Empty Mind — Mushin or Moo-Shin?

Martial artists train to achieve ‘mushin’ — can a Dude do it?

There’s this phrase: ‘emptying the mind.’ What’s this mean to a Dudeist?

‘Moo-shin’ can be a somewhat misleading expression. Because it can suggest that there are no thoughts, nothing present. It’s like a cow, right? As though we are somehow zoned-out. But that’s not it. You see, in Dude-Jitsu we think of it as being chill, sitting back in a lawn chair at a sweet smokin’ barbecue, oat sodas in the cooler.

But sometimes, even the best of Dudes have days when they forget how to clear out the mind. Emptying the mind is like intaking a glass full of milk that has been left out on the table too long. The milk gets sour. Not good.

So, we empty the glass and wash it out. In Dude-Jitsu we call this emptying the mind of our sour thought clutter.

On a good day, when we reach for a bottle of ice cold oat soda, we enjoy its cool liquid to spilling down our throat. This natural ‘spilling’ — or in most cases, guzzling — is the in-rush of living in the moment. Guzzling the in-rush is all about allowing clear, clean thoughts to flow in and through us. Sour stuff out, cold stuff in.

And we don’t think about drinking. Nope, we just drink. Right? And in the moment-by-moment drinking of it, we experience it — with little to no thought. We don’t hold it endlessly in our mouth. We simply gulp, swallow, and enjoy. We experience the uninhibited flow of it. Moo-shin.

Moo-shin: Living in the State of Graze

When we stand on top of a mountain and see nature spread out beneath us, our thoughts become quiet, and we soak in the moment. Nature has a way of balancing us. The quietness we enjoy on the mountaintop or sitting on the beach is ‘moo-shin’ — empty mind. It’s the State of Grace, or if you’re a Dudeist, the State of Graze.

Dude-mind is moo-shin. But it’s not about being a dumb grazer. Instead, it’s all about the perfectly situated moment when we take the first bite out of the perfect hot dog. In that moment, there’s nothing else. Moo-shin, man, mushin.