Losing Your Mind to Gain Your Soul

While training yesterday, Sifu was talking about meditation and how it was important to clear your mind of all thought in order to achieve the next level of zen. That got me thinking about how I could apply that more in my training and I arrived at this concept. I'm going to attempt to muse it out and see where it leads.

The Bible says in Matthew 16:28 what will profit if a man gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? I feel like this idea can be applied to how we approach meditation. More often than not when we think on an average day, we concern ourselves with almost everything from how we are going to pay our bills to where our next meal is coming from to even something as simple as what we will wear to work the next day. These thoughts and considerations often stay with us through our training and can cloud our proficiency in our techniques and stretching. When we train we need to lose our mind. What I mean by that is that while we train, we need to be focused in the moment. We need to lose the thoughts that cloud our focus and eliminate all distractions from our minds to ensure that our muscles remember every movement we make. You will only be able to do what we practice in a fight. You won't be able to stop the situation and ask your assailant for time to get into the right stance or get a do over if you miss a strike. For my fellow believers, doing this effectively entails eliminating everything from your mind except for Him. I have found this to mean that we should remain in prayer, with minds open for His guidance. He has saved me too many times because I had silenced myself and allowed Him to speak. For my non-christian fellow todai I would encourage you to seek what I have found, but keeping to the same principles of a clear mind, open to the flow. I feel like if we can strive towards losing our minds in this way, we will in turn gain our soul. What I mean by that is that we has humans exist on two plains. Physical and Spiritual. If we can, while training and/or meditating, lose our focus on just the physical, we can become more aware of the spirit. It won't come easy and will take time to truly master this concept and all it entails, but I feel like this is very much an attainable goal. Having a stronger grasp of this will lead to more flow, more wisdom and an appreciation for the world around you that you may not have had before. I'm excited at where this can lead.