were accepted gracefully because their original iterations were still unanimously beloved for the most part, whereas SA1 - and especially SA2 - have always been divisive, and have only gotten moreso over the years.

- People take their preferences for the character's voice actors too seriously. I have my own favourites like anyone else, but I don't make a big deal out of it.

- And with fandom voice actors, they usually focus too much on doing a basic impression of their preferred official voice actor, and not enough on the acting. So you end up getting a lot of fan voices who sound like decent impressions of Ryan Drummond or Jason Griffith on the surface, but they sound utterly empty beyond that impression, because there's no oomph or depth to the actual emotions. They think about the actor rather than the character, when it should really be the other way around.

- The thing with Ian Flynn is that he is capable of telling a decent story, and he can portray some characters well. But he's proven time and time again that everything will go off the rails if he's given too much freedom (ironic, given how quick he is to point the finger at mandates when something goes wrong).

- Ian Flynn and Shiro Maekawa are not the only people in the world who are allowed to write for Sonic. I understand that one should be cautious when seeking out new writing talent, but for all the fandom's accusations of playing it safe, they sure aren't in a rush to experiment outside of their own comfort zone.

- And of course, the big one: You don't fix the franchise's current problems by crawling back to its previous problems. It's much more helpful and constructive to discuss the good and bad alike with each of the games. Less “THIS GOOD, MODERN BAD”, and more “This could work, but maybe without that part...”

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: season 4 and the greyest morality ever

While I was trying to write a rewatch review of episode 4x12 The Chosen, it turned out I had too many thoughts on the complicated moral issues and lack of obvious right and wrong stance – so I’ve decided to put them in a separate post.

I don’t think the show has ever achieved this level of moral ambiguity as in these last episodes of season 4. Yes, there are many situations in the show where all options are bad in one way or another, but this is maybe the only time in the entire show where I really can’t say that there is a right or wrong choice. It’s probably the most horrible thing the characters have had to do – leave a number of people to die a horrible death just because there’s not enough place. 

And all of them have to do it, whichever side they’re taking. There is no option here where everyone is saved*. Twilight’s Last Gleaming was the episode where the show first showed me how bold it was – but this time, unlike in that episode, things aren’t made easier by having everyone volunteer to be killed.

*Or rather, there was an option where everyone – or at least the majority of people in the area – could have been saved. But pretty much everyone has forgotten about it. As we’ll find out in the next episode, the Nightblood solution works. If they had tested Clarke, they would have probably known that. If they had tested Emori, they also would have probably known that. In the end, Clarke’s heroic choice to inject herself with Nightblood and volunteer to be tested – ended up saving only her.

It’s interesting that, even now when it’s really in fashion to hate Abby for all sorts of things, no one seems to blame her for basically blowing up the chance to save hundreds – maybe thousands – of people from Praimfaya, which could have also spared them from the horror of the bunker. Abby herself feels so much guilt that she wants to die because she was being utilitarian and willing to test people in a radiation chamber order to find a way to save everyone, which made her feel she was becoming an “evil scientist” – and not because she blew that chance in the end. That’s probably because people generally feel that prioritizing your child over everything else and not being able to risk their life for the human race is completely understandable and not something people (especially mothers) should be blamed for. (…Except when it comes to Clarke in season 5. Hmm. I guess that’s different because people see Clarke’s fear of the Flame as irrational. While Abby’s fear was based on the fact that the radiation could kill Clarke and she had just seen a man die a horrible death that way… but wait, it was also based on a vision she had. Never mind.

Season 4 in particular revolves about the question, which is more moral, thinking about the “big picture”, saving as many people as you can, or saving concrete people that you know and love, or even just people who are in trouble right there in front of you? It’s not a question with a definite answer, and characters have been blamed by others or felt guilty both when they were willing to potentially sacrifice concrete individuals for the salvation of the human race, and when they decided to save people right there and then, risking the fate of the collective in the future.

I used to hate Jaha when I watched seasons 1-3 for the first time, but by season 4, I found myself understanding him better and appreciating him as a character (this was the first time he made my Top 10 characters list!), even if I don’t agree with him most of the time. I get where he’s coming from – and I was with him in 4x10 when he pointed out that the Final Conclave was an idiotic way to resolve the issue of the survival of human race. Someone had to say it. But his reasoning is all wrapped up in the fact that he sees himself as the leader of the Arkers, “his people” – as a group, and prioritizes them over others (like the Grounders), but at the same time, has always been willing to sacrifice any individual person for it, which made his care for “his people” feel not just tribalistic (just as much as any of the Grounder leaders who wanted the bunker just for their clan), but also very cold and impersonal. I certainly didn’t care for him trying to guilt-trip Bellamy by telling him he condemned 314 people to death by opening the bunker. If he hadn’t opened the bunker, he would have been condemning 800 people to death! And if it’s all about “your people”, who’s “your people” more than your family, people you love? Jaha seemed unable to understand that (which is why he didn’t predict what Abby would do to save Kane), since he had already lost the people he loved the most and sort of sacrificed his own son – which never stopped haunted him, but seems to have convinced him that his role of the savior of “his people” is something everyone should be able to sacrifice their loved ones for.

