A self defense martial artist can often see the holes in a defensive position. This skill is learned by first realizing how many holes you have in your own self defense skills.

A good martial arts teacher, however, will teach more than this one perspective of defense. The student’s defensiveness will also be exposed. This is the kind of defensiveness where we put up mental and emotional blocks. If a student stays overly defensive about this aspect of their self, then that attitude will inhibit their learning and advancement.

So, let’s consider that our defensiveness is keeping us from seeing and experiencing the inexplicable that is occurring all around us, 24/7, 365.

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If you follow your heart and cause damage, should you suffer or rejoice?

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Certain forms of retreat are fine: a general signals retreat, and the army falls back to prevent certain defeat; a spouse retracts an insult hurled in a moment of anger; a defendant backs off a statement in the face of perjury charges; a politician retreats from a position when opposing public opinion swells. These are the kinds of retreats and retractions we are familiar with.

There is a different kind of retreat.

When we encounter a deeper truth, about ourselves or about life, such truths can cause us to recoil from our new-found awareness. This is a form of retreat we often refuse to acknowledge. When we encounter an exceptionally deep truth, one characteristic of exceptional depth is that truth resonates in a manner that is undeniable. It is not, however, simply the resonance itself we can’t deny; it is the deeper truth itself that is undeniable. It is a case of undeniable, self evident truth.

When we experience deeper, self evident truth we have a choice to either accept it at face value or deny it. Obviously, it is very hard to deny something that is undeniably true. Yet we do. And that creates conflict.

Deeper inner conflict will not resolve itself until we accept the deeper inner truth that we are in conflict with.

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If you want to measure the value of a person’s life, look at the affect of their life on their world, on the people in their life. Look into their close relationships. Look at how they make other’s feel about themselves.

There is no need to wait until we die to stand before the so-called Seat of Judgment. It is all happening right now, in plain view.

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Coming from the martial arts or ‘warrior’ tradition, I have learned to connect to the Heart. Not all martial artists learn this, but a refined teacher will endeavor to impart it. And of course there are other ways to learn this… teachers and life’s manner of teaching us comes in many forms.

My first glimpses of what living from or centered in the Heart means came when I was dominated by self criticism and the torment and anguish that results in living that way. I will never forget how confused I was. One day I was with my teacher, and he was pushing a few of my buttons in this regard. It suddenly became too much. It seemed no matter which way the conversation was turning, I was facing all of this darkness and self judgment.

Suddenly, in the emotion of the moment, I looked at him and burst out, “Look, I don’t care about ANY of that. All I know is this: I have a good Heart! I am a good person in here.” I was tapping my chest over my heart, wailing my words. He instantly paused and looked at me, quietly nodding.

As time passed I became more and more in touch with this deeper part of me. The thing I was expressing to him had a certain purity and innocence that I could actually feel. That innocence was deeper than all my screw ups, deeper than any judgments put on me by other people. In that moment of outburst, I realize that I was standing up for that deeper part of me. In time, I realized that this feeling is the so-called innocence or the ‘heart of a child’ referred to in scripture.

This is not all that hard a place to feel or to find inside of ourselves. But typically it is so bruised and battered that we don’t want to expose it, for fear of laying bare our vulnerability to once again get hurt. Yet, it is from past or below this place that deeper truth emerges, it is from this place that deeper truth’s voice expresses itself, and it is from this place that we discern deeper truth.

At some point the warrior realizes this, as does any spiritual seeker, and he/she begins to endeavor to connect to, express from, and live more and more from the Heart. In time I began to realize I could live from this spot successfully, that I wasn’t as vulnerable as I thought.

Yet, there is a vulnerability that continues to exist because we are no longer submerging this part of ourselves out of fear of getting hurt, but rather we are living more and more centered in the Heart.

It is through the Heart that Love passes through us and extends out into our life and our world. If I clamp down on my Heart, I am clamping down on Love. So, I would rather live from the Heart, and take my chances on getting hurt, compared to suppressing and masking over my Heart with layers of guilt, fear and doubt.

Very recently I found myself faced with a choice that involved risk to my Heart. Should I minimize the risk by closing down or shielding part of my Heart, or should I open my Heart and just be me - exposing myself to a potential deep hurt. I chose to keep my Heart open and to live centered as deeply in Love as I know how to do. I am not saying we shouldn’t protect our Hearts. I would, however, rather be free to be me than to live trapped in and dominated by fear and doubt. I still have these negative attributes, but I am no longer dominated by them.

Self hatred, fear, doubt and guilt are tiring and punishing. Living from the Heart, while it exposes me to being hurt, is a far more tender and wonderful place to reside and live from. As my friend James Souttar says,

The warrior’s life and death predicament puts this into perspective - it’s not that one might be hurt, but that if one doesn’t act impeccably one will be hurt.

This strikes at the very ‘heart’ of the issue, doesn’t it? That we will inevitably get hurt, and hurt again and again, until we learn to center in and live from Heart. In that context, it is not the risk we think typically think of it as. And, it takes far less energy to live from the Heart than to maintain all this stinking guilt and anxiety.

Living centered in the Heart is living within the eye or the calm that is at the center of the storm. I am still in the storm of life, I still get battered, but I find a calmness and peace in living from the Heart that is well worth the risks.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: James Souttar recently suggested the following (the bold emphasis is mine):

Is it that we can’t see the point, or is it that we lack the skills to stay with it? It increasingly seems to me that it’s not enough to just want ‘better blogging’ - we need to find better ways to blog.

I have to confess I’m not good at listening - I often seize a point I want to explore before I’ve finished someone’s comment. I’m also long winded, so I don’t suppose that many people finish my comments either. And I suspect that it’s simple things like this - impatience, and the desire to raise one’s own points (rather than ‘appreciate’ someone else’s) - that most frequently derail our attempts at dialogue.

