The Beauty of Mushin: A Reflection on Budo and Loss of Self

Class always started with the basics.

The fundamental sword postures.

Stand relaxed, take a natural breath when ready shift into the first posture.

Hold it for a while and when you are ready shift to the next posture and complete the set.

As the class moved through the postures I was stuck on one of them, just standing there and not moving on.

I was left alone for a few moments before the teacher came over to check on me, pausing to see if I would self-correct.

When I didn’t, he asked if everything was OK?

It was and I continued on and caught up with the set.

The rest of the class continued on as normal, but my mind was elsewhere.

Distracted.

Something happened in that moment when I stepped back into the sword posture. Everything seemed to align and the feeling of the sword in my hand just vanished.

I was just standing there.

I could have been standing anywhere.

We were practicing outside in the park under the rising moon, and I was just there looking at one of the trees on the other side of the field.

The rest of the class was going through a mental checklist of what was different?

I wasn’t using a different training sword.

Maybe I finally hit the magic number of times going into the posture?

Maybe this time I wasn’t thinking about doing the posture?

Maybe it was my new shoes?

Maybe because it was their birthday today and I was subconscious thinking about it?

Or maybe it was nothing at all.

This was one of those rare moments in budo, a moment that happens every few years, out of the blue where the simplicity of it catches you off guard, leaves you speechless, a moment you now spend the rest of your life trying to experience again in its beauty and simplicity.