Knights Errant of the Holy Order of Awareness
secret vows, and the point of it all
Introduction
This publication is about Jiu Jitsu in everyday life. What’s that mean? Well, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, and use bits of his story to suggest that this concept of an ordinary person using martial arts in everyday life has merit.
At the same time, I’d like to point out that a journey into ‘training the mind’ can take us in quite a few directions. In the context of this essay that means two things.
First, we get an introduction to applying martial arts principles in everyday life. The introduction is an attempt to show us the achievability of such things. In other words, it doesn’t take years and years of study to benefit from applying martial arts practices to our daily life.
You could start today, right now. Even if you’ve never stepped into a dojo. I’m not sure I’ve done a very good job explaining that here, so as this publication moves forward I’m going to work on that. (I think one of my better efforts is the essay Mirror your Attacker.)
Second, the small day-to-day practices of applying martial arts principles add up. It’s my contention that each of those repetitions are exercises in what we might refer to as consciousness practices. Over time, we may end up developing certain disciplines of the mind, and as those disciplines mature we start to unfold new levels of awareness. The idea is that in time, our minds learn through those practices and repetitions the kind of discipline we need to embark on deeper or more ambitious voyages into the mind. (I’m oversimplifying it, because there’s the whole issue of where to go, what is it you’re seeing, how to orient yourself and so on.)
It is within the context of these two perspectives that this essay will share a few examples of where that can lead. In this case, my friend Jim Coleman’s practices can give us some insightful glimpses. While the more dramatic experiences shared here can arguably be called more important than the small day-to-day victories, I think you’ll see me put up an argument against that. In my opinion the day-to-day victories have the greater value, because whether they lead us to earth-shattering consciousness realizations or not, we are incrementally improving day-by day.
Without exception, every person I ever saw on the Jiu Jitsu mat was there for far more than traditional self defense training. They may not have been able to express that when they first walked in, but each of them had some kind of disturbing inner gnawing. Jiu Jitsu gave each of us the opportunity to address that gnawing and in the process of doing that, better manage our problems, fears and anxieties.
Maria Popova addresses the fear of change:
To be human is to suffer from a peculiar congenital blindness: On the precipice of any great change, we can see with terrifying clarity the familiar firm footing we stand to lose, but we fill the abyss of the unfamiliar before us with dread at the potential loss rather than jubilation over the potential gain of gladnesses and gratifications we fail to envision because we haven’t yet experienced them. Emerson knew this when he contemplated our resistance to change and the key to true personal growth: “People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”
PART 1: My friend, Jim Coleman
Back in 1997, I met a guy by the name of Jim Coleman. He was a senior level manager in the company I had just been hired into. Almost immediately we found ourselves working on several projects together. In that part of the country, it’s impolite not to share some of your personal interests with your co-workers. It might be as simple as talking about being active in the PTA, scouting, your local church, boating on the lake, or that you’re a member of a local hunt club. In my case, it was Jiu Jitsu.
The strongest attraction that Jiu Jitsu held for me was the opportunity to cross-relate what I was learning on the mat into my normal, everyday life circumstances. Yes, I was learning self defense. But I was also learning how to defend myself on projects, with customers, and most of all with myself. It didn’t take long for Jim to politely pry all this out of me. He was deeply intrigued by the whole notion of using Jiu Jitsu as a benchmark to create a ‘way’ of living based on the martial arts.
I ended up introducing him to my teacher (who happened to be my brother). It was a lot of fun to not only know another student who was into the practical, everyday applications of the arts that I was so devoted to, but to have the added benefit of being co-workers.
When I met Jim, I was quickly impressed by his calm professionalism. He was in a highly demanding, technical field, a world of calculations and precision. He also made presentations on behalf of his clients throughout the United States and around the world. His specialty was training.
When he spoke in front of clients or in a classroom, there was always a sense that his knowledge had been thoughtfully gathered and responsibly applied.
You see, Jim has never been a stingy ‘keeper of knowledge,’ but instead has always been willing to share and educate, to help you make your life a little better. Jim loves helping other people’s lives get better, whether it’s through education or lending an ear. He’s one of those people who does their thing quietly and modestly, in ways that can create instant trust and lasting friendship. I can and have talked about anything and everything with Jim, and trust him with my life.
