the mat is everywhere
Fr
It is a clinic tradition to have a banquet on Saturday night, to get together and socialize off the mat, in a more relaxed atmosphere. It’s also become a tradition that the students of our dojo give a gift to our teacher and his wife, who helps a lot in getting the clinic organized. Long story short, during the presentation of our gifts to the teacher, my fellow student said something jokingly about our teacher considering the mat to be wherever he goes. I felt like i’d been struck by lightning, and I stopped listening for a couple minutes as the implications of that statement rolled over me: the mat is everywhere!
I know, that doesn’t sound like a big deal at first, unless you have some familiarity with the martial arts. I’m not referring to performing the martial techniques themselves, but rather carrying the character practices wherever I go. Our arts are grouped together, and each group cultivates a specific characteristic – gentleness, rhythm, timing, and so on. What if I brought those characteristics to everything I do, made them part of everything I do? Then the mat is everywhere, because I’m always practicing. Maybe not the martial aspect, but I would always be cultivating the characteristics of the art – I would truly become the art, rather than practicing it.
There are immediate parallels that come to my mind as well. The first is meditation. Last year, one of the instructors said that if you want to be calm in the midst of chaos, you have to practice in the midst of chaos. Practicing being calm in the midst of calm teaches you nothing. That idea was something I hadn’t considered, but now I understand. But he’s not entirely correct – basically, the more you practice being calm, the more likely you are to stay that way, regardless of circumstances.
What I’m saying is, you can choose to bring anything you want into your life – spiritual practices, specific ways of being, whatever it is you want. The first thing you need to do is to correct your thinking. By seeing whatever it is as separate from other parts of your life, you create an artificial division – it is always available to you if you are willing to maintain the awareness of it. That willingness may mean you have to slow down for a bit when something first happens so you don’t lose it, and it may annoy other people when you don’t react the way you used to, or the way they want you to. But if you stick with it, it will become habit, and you won’t have to consciously think about it unless you want to.
The mat is everywhere – what are you going to carry around your mat?