I’ve always mostly leaned to the view that opening the bunker was a better choice than leaving it closed – because it saved a greater number of people (1200 as opposed to 400+). Now, after seeing seasons 5 and 6, I’m starting to question that to an extent, because the bunker turned out to be such a horror show, and now, after the bunker and the gorge, only about 400 people from it survived. However, saving just a little over 400 people in the bunker would have been too few, and others still may have died in and after the bunker, so I still think saving 800 people at the expense of 300 other people was the right choice. This made it a good “Head” choice, as long as Bellamy was right that Octavia could prevent the Grounders from trying to kill Arkers (and ruin their own chances of survival, since they had no clue how to operate any of the devices necessary for producing or recycling air, water and food). And some of the arguments brought up by rebellious Arkers in this episode don’t hold water: “Jaha found the bunker” ignores the fact that he could have never found it without Gaia’s and Indra’s help (and Kane’s and Monty’s – and both of them were also going to be left out of the bunker to die); as for the idea that Arkers deserve more places in the bunker because they’re the ones who are necessary for everyone’s survival for their skills in operating the machines etc. – well, not all of them are necessary for that, and most of the people in Arkadia didn’t like that kind of reasoning back when they learned about the list, did they? If they thought it was wrong when applied to their lives, it’s also wrong when applied to the lives of Grounders.

However, there’s one other line of reasoning that had never crossed my mind before I heard it from a YouTube reactor I like. He thought that it was right that each “clan” got 100 people, because the surviving humans should reflect the diversity of cultures, without any of them dying out. Ironically, that’s IMO the first strong argument why the Arkers maybe should have gotten a lot more than 100 places in the bunker. His argument assumed that all of the 12 Grounder clans have very different cultures. But does what we’ve seen on the show support that? The only genuinely different Grounder lifestyles we’ve seen were from non-warriors like Luna’s Boat people (all dead anyway) and the Shallow Valley community that Madi was from (all died in Praimfaya – we don’t know who the 100 people from their clan in the bunker were), but other than that, it’s hard to see any cultural or other difference between Azgeda,  Trikru, Trishanakru etc. except for minor things like the type of warpaint. It’s the same language, religion, social structure, same prioritization of warriors. While Arkers are distinctly culturally different (and even different in their origin – since it was from 12 different world nations, rather than just USA and maybe Canada) from Grounders, but, thanks to the decision to become the “13rd clan”, are now all but extinct – with maybe 30-40 people surviving to season 6, and all but absorbed in the Grounder-dominated culture of Wonkru. In spite of the fact that Grounders have never won any battles against Arkers, while the latter defeated the Mountain Men, Grounders have always been able to dominate the Arkers by the sheer fact that there was just that many more of them. And the fact is that Grounders did try to screw over Arkers by coming up with the Final Conclave (they were all trying to screw each other and leave all other clans outside, of course, but making survival dependent on being able to win in a Grounder-style fight seemed like a sure way to leave Arkers to die – again), while refusing to share the bunker – and then, when “Skygirl” Octavia won that tournament against the odds, they were happy with her decision to share the bunker. (When you think of it, no one in that Conclave fought to have all the Arkers survive.)

So I kind of get the Arkers’ anger. But whatever the case may be, what was definitely not a good choice was starting another war less than a day before Praimfaya. I guess it was time for Arkers to do that, too, after we’ve seen similar with Grounders before the Final Conclave when they were insisting on fighting a war between each other. Because that kind of thing is a general people problem.

In terms of the “Heart”, of course Bellamy was not going to agree to sacrifice his sister, and Abby was not going to agree to sacrifice her lover. No one should be asked to definitely sacrifice their loved ones for the “greater good”. This kind of choice would leave one feeling like they’ve killed their own heart. I generally think that people really exaggerate Clarke’s “Head” role – which certainly doesn’t mean she doesn’t often act on emotion – but I think that season 4 is when she was being “Head” the most, in the sense that she was doing her best to focus on the big picture and save the human race. Bu that ended up making her feel like she had grown cold and turned into one of the people on the Council… or specifically, that she’s turned into Chancellor Jaha, someone she used to see as everything she hated. But there were always limits to how far she could go in prioritizing the big picture. If Bellamy and Abby haven’t been in the bunker, I don’t believe Clarke would have stolen it and kept it closed, either. But the fact that she was ready to leave her friends like Raven, Octavia, Monty to die (just like the earlier fact she hadn’t put some of her closest friends on the list) made her feel deeply guilty. She’s not proud of being able to make those tough choices to sacrifice people close to her for the wellbeing of the collective. But her willingness to do that has always hit a brick wall when it comes to Bellamy: the list, letting Roan blackmail her into giving Azgeda 50 seats, and finally, not being able to shoot him when she thought that would ensure the survival of the human race. (We luckily never learned if she would have given ALIE the password if her initial plan of torturing Bellamy had materialized.) Of course she was never going to be able to shoot him – but the very fact she thought, for a moment, that she could, shows how much she had tried to suppress her emotions in order to achieve the goal of saving the human race.

This is one of the reasons why Bellamy, in a way, is Clarke’s heart: she needed to get back in touch with that part of herself, back to who she used to be. It’s also why her final mission in these last two episode of season 4 is not to save the human race, but to save the people she loves; why she goes with Bellamy to save Raven, and then stays behind and does everything to save her friends, even when she thinks she’s practically already dead.

And it was Bellamy – the “Heart”, the one whose season 4 arc was all about saving individual people, not just those he loved by saving who we can today – whose season 4 arc ended with him having to make the heartbreaking decision to leave behind Clarke, one of the most important people in his life, because it was the only reasonable decision in the circumstances and the only way to save others.

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.wired.com/story/john-ratcliffe-dni-trump-nominee-danger/

What could go wrong with a DNI who misleads about his own resume?

. @Wired "The idea that a person prone to wild conspiracy theories might soon occupy the role legally designated to be the final voice in the president’s ear on intelligence matters should terrify Americans—as well as both our allies and adversaries the world over." https://t.co/hsqdaD1ISK

THE DANGER OF JOHN RATCLIFFE

By GARRETT M. GRAFF | Published July 30, 2019 6:30 PM ET | Wired | Posted July 31, 2019 11:01 AM ET |

THE PRESIDENT’S INTENT to nominate Robert Mueller’s chief Capitol Hill inquisitor to head the nation’s intelligence community might just be the Trump administration’s most alarming personnel decision yet—even in an administration whose list of departed, disgraced, and indicted former top officials reads like a casualty list from Game of Thrones.

