It is
something I have personally experienced many times, yet I was so close
to it I couldn't see it fully or name it properly. Only after watching
more as a spectator as Colourman, Ibis and Isomaru began to develop a
sense of it themselves did it start becoming truly clear to me: battle
has a rhythm and a cadence, it has its own heartbeat and pattern of
breath. To succeed in battle as a Monk, one must develop a sense of
this rhythm and fit themselves into it while maintaining enough
sensitivity to know when that rhythm changes as a battle progresses. It
is almost as if the opponent becomes a partner in a dance.
On a concrete
level, this manifests as knowing when to hit, when to retreat, when to
aim or go for the quicker simple strike, whether to start the dance
with a brutal charge or wait and let the opponent come to you... at
times even when to retreat into another area as the situation changes
so that you can get a better sense of the rhythm again as your
opponents follow.
But beyond
increasing the ability to survive in battle, gaining a sensitivity to
this rhythm expands our awareness of our world and the will of the
Divine within that world. From day to night, (a change softened and
made gentle by dawn and dusk, to let us know that light and dark will
not eternally be opposed and this world always at war) from summer to
winter and back (changes which are softened by fall and spring) from
the tide of the oceans to even the waxing and waning of the moon, this
world dances to rhythms.
I would
suggest that we as Monks are especially responsible for developing a
sensitivity to those rhythm and fitting our lives and the path of our
lives to those rhythms. In order that we may better fulfill the will of
the Divine, we must develop a sensitivity to the rhythms of the world
which the Divine has set in motion, and respond to it properly.
For myself,
the first step in cultivating such sensitivity and awareness came in
battle. Balanced between the fast-beating heart of berserk rage and the
quivering heart of fear one can find a Tranquil Fury where the rhythm
of battle overcomes all else, where even death for myself or the
opponent is a secondary consideration to letting the dance play out as
it has been Willed.
- Kwon Bushi
Kulthesu
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