(photo from the web)
The way of martial arts, is a twisty, treacherous and lonely.
The path is tortuous because it runs on the flanks of a mountain that has enveloped the top of the clouds. Many times you come across road junctions, or junctions that descend suddenly rises steeply along lines that seem more direct and faster. In neither case should choose, but keep our feet firmly planted on land that is safe, and enjoy the right time. The road to the valley is often the embodiment of hidden desires. A path down, quiet, calm to the plain and the sea. The slope that goes up suddenly, however, is the desire to get to the top immediately, without granting the right breaks, cutting the landscape, preventing the wood and curves. Even taking that route to get there first, you may not get there often to never, burning much earlier, making burst lungs and legs without ever seeing the summit.
The journey is lonely. Why, even if you have the beginning of the path met a wise old man, who with that happy smile of one who seems to know how long it indicates the beginning of the track with a bony hand, you face the climb alone. Although the old to come with you and tells you at every turn over the abyss, where and how to look, you probably will concentrate more on his finger and not on what he really wants you to notice. And in fact the first part of your journey, you act as if he were still with you, we say in mind all the warnings and instructions received. Always look on her finger.
Then, slowly, begin to understand that what I was shown is only a guideline, a track background and a crude form to work. A mass of clay which was given a regular form, even if perfect, but that requires something that goes beyond mere formal perfection: it requires the sublime. And the sublime can only give you, just as if you had the hand of a famous artist, the touch of brush makes a painting a masterpiece. Then look for your pitch, you placed your backpack as you know how and not as others say, you will pause for a moment longer to look and breathe. Each step will be to breath, awareness, beauty. Taking advantage of any particular along the way, does not make it just a place to move towards the top, but a tangible objective and current.
The aim is insidious.
Why walk, always will undergo the pressure of the top of the goal. The summit did not see anything, because it is surrounded by clouds. But you know it's there, and your mind is built as a direct image of not really but it should be, because, in truth, do not see it at all. Continuing to look up at every step, you're going to stumble, or fall into a ravine. Your heart will go on for ever stronger desire to get on top and your body will burn out soon in the will to finish the journey as soon as possible. As long without oxygen and without energy, the mind stuferà prefer to chase a chimera and dabble in other interests far less complex.
In truth there is no top and the clouds are just there to mask what is not there. Behind the white clouds, there is another mountain, and still another. Of those units, which interpenetrate to form a solid in which no longer stands proximity.
The starting point is the finger wise Elder, the goal is the path we are following, the point of arrival and only you just you.