The news Sunday that Trump planned to tap representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) as director of national intelligence, replacing former senator Dan Coats, left many even on Capitol Hill scratching their heads: Who? “I don’t know John. I’ve met him a couple times, seen him on TV,” Senate Homeland Security Committee chair Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) toldPolitico, among other choice quotes it gathered.

Indeed, very few Americans had ever heard of the congressman from Texas’s fourth district until last Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, when Ratcliffe lambasted former special counsel Robert Mueller about “not exonerating” Donald Trump. Watching the hearing on TV with a group of journalists, I turned to my colleagues and said, “He’s auditioning to be DNI.”

Days later, Axios scooped the news of Ratcliffe’s impending nomination, saying Trump was “thrilled” by the congressman’s performance at the Mueller hearing.

That the administration is so predictable in its terrible choices should not make those terrible choices any less troubling.

The men who have occupied the relatively new role of DNI so far are among the most experienced intelligence leaders and diplomats in the country. After the job was created as part of the post-9/11 reshuffling of the US national security apparatus, George W. Bush tapped an experienced hand to fill it: John Negroponte had served as an ambassador in four countries, including Iraq; been UN ambassador; and worked at the National Security Council. His successor, Mike McConnell, was a vice admiral in the Navy and a former director of the National Security Agency. Barack Obama’s first DNI was another admiral, Dennis Blair, who had led Pacific Command and served as associate director of the CIA.

James Clapper, Obama’s second pick as DNI, was arguably the most experienced intelligence officer in the entire country—a career Air Force intelligence officer who had served for four decades, risen to the rank of lieutenant general, and personally headed two of the nation’s most critical intelligence agencies, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Clapper had also served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, where he oversaw all three of the Pentagon’s intel agencies: DIA, NGA, and the National Reconnaissance Office, which runs the nation’s spy satellites.

And even though Coats, the outgoing DNI who Ratcliffe may replace, had no field intelligence background, he served in the Army during the Vietnam War, spent nearly 30 years in Congress—in both the House and the Senate, including stints on the intelligence committee—and had served as ambassador to one of America’s top allies, Germany.

Ratcliffe’s experience pales in comparison to any of his would-be predecessors. He served as the mayor of Heath, Texas—population 8,000—for a decade, and while he did a brief stint as a politically appointed US attorney in Texas in the final months of George W. Bush’s administration, his résumé on national security matters is practically nonexistent.

He had previously claimed to be involved in a single terrorism-related case, against the Holy Land Foundation, but appears to have far overstated his role. As ABC News’ James Gordon Meek reportedTuesday, “The fact is that @RepRatcliffe did not convict anyone in the Holy Land Foundation trial. His staff now admits he simply reviewed the first mistrial and issued no report to [attorney general Mike] Mukasey, which is why no one we contacted remembers him at all.”

Similarly confounding, he asserts on his House website that he once “arrested 300 illegal aliens in a single day,” which would have been quite a feat, since US attorneys don’t have arrest authority.

That lack of experience is almost certain to make Ratcliffe an ineffective DNI, a position that has little direct power and whose few levers and moral suasion only Clapper—the longest-serving DNI yet—managed to handle effectively.

But while Ratcliffe will likely have trouble herding the cats that make up the nation’s 17 sprawling intelligence agencies, ranging from the Justice Department to the State Department to the Pentagon to even the Energy Department, that’s not what seems primed to make him a dangerous DNI.

The biggest danger Ratcliffe poses is to the integrity of the job of director of national intelligence in the first place; the core principle of the intelligence professional is to speak truth to power.

The US spends $60 billion a year on the nation’s intelligence apparatus, a workforce of tens of thousands ranging from CIA officers and FBI agents to NSA cryptologists and hackers, NGA analysts, interpretation experts at the NRO, financial wizards at the Treasury Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and much more.

All of that money and all of those workers share a simple uniting goal: To ensure that the president of the United States is, in every conversation and decision, the most informed, knowledgeable, best-prepared person in the room. They enable the president and his advisers to anticipate problems and opportunities; understand the mind, decisionmaking, and internal pressures of foreign leaders far and wide; know from satellites overhead, cables underground, and agents in the field what’s happening the world over—and why.

The career analysts, agents, officers, and leaders of the intelligence community work every day to ensure that the information flowing up to the Oval Office is the most thorough, accurate, and best-analyzed it can be. That mission requires that the information presented to the president be presented in a fair, objective, nonpartisan, and apolitical manner. (The rare instances where the CIA or other agencies have skewed their intelligence toward political ends, as with the run-up to the Iraq War, only underscore the devastating consequences of anything less than fair-eyed analysis.)

It’s here that the DNI plays his most important role. By statute, the DNI is the president’s lead intelligence adviser. That’s supposed to mean that the DNI leads the effort to provide the President’s Daily Brief—the world’s most elite newspaper—filled with daily intelligence and big-picture analysis of global, geopolitical trends affecting the US, its allies, and its adversaries. That role of chief intelligence adviser is one that Coats, Trump’s outgoing DNI, never quite grew into. Mike Pompeo arrived first in the administration as CIA director, before Coats was confirmed, big-footed the PDB, and hit it off with Trump before Coats could really establish a bond with the commander-in-chief.

Yet Coats did try to speak truth to power. He spoke up when it mattered, was honest about Russia’s attack on the 2016 election, and was willing to contradict Trump publicly on the future of North Korea’s nuclear program. One of Coats’ final acts as DNI actually was to appoint the nation’s first election security czar. That honesty appears to be a not insignificant part of why Coats was shoved aside, and ultimately out the door.