It would be interesting to try an experiment and invite everyone - if only for the course of the experiment - to do what I know I frequently don’t do (and I’m sure others fail to do likewise), namely:

* to read the whole of the post and the comments before replying;

* to try to identify the point under consideration;

* to resist the temptation to raise other points;

* and to add value to the point as it has been developed.

How about it?

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Intuition, those flashes of insight or feeling that seem to warn and inform us. ‘Woman’s intutition’ is also man’s, but he is often too busy slaying dragons or following sports to pay attention. Intuition is our first hint of ‘the still, small voice within,’ and for many of us it remains just that - still, small or only a hint.

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As we open up our hearts and allow the eternal to begin to penetrate into our awareness, the inner voice has a chance to grow. In time the voice becomes stronger, clearer and more frequent and we find ourselves more ‘in to it’ - because that is its direction… in.

Then something happens - the inner voice can get to a point that something disconcerting occurs: it starts becoming our acutal voice, our actual thoughts, our actual writing and expression - impossible to distinguish from who we ‘were’ and who we now ‘are.’

Seamless inner expression is unexpected - we expect such voices to be surrounded by a burning bush, or to be wearing a turban and talking in a far-away tone, eyes rolling. To encounter a person who resides in and conducts deeper awareness, using their nomal sounding voice in this situation can rock you, because by all appearances they will likely come across as so everyday-ish. Wonder why the great inner teachers can stay so easily hidden? This is one reason.

For this reason, and many more, I was confused by my teacher; he would move back and forth between inner and suface voice with no change in tone, rhythm or phrasing. His eyes were the only possible give away - you could see them residing in a deeper place when he was speaking from deeply within. But then that ceased too, as he gave himself over to his true home, taking up a 24/7 residency. In that new neighborhood, I could see a deeper place by looking into his eyes, hearing his words, seeing his actions and feeling his heart.

Improving our inner discernment helps us recognize fellow travelers who have become more deeply aligned. Developed discernment also helps us measure the ring and truth of their authenticity, but most importantly helps us to properly calibrate and tune our self, giving us a precision tool with which to measure the direction and depth of our own deepest inner voice.

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How hard it has often been for me to accept help. Male ego and layers of resistance mixed with pride, denial of need and stubborness, have all conspired to keep me from accepting help. Then, when the Giver emerged and gave, I often decried and devalued that person. I was the unwitting and selfish Fool.

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I have met two great Givers in my life. Both of them shared something in common that was intensely, amazingly and humbly great: their Heart. In each circumstance, they ran, RAN to give from the heart, to give and to give ceaselessly.

You will find, in the presence of a true Giver, a light, love, illumination, wisdom and warmth that is so strong, so invigorating, so right that you will want to bask in the light of it, bathing in its essence. But use caution and respect, because the true Giver never stops, and you can deeply hurt and harm them with your selfishness and greed.

In the case of one of the great Givers I have encountered, I often received without being adequately able to be appreciative and grateful… yet the giving continued. I basked in the Giving, but out of need and injury. In the other case, I had traveled much further down the path of life, and had come to deeply value the Art of Giving. In these more recent circumstances, as I received, I instantly gave back and appreciated. And a circuit began to form.

Older and wiser I had learned the Art of Giving, and now, standing in the light of a true Giver, something new emerged. In the extended moment of this principle I discovered a new dynamic: the Divine interplay of two Givers. In that moment, and the many more that followed, I found something so deep and so profound that my life was forever changed, for in the moment of ceaseless giving there comes a point where the appreciated value of the giving transcends time and space, and a new dimension is entered. A bridge is built, and laying on one side is earth and everyday life, and on the other side is the eternal and its unending stillness, power and harmony. Ceaseless giving brings you to this spot. Balanced between these two great dimensions, stands the Giver. Transformation occurs, because something powerful emerges: the realization of the Eternal Giver.

All of us are Eternal Givers. We simply haven’t all realized that. More certain than the laws of the physcial universe, Giving is our destiny.

Found in these few words are the essential principles of the Art of Giving: Respect, Appreciation, Gratitude and Value. Move sequentially, from one to the other. Find value, and learn to find it in anything. Then, respect that value, even if the respect is only a smidge. Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it, finding a way to increase its value, no matter how small. Then, do that again. And again. Forever. This is the art of the Divine Giver.

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Fear, that great disabler, withers beneath harmony. Moving inward toward harmony, fear stands as a great spiked boulder ready to puncture any who dare cross its dreadful path. Step into fear without hestitation, lunging as Neo into Agent Smith. Enter the center of fear, for in the center is something fear cannot deny.

Harmony’s Embrace

Yearn for and feel the call of harmony - her voice beckoning with soothing chant.

Calm and fluid, she clasps your fear, casting it away like mist.

Feel and hear her, pulling from a deeper place - urging you, calling you, beckoning you to embrace.

Immersed and bathing, swimming in harmony, all is calm. Hearts slow, breath stops.

Home is discovered. Home.

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Within surrender is found the greatest and most relentless of strengths, culled from the immovable pliability of life’s deepest inner power.

Surrender

Descending, sinking into surrender, plummeting through fears, past anxieties, spiraling yet further into darkness.

And in that darkness stopping - and there, suspended, between breaths - floating in the still pool of eternal flow.

Aware, and quietly, respectfully, bathing in the deep, dark river of great and ancient harmony - sustained and merged, submerged, as liquid warmth and life permeates and infuses every cell, ever molecule, every atom, with sustaining embrace, cleansing and caressing everything existing inside and outside of forever.

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This is oldest Chinese symbol for harmony. It represents ‘wa’ or the Original harmony. This symbol is at the center of our Great River Jiu Jitsu patch, and is worn directly over the heart.

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