In all cultures we can find some form of search for the Self, the true nature of existence. In a more or less refined way, in a more or less elaborate way, there have been many ways to reach this condition so called. It is a search with something mystical, sometimes religious or even spiritual.
In the East, especially in the past, before Jainism and Buddhism, the body was included in these practices and in this research, and it seems that the martial arts, in their most mystical aspect, originated from the journey of the Indian monk Bodhidharma to China, a nation that assumed the role of perfect vivavio for the development of innumerable forms of martial arts grouped under the generic name of Kung Fu.
Self and ego
So what then are the characteristics of a search for the self based on martial arts? Let's start from the heart of the matter, this infamous and elusive "Self", impossible to define and represent. According to whoever has realized it, the Self is a condition of pure existence, beyond the individual will, beyond the limits of the fragmented personality, with a root outside time and space, unconditionally amniotic and maieutic at the same time.
It seems that the Self begins where the ego ends, the limited peron, identified with the ignorant mechanisms of the lower nature, inconstant whirlwind of automatic forces without knowledge of the infinite that contains and constitutes them.
What comes from this distinction? It follows that in order to reach the Self one has always tried to cancel the ego and every interest for the person of the façade, even for its very survival, a common hallmark of all the life forms on this planet that are based precisely on the instinct of survival as the first commandment.
How to modulate strength in martial arts by managing one's emotions
The Self beyond combat
One of the ways of testing one's non-concern for the ego and verifying one's state of consciousness was to do battle. Combat, due to the evolutionary origin of the animal that laid the foundations, immediately provokes ancestral emotions and exalts, through adrenaline and other hormones, violent instinct or fear, the instinct of the hunter, of the predator, of the ruler, the protector of the pack, the alpha male who needs to show his strength.
In short, combat reconnects us to our evolutionary animal past, which is only covered by a subtle mental, civil and social layer, ready to step aside as soon as the adrenaline evokes combat and proximity to death. This is the first reality that we discover: we are only animals in suits and ties, ready to attack like lions or run away like gazelles at the first opportunity.
The animal ego would seem to be our profound nature, but behind this depth there is another, more vast, made of an eternity capable of looking at death from top to bottom, without disturbance. Here is the Self, the pure and individualized existence, not attached to the limits of the person, to his life or to his death, which are only pearls of a great necklace, the coming and going of a large carousel where everything takes on a precise location and therefore a sense .
Here then is that through training the true martial artist seeks this condition precisely in the infuriating battle, in full adrenaline, because only when death is near can we know whether we fear it or not, if we are slaves or masters, beyond philosophies ready to evaporate at the sight of blood.
The self in the martial arts: escape and transformation
Whoever realizes the Self does not fear death, therefore, it is indifferent to him how one can be indifferent to the approaching night and therefore of sleep, aware that the next morning we will be able to continue our life.
But here a distinction arises: some researchers are satisfied by the attainment of the condition of the Self given by the abandonment of the ego and the care of their individual life enclosed in a space-time structure, often considered an illusion, a mistake or a distorted reflection of a better life in some beyond; and then the Self is sought through a complete cancellation of the ego and therefore of the possibility of acting in this relative reality from the point of view of the Self.
With the martial arts, on the other hand, the ego needs some activity, the body is cured although ready to be left, perfection is sought even if one is ready for defeat . In some way the ego is subliminated and the Self can act through it as a transforming agent of reality.
Resuming the analogy of the dream, it would no longer be a question of escaping from a nightmare but of changing it into a beautiful dream once the awareness of being dreaming is reached.