With a president so divorced from daily reality as Trump, it’s all the more important to fill the role of DNI with someone whose first duty is to puncture the Fox News fever swamp bubble that surrounds the White House, provide real facts and grounded analysis, and ensure—to whatever extent possible—that the information that flows into the Oval Office and the decisions that flow out of it are informed and strategic.

There’s little evidence that Ratcliffe is the man for the job. Beyond his antics cross-examining Mueller last week, he’s long been on the leading edge of criticizing the Russia investigation writ large. He was even the congressman who started the completely false rumor that the FBI—one of the intel agencies he is set to oversee—had an anti-Trump “secret society.”

Ratcliffe seems to appeal to Trump for the same reason most of the sycophants around him do: Loyalty first and foremost to No. 1. But the DNI is not supposed to walk through the door of the Oval Office attempting to please the president—he is supposed to tell the president whatever he needs to hear, consequences be damned.

Trump wants nothing of the kind. Instead, as he told reporters Tuesday afternoon, “We need somebody strong that can really rein it in. Because as I think you've all learned, the intelligence agencies have run amok. They've run amok.”

The fact that Trump, who has  skirmished with the  intelligencecommunity ever since the campaign, still sees the truth-telling tradition of the intelligence world as making them his adversaries rather than his allies underscores how little Donald Trump has risen to the role of the commander-in-chief. As The New Yorker’s David Rohde wrote this week, the message Trump sends with Ratcliffe's appointment is clear: Be loyal or leave.

That’s a recipe for the type of geopolitical mistake that gets Americans killed.

The idea that a person prone to wild conspiracy theories might soon occupy the role legally designated to be the final voice in the president’s ear on intelligence matters should terrify Americans—as well as both its allies and adversaries the world over. The fact that Senate GOP members have so far been relatively muted in their support for Ratcliffe encourages hope that maybe this disaster-in-waiting might be averted.

[johnbattlesca]

Martial Arts Enlightenment: Why the Samurai Warriors Practiced Zen, Part 2

Before you dig into this post, would you like to read Part 1? If so, go here now.

Regardless of specifics, from the time of the first Kamakura shogun, Zen Buddhism had found its foothold in ancient Japan, and its impact was imminent. One key point that Winston L. King brought up (see Bibliography) was that Zen monks did not enter into politics to advance in the imperial court. He gave three rather lengthy reasons for this lack of political striving:

Zen, by nature, was anti-institutional; its timing was such that it was not introduced during a warring period; and its monks already held top advisory positions in the shogun’s councils, so there was no need for further political striving. (31)

As stated above, the move to Kamakura put Zen monks in a position of close confidence with the military leaders of the day. Even though this relationship had humble beginnings and was probably mostly secular in nature (record keeping, political advising, etc.), it grew quickly as the employers of those monks realized there was more to be gained from Zen’s religious aspects than just sutra study and recitation.

The warrior class was quick to see the potential for “special spiritual and psychological strength from Zen, which contributed to the strength of character, firmness of will and imperviousness to suffering on which they prided themselves.” (Reischauer 1989, 53)

With similar prized characteristics as a goal of sorts, Zen meditation and martial arts training naturally complemented each other. The spiritual path of Zen was one that the samurai found most appealing. Truth, in the Zen tradition, was to be found within the deepest core of one’s visceral being, not in the intellect. This put the truth well within the range of the samurai’s awareness and emotional compatibility. (King 1993, 163)

Samurai Swordmanship Volume 2: Intermediate Sword Program comes from Masayuki Shimabukuro, Carl E. Long and the staff of Black Belt magazine. Order a copy of the DVD today on Amazon!

Zen offered the samurai what no amount of physical training or knowledge of military strategy could. The purpose of Zen meditation was to open this martial training to the subconscious, instinctive forces of his being that governed action without thought. (King 1993, 166) The techniques of swordsmanship were not inherently flawed, but the factor that was most open to imperfections was the mind of the practitioner. Zen offered what is called mushin, or no-mind.

Taisen Deshimaru likened mushin to “the body thinking.” (1991, 78) In D.T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture, it is described thus: “[It is] going beyond the dualism of all forms of life and death, good and evil, being and non-being. … Hereby he becomes a kind of automation, so to speak, as far as his own consciousness is concerned.” (94)

Takuan Soho wrote about mushin in three letters to Yagyu Munenori, head of the Yagyu Shinkage school of swordsmanship. (King 1993, 167) A passage reads as follows:

“Mugaku meant that in wielding the sword, in the infinitesimal time it takes lightning to strike, there is neither mind nor thought. For the striking, there is no mind. For myself, who is about to be struck, there is no mind. The attacker is emptiness. His sword is emptiness. I, who am about to be struck, am emptiness. … Completely forget about the mind and you will do all things well.” (37)

To understand this is to understand the heart of Zen. Some might call this having a satori (realization of a profound truth). Zen, having in its nature a focus on the non-rational mind, is difficult to explain by merely defining theses. The best way to understand Zen thought is by illustration. One of the best illustrations of how one might benefit from Zen training comes from Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture:

“He who deliberates and moves his brush intent on making a picture, misses to a still greater extent the art of painting. Draw bamboo for 10 years, become a bamboo, then forget all about bamboo when you are drawing. In possession of an infallible technique, the individual places himself at the mercy of inspiration.

“To become a bamboo and to forget that you are one with it while drawing it — this is the Zen of the bamboo, this is the moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit which resides in the bamboo as well as in the artist himself. What is now required of him is to have a firm hold on the spirit and yet not to be conscious of the fact.” (31)

This passage entails the entire essence of Zen and the martial arts. Through zazen, or seated meditation, one comes to know mushin. With the prerequisite of swordsmanship training, the practitioner then must forget that he has this library of knowledge and act instinctually through the fine filter of his “forgotten” techniques. “Forgetting learning, relinquishing mind, harmonizing without any self-conscious knowledge thereof, is the ultimate consummation of the way.” (Munenori 1993, 69)

Those who appreciate the Japanese and Okinawan martial arts will love this online course featuring Black Belt Hall of Famer Fumio Demura. Learn the bo, nunchaku, sai, tonfa, kama and eku bo. Watch a video preview here.

