Check back soon
Once posts are published, you’ll see them here.
“If you should meet God upon your travels, He will be cut.” ~Hatori Hanzo, Kill Bill
The art of the spiritual warrior is less about war and more about a state of being, becoming, and overcoming. When you are in such a state, you are one with the moment. You are fluid, flowing, fountain-heading. You’re in a heightened state of detachment which engages a primal force that overrides all other forces. Things become clear. You become hyper aware, deeply engaged, primed and ready to cut.
As Terry Goodkind said in The Sword of Truth, “The primary edict means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one: cut. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don’t allow him a breath. Crush him. Cut him without mercy.”
Indeed. To cut means to engage absolutely. To cut is to become the sword. Even if you have no sword. Cut. Cut the obstacle until it becomes the path. And if God Himself should stand in your way, cut that bastard’s heart out and become one with all things.
Cut with the Body:
“Chaos and self-organization go hand in hand, and only if they are in a state of pre-established harmony do life and health exist.” ~Klaus Mainzer
The world is chaos. The body is self-organization. Health comes from a state of pre-established harmony between the body and the world. When you are engaged absolutely, your body is a sword cutting through the chaos and creating order and harmony from the void.
Meditation, martial arts, yoga, HIIT, weightlifting, parkour, these are all forms of pre-established harmony creating health in the body, transforming the body into an instrument sharp enough to cut through the chaos of the world. Practice is a sharpening stone for this instrument. The more you practice, the sharper your “sword.” The sharper your sword, the easier it will be to cut.
To cut with the body is to cut through entropy. The opposite of entropy is health. To cut with the body is to use health as a sword to slice through entropy, inertia, idleness, laziness, and even death. Where entropy is the ultimate state of inert uniformity, cutting with the body is the absolute state of engaged harmony.
To cut with the body is to breathe; to cut through Death with Life. Breath is the lifeblood of the cut, the primal source. To breathe and to be present with breath, is to become one with the cosmos, in the moment, fluid, non-attached, and in a state of absolute emergence.
In such a state Death is put on notice. Cut! There is life to be lived.
Cut with the mind:
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” ~Bruce Lee
The mind and the body are connected. When you are cutting with the body, you are engaged in mindfulness. When you are engaged in mindfulness, you are cutting from a place of No-mind. You are beyond being. You are in a state of becoming; fluid and flowing through non-attachment.
When you cut with the mind, you cut with interrogation, with ruthless introspection. The question-mark becomes a sword with which you cut through all “answers.”
When you cut with the mind, nothing is sacred. The only sacred thing is to cut. Cut ruthlessly, concisely, and without qualm. Cut through the golden calves. Cut through the knees of all high horses. Cut through the pedestals and hierarchies and holy texts. Cut through all authorities. The only authority is to cut.
Cut through inflated egos. Shred all fixed mindsets. Slice open closemindedness. Don’t relent. Give no recourse. Especially not with yourself. Cut through the box you claim to think outside of. Cut through the fattened butter of all faiths.
Cut through God if he stands in the way of Truth. If you should meet Buddha on the path, cut him down. That which claims to be the Tao is not the true Tao. Cut through all claims. Cut through Belief itself, for belief is a tripwire, a brambles, a trap.
When you are cutting with the mind, you are questioning to the nth degree. No “answer” is sacrosanct. All “answers” are sent to the gallows where you are waiting with your question mark sword—to cut.
Cut with the soul:
“The human race has only one effective weapon, and that is laughter.” ~Mark Twain
The soul is a manifestation of a body engaged in mindfulness. It’s an aura of interconnectedness. When you are cutting with the mind and body, you are engaged in soulcraft. Soulcraft is a spiritual warrior’s engagement with eternity, with the infinite. Soulcraft is an existential overcoming, a transcendence in practice, a proactive spiritual flexibility. In short: soulcraft is having an impeccable sense of humor.
When you are cutting with the soul, you are cutting with the sword of humility. Your high humor is a razor-sharp frequency cutting through all things. Laughter is a guillotine chopping off the head of anything that takes itself too seriously. It’s all a cosmic joke? So be it. Rather than cry, cry, cry; you choose to laugh, laugh, laugh.
When you cut with the soul, you are cutting through meaninglessness. You are churning through it like swords transformed into ploughshares, kicking up dirt, mixing it up. You cut through meaninglessness so that you can plant the seeds of meaning. You plant them in the Deep Nothing so that something can grow. Despite meaninglessness, you cut. You cut in order to culminate meaning. You cut through the cosmic joke with a humor so sharp that laughter itself becomes God.
This is soulcraft. This is cutting with the soul. When your humor is so high, so magnetic, so liberating, and so sharp that the universe has no choice but to split in half and allow the meaning of your laughter to become one with it, to be it, to become it, an to overcome it, through the cut.
So, what are you waiting for? Cut!
Image source:
About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (To Cut: Unleashing the Mind, Body, and Soul) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
Comments