MOKUSO
In all Japanese Martial Arts, Mokuso (Meditation) is very important to adjust your mind and body and also your spirit.
Principally in Bu-Do it comes from the Zen Philosophy, but historically from India and China.
I do not want to enter in the historical matter, only I want to focus in the act of Mokuso for Traditional Karate-Do.
To connect our mind and body we have to concentrate in 2 main points, the Tandem (Zhen Dan Tian in Chinese) and the Kami Tandem (Shang Dan Tian). We have to send our KI from the lower part to the brain through our breathing.
All this process needs a lot of practice, Mokuso is not only sitting in seiza or agura position and close the eyes. We have to understand why and prepare step by step our mind and body for this.
For this reason it's very important before and after each class to do it. Majority of the times the instructor does it but they do not know how to explain to the students all process. In this case we have to study to understand why to it and the process to achieve our stage of Mokuso.
There are people who does it walking, others performing some exercises, including Kata; but the experience and the feeling is only by your own practice.
Step by step you will start to understand the process and feel more deep what kind of person you are, it means to recognises you first, then you can see more clear. Secondly you have to have conscience of yourself, et the connection with your environment. Third to control your emotions and forth to take out all emotions, your ego will go away and your wishes will disappear.
After this you can perform Mokuso correctly.
I use to practice at the end of 90's this kind of emotions with my Shiatsu Sensei, Hideo Asai, was not so easy for us but
the concept was there, we use to walk around the Dojo and prepare ourselves for the practice, no to much explanations but deep understanding.
Nelson Carrión