If a cup containing water is knocked over, the water splashes out in random directions without conscious thought. This is similar to the natural instincts one has in a deadly situation. For the water, the cup being knocked over is the threat, and where the water splashes is the reaction.

The addition of martial arts training is likened to having a funnel in hand while the cup is being knocked over. One hopes that with adequate readiness, he will be able to catch the water in the air and direct it in the proper way with the power of the funnel. The addition of the cultivation of mushin is likened to taping the funnel around the mouth of the cup, thus relieving the funnel of the need for conscious thought. The power of the funnel is given the same fluidity and rhythm as the situation itself.

Without thought, the situation arises. Without thought, a reaction takes place. Without thought, the final destination is obtained.

The emphasis on “moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit” is essential when one raises the following question: How can a philosophy of Buddhist origin can be so closely associated with the military class? The training of Zen meditation, zazen, is said to return the mind to its original state, that of being in harmony with the cosmic order of things.

Speaking of this in terms of God and consciousness, Deshimaru wrote: “It is satori consciousness. The self has dropped away and dissolved. It is the consciousness of God. It is God.” (1991, 66)

For Westerners, this idea might cause problems. Our thought has always been of God as a transcendent figure. But in actuality, this is where Western thought has the most difficulty in religious philosophy: explaining how a transcendent God can be a key figure to humanity. Zen finds “god” right here and now. As Zen masters like to say, “The present moment is pregnant with god.”

In this way, the actions of the samurai go beyond simple right and wrong. They are as bound to common morality as the wind, which may help pollination or spread wildfires.

In the above-mentioned example of the cup of water, it would seem improper to ask, “Was the movement of the funnel good or bad (moral or immoral)?” It was neither good nor bad. It had no real reaction of its own. It only flowed with the movement of the situation. One cannot say that the actions of the cup were distinct from the situation, thereby requiring a moral judgment. Such is the mind of the samurai trained in Zen. A situation is neither moral nor immoral. The samurai, through the cultivation of mushin, acts without intent. Thus, the samurai’s mind is not distinct from the situation and is not subject to moral judgment.

The nature of the samurai becomes the nature of everything. The weapon of the samurai, the katana, becomes transformed along with the person. In the hands of an unworthy warrior, the sword is subject to being an implement of destruction. In the hands of a samurai, the sword becomes subject to the will of heaven. When drawn, it is as the wind which blows with no regard for intent. Yet when the sword is in its scabbard by the side of the samurai, it is most precise in its cut.

Silat for the Street is the title of an online course from Black Belt Hall of Famer Burton Richardson and Black Belt mag. Now you can learn the most functional silat techniques whenever and wherever you want on your smartphone, tablet or computer. Get more info here!

There is a Zen saying that the katana is at one time the “sword of life” and the “sword of death.” The focus of the blade is turned inward on whoever possesses it. It is a symbol by which the samurai is reminded to cut down his own imperfection and attachment to the impermanent world. It thereby gives true life to the one who wears it and death to the people or ideas that stand in the way of the will of heaven. The sword is part of the samurai. The samurai obeys the way. Therefore, the sword of life and the sword of death coexist.

When we think of the Japanese warrior, we must remember the ideals of the Zen tradition if we wish understand the path of this unique historical fixture. As discussed above, the development of Zen in Japan coincided with the development of the samurai. Zen refined the characteristics that made the samurai a distinguished warrior. Zen reached into the depths of the Japanese warrior and created a person of such concentrated awareness, piety and determination that future generations will forever be fascinated and inspired.

Andrew Abele is a freelance writer based in Metairie, Louisiana. He has studied shotokan karate for more than two decades.

Read Part 1 of this post here.

Bibliography

Allyn, John. 1998. The 47 Ronin Story. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Bodhidharma. (translated by) Pine, Red. 1987. The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. New York: North Point Press.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. Questions to a Zen Master. New York: Penguin Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. The Zen Way to the Martial Arts. New York: Arkana Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1996. Sit: Zen Teachings of Master Taisen Deshimaru. Arizona: Hohm Press.

King, Winston L. 1993. Zen and the Way of the Sword. New York: Oxford University Press.

Munenori, Yagyu. (translated by) Clearly, Thomas. 1993. Family Traditions on the Art of War. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Musashi, Miyamoto. (translated by) Cleary, Thomas. 1993. The Book of Five Rings. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Nitobe, Inazo. 1969. Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Reischauer, Edwin O.; Craig, Albert M. 1989. Japan: Tradition and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Soho, Takuan. 1986. The Unfettered Mind. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: MJF Books.

from Black Belt» Daily » Black Belt http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/martial-arts-history/japanese-matial-arts-history/martial-arts-enlightenment-why-the-samurai-warriors-practiced-zen-part-2/ Martial Arts Enlightenment: Why the Samurai Warriors Practiced Zen, Part 2 published first on http://thrandythefabulous.tumblr.com

[thrandythefabulous]

Martial Arts Enlightenment: Why the Samurai Warriors Practiced Zen, Part 2

Before you dig into this post, would you like to read Part 1? If so, go here now.

Regardless of specifics, from the time of the first Kamakura shogun, Zen Buddhism had found its foothold in ancient Japan, and its impact was imminent. One key point that Winston L. King brought up (see Bibliography) was that Zen monks did not enter into politics to advance in the imperial court. He gave three rather lengthy reasons for this lack of political striving:

Zen, by nature, was anti-institutional; its timing was such that it was not introduced during a warring period; and its monks already held top advisory positions in the shogun’s councils, so there was no need for further political striving. (31)

As stated above, the move to Kamakura put Zen monks in a position of close confidence with the military leaders of the day. Even though this relationship had humble beginnings and was probably mostly secular in nature (record keeping, political advising, etc.), it grew quickly as the employers of those monks realized there was more to be gained from Zen’s religious aspects than just sutra study and recitation.

