Meditation
Having a mind without thought is Mushin(無心), the correct, default, optimal state for the mind according to the Bushido Zen philosopher Takuan Soho.
It’s okay to think and hear your thoughts, but if the thoughts are rendering uncontrolled and not in the format of an idea or another alpha construct, the wanderer must settle their mind and put it away.
The first thing a wanderer must do each day is enter the Mushin(無心) state using their morning primer. It is crucial to be in state to push forward as a wanderer.
Breath and meditation are fundamentally linked.
The uncontrolled mind is chaos. It’s a glass full of sediment, swirled, so the water is brown and messy. When the mind is calm, the sediment rests at the bottom of the glass, and the water is clear, the water is pure. Purity of mind is calmness of mind; we want pure minds at all times.
Meditation is the secondary answer to all questions when the primary answer is unknown. If you don’t know your goals, how to solve a problem, or other question, meditation will always help, whether it’s Mushin(無心) zen meditation or meditating on a question without movement with eyes closed so the theater of the mind may act out. This works because meditation takes you deeper.
Do not replace meditation with technology; nor do you need technology for meditation.
Meditation is a solution to suffering. The place of no mind means no suffering because suffering is created in the mind and passed to the body and spirit.
Your mind must be controlled at all times, and you must keep the water of your glass pure. This is a mind domain tenet. If you observe the sediment of your mind unsettled, you must settle it in that moment. A settled mind has focused potential, where an unsettled mind is chaos.
Where one puts the mind
If a wanderer does not put their mind away, it can run wild. The mind, like a tool, should be put away unless it is being used.
The mind has a focus point, like an eye. The eye of the mind can be moved with meditation, and like any path to mastery, the more you meditate, the more control you exhibit over your mind’s eye.
Takuan Soho recommended placing the mind below the navel area, known as the Hara(丹田, Tanden), considered the body’s center of gravity and a focus point of balance and power, making it an ideal location to put the mind. He did not recommend putting your mind on your opponent, stating that is how you are taken by your opponent.
The Mind’s eye is like a key for the mind to think. If you do not have the key inside your head, you will not generate thought. If you put the mind’s eye in the muscle while training, the muscle will train properly because the mind’s focus is in the muscle.
This is true across many things.
Boredom
A solution to boredom is meditation. Boredom is the mind looking for land in all the places but where it is standing.
The bored mind wants pleasure but needs fulfillment. Pleasure will not fulfill boredom; it will only bury it in the short term. So is the nature of pleasure.
Boredom can be the body domain telling you it needs to be worked.
When you’re bored, meditate, engage the body domain, or use a breathing method.