The warrior class was quick to see the potential for “special spiritual and psychological strength from Zen, which contributed to the strength of character, firmness of will and imperviousness to suffering on which they prided themselves.” (Reischauer 1989, 53)

With similar prized characteristics as a goal of sorts, Zen meditation and martial arts training naturally complemented each other. The spiritual path of Zen was one that the samurai found most appealing. Truth, in the Zen tradition, was to be found within the deepest core of one’s visceral being, not in the intellect. This put the truth well within the range of the samurai’s awareness and emotional compatibility. (King 1993, 163)

Samurai Swordmanship Volume 2: Intermediate Sword Program comes from Masayuki Shimabukuro, Carl E. Long and the staff of Black Belt magazine. Order a copy of the DVD today on Amazon!

Zen offered the samurai what no amount of physical training or knowledge of military strategy could. The purpose of Zen meditation was to open this martial training to the subconscious, instinctive forces of his being that governed action without thought. (King 1993, 166) The techniques of swordsmanship were not inherently flawed, but the factor that was most open to imperfections was the mind of the practitioner. Zen offered what is called mushin, or no-mind.

Taisen Deshimaru likened mushin to “the body thinking.” (1991, 78) In D.T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture, it is described thus: “[It is] going beyond the dualism of all forms of life and death, good and evil, being and non-being. … Hereby he becomes a kind of automation, so to speak, as far as his own consciousness is concerned.” (94)

Takuan Soho wrote about mushin in three letters to Yagyu Munenori, head of the Yagyu Shinkage school of swordsmanship. (King 1993, 167) A passage reads as follows:

“Mugaku meant that in wielding the sword, in the infinitesimal time it takes lightning to strike, there is neither mind nor thought. For the striking, there is no mind. For myself, who is about to be struck, there is no mind. The attacker is emptiness. His sword is emptiness. I, who am about to be struck, am emptiness. … Completely forget about the mind and you will do all things well.” (37)

To understand this is to understand the heart of Zen. Some might call this having a satori (realization of a profound truth). Zen, having in its nature a focus on the non-rational mind, is difficult to explain by merely defining theses. The best way to understand Zen thought is by illustration. One of the best illustrations of how one might benefit from Zen training comes from Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture:

“He who deliberates and moves his brush intent on making a picture, misses to a still greater extent the art of painting. Draw bamboo for 10 years, become a bamboo, then forget all about bamboo when you are drawing. In possession of an infallible technique, the individual places himself at the mercy of inspiration.

“To become a bamboo and to forget that you are one with it while drawing it — this is the Zen of the bamboo, this is the moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit which resides in the bamboo as well as in the artist himself. What is now required of him is to have a firm hold on the spirit and yet not to be conscious of the fact.” (31)

This passage entails the entire essence of Zen and the martial arts. Through zazen, or seated meditation, one comes to know mushin. With the prerequisite of swordsmanship training, the practitioner then must forget that he has this library of knowledge and act instinctually through the fine filter of his “forgotten” techniques. “Forgetting learning, relinquishing mind, harmonizing without any self-conscious knowledge thereof, is the ultimate consummation of the way.” (Munenori 1993, 69)

Those who appreciate the Japanese and Okinawan martial arts will love this online course featuring Black Belt Hall of Famer Fumio Demura. Learn the bo, nunchaku, sai, tonfa, kama and eku bo. Watch a video preview here.

If a cup containing water is knocked over, the water splashes out in random directions without conscious thought. This is similar to the natural instincts one has in a deadly situation. For the water, the cup being knocked over is the threat, and where the water splashes is the reaction.

The addition of martial arts training is likened to having a funnel in hand while the cup is being knocked over. One hopes that with adequate readiness, he will be able to catch the water in the air and direct it in the proper way with the power of the funnel. The addition of the cultivation of mushin is likened to taping the funnel around the mouth of the cup, thus relieving the funnel of the need for conscious thought. The power of the funnel is given the same fluidity and rhythm as the situation itself.

Without thought, the situation arises. Without thought, a reaction takes place. Without thought, the final destination is obtained.

The emphasis on “moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit” is essential when one raises the following question: How can a philosophy of Buddhist origin can be so closely associated with the military class? The training of Zen meditation, zazen, is said to return the mind to its original state, that of being in harmony with the cosmic order of things.

Speaking of this in terms of God and consciousness, Deshimaru wrote: “It is satori consciousness. The self has dropped away and dissolved. It is the consciousness of God. It is God.” (1991, 66)

For Westerners, this idea might cause problems. Our thought has always been of God as a transcendent figure. But in actuality, this is where Western thought has the most difficulty in religious philosophy: explaining how a transcendent God can be a key figure to humanity. Zen finds “god” right here and now. As Zen masters like to say, “The present moment is pregnant with god.”

In this way, the actions of the samurai go beyond simple right and wrong. They are as bound to common morality as the wind, which may help pollination or spread wildfires.

In the above-mentioned example of the cup of water, it would seem improper to ask, “Was the movement of the funnel good or bad (moral or immoral)?” It was neither good nor bad. It had no real reaction of its own. It only flowed with the movement of the situation. One cannot say that the actions of the cup were distinct from the situation, thereby requiring a moral judgment. Such is the mind of the samurai trained in Zen. A situation is neither moral nor immoral. The samurai, through the cultivation of mushin, acts without intent. Thus, the samurai’s mind is not distinct from the situation and is not subject to moral judgment.

The nature of the samurai becomes the nature of everything. The weapon of the samurai, the katana, becomes transformed along with the person. In the hands of an unworthy warrior, the sword is subject to being an implement of destruction. In the hands of a samurai, the sword becomes subject to the will of heaven. When drawn, it is as the wind which blows with no regard for intent. Yet when the sword is in its scabbard by the side of the samurai, it is most precise in its cut.

Silat for the Street is the title of an online course from Black Belt Hall of Famer Burton Richardson and Black Belt mag. Now you can learn the most functional silat techniques whenever and wherever you want on your smartphone, tablet or computer. Get more info here!

There is a Zen saying that the katana is at one time the “sword of life” and the “sword of death.” The focus of the blade is turned inward on whoever possesses it. It is a symbol by which the samurai is reminded to cut down his own imperfection and attachment to the impermanent world. It thereby gives true life to the one who wears it and death to the people or ideas that stand in the way of the will of heaven. The sword is part of the samurai. The samurai obeys the way. Therefore, the sword of life and the sword of death coexist.

When we think of the Japanese warrior, we must remember the ideals of the Zen tradition if we wish understand the path of this unique historical fixture. As discussed above, the development of Zen in Japan coincided with the development of the samurai. Zen refined the characteristics that made the samurai a distinguished warrior. Zen reached into the depths of the Japanese warrior and created a person of such concentrated awareness, piety and determination that future generations will forever be fascinated and inspired.

Andrew Abele is a freelance writer based in Metairie, Louisiana. He has studied shotokan karate for more than two decades.

Read Part 1 of this post here.

Bibliography

Allyn, John. 1998. The 47 Ronin Story. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Bodhidharma. (translated by) Pine, Red. 1987. The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. New York: North Point Press.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. Questions to a Zen Master. New York: Penguin Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. The Zen Way to the Martial Arts. New York: Arkana Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1996. Sit: Zen Teachings of Master Taisen Deshimaru. Arizona: Hohm Press.

King, Winston L. 1993. Zen and the Way of the Sword. New York: Oxford University Press.

Munenori, Yagyu. (translated by) Clearly, Thomas. 1993. Family Traditions on the Art of War. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Musashi, Miyamoto. (translated by) Cleary, Thomas. 1993. The Book of Five Rings. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Nitobe, Inazo. 1969. Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Reischauer, Edwin O.; Craig, Albert M. 1989. Japan: Tradition and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Soho, Takuan. 1986. The Unfettered Mind. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: MJF Books.

from Black Belt» Daily » Black Belt http://www.blackbeltmag.com/daily/martial-arts-history/japanese-matial-arts-history/martial-arts-enlightenment-why-the-samurai-warriors-practiced-zen-part-2/

[michaelchinworcester]

Martial Arts Enlightenment: Why the Samurai Warriors Practiced Zen, Part 2

Before you dig into this post, would you like to read Part 1? If so, go here now.

Regardless of specifics, from the time of the first Kamakura shogun, Zen Buddhism had found its foothold in ancient Japan, and its impact was imminent. One key point that Winston L. King brought up (see Bibliography) was that Zen monks did not enter into politics to advance in the imperial court. He gave three rather lengthy reasons for this lack of political striving:

Zen, by nature, was anti-institutional; its timing was such that it was not introduced during a warring period; and its monks already held top advisory positions in the shogun’s councils, so there was no need for further political striving. (31)

As stated above, the move to Kamakura put Zen monks in a position of close confidence with the military leaders of the day. Even though this relationship had humble beginnings and was probably mostly secular in nature (record keeping, political advising, etc.), it grew quickly as the employers of those monks realized there was more to be gained from Zen’s religious aspects than just sutra study and recitation.

The warrior class was quick to see the potential for “special spiritual and psychological strength from Zen, which contributed to the strength of character, firmness of will and imperviousness to suffering on which they prided themselves.” (Reischauer 1989, 53)

With similar prized characteristics as a goal of sorts, Zen meditation and martial arts training naturally complemented each other. The spiritual path of Zen was one that the samurai found most appealing. Truth, in the Zen tradition, was to be found within the deepest core of one’s visceral being, not in the intellect. This put the truth well within the range of the samurai’s awareness and emotional compatibility. (King 1993, 163)

Samurai Swordmanship Volume 2: Intermediate Sword Program comes from Masayuki Shimabukuro, Carl E. Long and the staff of Black Belt magazine. Order a copy of the DVD today on Amazon!

Zen offered the samurai what no amount of physical training or knowledge of military strategy could. The purpose of Zen meditation was to open this martial training to the subconscious, instinctive forces of his being that governed action without thought. (King 1993, 166) The techniques of swordsmanship were not inherently flawed, but the factor that was most open to imperfections was the mind of the practitioner. Zen offered what is called mushin, or no-mind.

Taisen Deshimaru likened mushin to “the body thinking.” (1991, 78) In D.T. Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture, it is described thus: “[It is] going beyond the dualism of all forms of life and death, good and evil, being and non-being. … Hereby he becomes a kind of automation, so to speak, as far as his own consciousness is concerned.” (94)

Takuan Soho wrote about mushin in three letters to Yagyu Munenori, head of the Yagyu Shinkage school of swordsmanship. (King 1993, 167) A passage reads as follows:

“Mugaku meant that in wielding the sword, in the infinitesimal time it takes lightning to strike, there is neither mind nor thought. For the striking, there is no mind. For myself, who is about to be struck, there is no mind. The attacker is emptiness. His sword is emptiness. I, who am about to be struck, am emptiness. … Completely forget about the mind and you will do all things well.” (37)

To understand this is to understand the heart of Zen. Some might call this having a satori (realization of a profound truth). Zen, having in its nature a focus on the non-rational mind, is difficult to explain by merely defining theses. The best way to understand Zen thought is by illustration. One of the best illustrations of how one might benefit from Zen training comes from Suzuki’s Zen and Japanese Culture:

“He who deliberates and moves his brush intent on making a picture, misses to a still greater extent the art of painting. Draw bamboo for 10 years, become a bamboo, then forget all about bamboo when you are drawing. In possession of an infallible technique, the individual places himself at the mercy of inspiration.

“To become a bamboo and to forget that you are one with it while drawing it — this is the Zen of the bamboo, this is the moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit which resides in the bamboo as well as in the artist himself. What is now required of him is to have a firm hold on the spirit and yet not to be conscious of the fact.” (31)

This passage entails the entire essence of Zen and the martial arts. Through zazen, or seated meditation, one comes to know mushin. With the prerequisite of swordsmanship training, the practitioner then must forget that he has this library of knowledge and act instinctually through the fine filter of his “forgotten” techniques. “Forgetting learning, relinquishing mind, harmonizing without any self-conscious knowledge thereof, is the ultimate consummation of the way.” (Munenori 1993, 69)

Those who appreciate the Japanese and Okinawan martial arts will love this online course featuring Black Belt Hall of Famer Fumio Demura. Learn the bo, nunchaku, sai, tonfa, kama and eku bo. Watch a video preview here.

If a cup containing water is knocked over, the water splashes out in random directions without conscious thought. This is similar to the natural instincts one has in a deadly situation. For the water, the cup being knocked over is the threat, and where the water splashes is the reaction.

The addition of martial arts training is likened to having a funnel in hand while the cup is being knocked over. One hopes that with adequate readiness, he will be able to catch the water in the air and direct it in the proper way with the power of the funnel. The addition of the cultivation of mushin is likened to taping the funnel around the mouth of the cup, thus relieving the funnel of the need for conscious thought. The power of the funnel is given the same fluidity and rhythm as the situation itself.

Without thought, the situation arises. Without thought, a reaction takes place. Without thought, the final destination is obtained.

The emphasis on “moving with the rhythmic movement of the spirit” is essential when one raises the following question: How can a philosophy of Buddhist origin can be so closely associated with the military class? The training of Zen meditation, zazen, is said to return the mind to its original state, that of being in harmony with the cosmic order of things.

Speaking of this in terms of God and consciousness, Deshimaru wrote: “It is satori consciousness. The self has dropped away and dissolved. It is the consciousness of God. It is God.” (1991, 66)

For Westerners, this idea might cause problems. Our thought has always been of God as a transcendent figure. But in actuality, this is where Western thought has the most difficulty in religious philosophy: explaining how a transcendent God can be a key figure to humanity. Zen finds “god” right here and now. As Zen masters like to say, “The present moment is pregnant with god.”

In this way, the actions of the samurai go beyond simple right and wrong. They are as bound to common morality as the wind, which may help pollination or spread wildfires.

In the above-mentioned example of the cup of water, it would seem improper to ask, “Was the movement of the funnel good or bad (moral or immoral)?” It was neither good nor bad. It had no real reaction of its own. It only flowed with the movement of the situation. One cannot say that the actions of the cup were distinct from the situation, thereby requiring a moral judgment. Such is the mind of the samurai trained in Zen. A situation is neither moral nor immoral. The samurai, through the cultivation of mushin, acts without intent. Thus, the samurai’s mind is not distinct from the situation and is not subject to moral judgment.

The nature of the samurai becomes the nature of everything. The weapon of the samurai, the katana, becomes transformed along with the person. In the hands of an unworthy warrior, the sword is subject to being an implement of destruction. In the hands of a samurai, the sword becomes subject to the will of heaven. When drawn, it is as the wind which blows with no regard for intent. Yet when the sword is in its scabbard by the side of the samurai, it is most precise in its cut.

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There is a Zen saying that the katana is at one time the “sword of life” and the “sword of death.” The focus of the blade is turned inward on whoever possesses it. It is a symbol by which the samurai is reminded to cut down his own imperfection and attachment to the impermanent world. It thereby gives true life to the one who wears it and death to the people or ideas that stand in the way of the will of heaven. The sword is part of the samurai. The samurai obeys the way. Therefore, the sword of life and the sword of death coexist.

When we think of the Japanese warrior, we must remember the ideals of the Zen tradition if we wish understand the path of this unique historical fixture. As discussed above, the development of Zen in Japan coincided with the development of the samurai. Zen refined the characteristics that made the samurai a distinguished warrior. Zen reached into the depths of the Japanese warrior and created a person of such concentrated awareness, piety and determination that future generations will forever be fascinated and inspired.

Andrew Abele is a freelance writer based in Metairie, Louisiana. He has studied shotokan karate for more than two decades.

Read Part 1 of this post here.

Bibliography

Allyn, John. 1998. The 47 Ronin Story. Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Bodhidharma. (translated by) Pine, Red. 1987. The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma. New York: North Point Press.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. Questions to a Zen Master. New York: Penguin Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1991. The Zen Way to the Martial Arts. New York: Arkana Books.

Deshimaru, Taisen. 1996. Sit: Zen Teachings of Master Taisen Deshimaru. Arizona: Hohm Press.

King, Winston L. 1993. Zen and the Way of the Sword. New York: Oxford University Press.

Munenori, Yagyu. (translated by) Clearly, Thomas. 1993. Family Traditions on the Art of War. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Musashi, Miyamoto. (translated by) Cleary, Thomas. 1993. The Book of Five Rings. Massachusetts: Shambhala.

Nitobe, Inazo. 1969. Bushido: The Soul of Japan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company.

Reischauer, Edwin O.; Craig, Albert M. 1989. Japan: Tradition and Transformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Soho, Takuan. 1986. The Unfettered Mind. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1959. Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: MJF Books.

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