We became best friends, and studied together for years at Great River Institute. There, we spent countless hours in Jiu Jitsu practices. We were also delving deep into discussions on the nature of Man. Our conversations and studies bored into consciousness, the nature of reality, the human condition, and life before and after death. We often sat around a literal campfire, contemplating things that tripped us up in our lives. We had innumerable talks about Universal Fundamental Principles, designed to provide a man or woman with a set of tools to help navigate the unknown. These were principles we learned about in our Jiu Jitsu studies, Fundamental Principles for Standing in the Face of the Truth.
As we shall see a little later (in a small explanation about the Japanese samurai), Jiu Jitsu is extraordinarily relevant when it comes to teaching a student how to face the unknown, i.e., how to deal with the squeamishness and anxiety that occurs when we run up against impossible challenges. So, the training that Jim walked into was comprehensive. And as it did many times for me, it would bring him and many other students up against some challenging inner obstacles.
The unknown seems to be the biggest thing we’re known to avoid the most.
The unknown is so prevalent in our lives, and so overwhelmingly dominant throughout the universe, that you’d think we’d be embracing it. Instead, we seem to be in an inexplicable state of perpetual avoidance. We desperately cling to the known and the familiar, as though the tiny thread of stuff we call ‘the known’ is the only lifeline in all of existence.
What Jim saw when he joined Great River Jiu Jitsu training was firsthand evidence of people’s lives changing and improving. He was seeing people apply martial arts principles to improve MS symptoms, level out their blood sugar, find marriage partners when the well had been dry, overcome anxiety, achieve previously impossible promotions, resolve relationship issues, improve co-worker problems, overcome learning disabilities, and far more.
To be clear, we weren’t all sitting around the mat and taking about anxiety or problems with people at work. No, we just came into the dojo and worked out, did our Jiu Jitsu. But off the mat many of us were quietly practicing. We were involved in what I call ‘practical practices in consciousness’, which were practices of steadily applying Jiu Jitsu principles in everyday life.
How were we doing this? Well, it was clearly not about walking around in everyday life and flipping people or wrestling them into submission. Instead, what we were discovering was the use of underlying martial arts principles. I’m fairly certain most martial arts schools don’t teach these, particularly to developing students.
When any of us started as a new student at Great River Jiu Jitsu, we put on the beginner’s white belt. At GRJJ, each belt rank is accompanied by a corresponding principle. For the white belt it is Balance. The idea being that as you learn your white belt techniques, and come up against some kind of wall or sticking point, you ask yourself things like, “Am I out of balance here? Is there a way I can improve my balance?”
Over the course of classes, the concept of Balance begins to expand. Because we have all kinds of ways we can improve our balance. On a Jiu Jitsu mat, we can clearly find ways to be in better physical balance, to not be so top-heavy, to not be so tight in our shoulders, to not be so clumsy with our feet. But we can also find ways, both on and off the mat, to be in better mental or emotional balance. We can find ways to be in better social or interaction balance with our co-workers or family members. We can find ways to be in better situational balance in the things we are doing each day.
The point is, that as a beginner white belt, each of us uncovered ways to improve ourselves both on and off the mat, through the simple use of a principle called Balance.
And I have to tell you, I saw Jim grab hold of these concepts with a quiet but utterly dedicated enthusiasm. He jumped in with both feet. And from my perspective (I was an instructor at the time), Jim always seemed to be a natural when it came to seeing the value of everyday life applications of martial arts.
In a sense, I think Jim’s Jiu Jitsu experiences have helped bookmark him on his own path through life.
I’ve always known him to be a bit of a gentle philosopher/warrior in such matters. Even as a new student, it seemed like he was someone other students naturally looked up to. We might be having a group discussion or something, and whenever Jim spoke it seemed like the room would become a little more quiet than usual. Looking back, it was as though everyone else in the room was unconsciously deciding that if Jim could consider and talk about such things, then it’s okay. They could consider and talk, too.
Part of what compels people to do that with Jim, is that he’s an intellectual. He can verbally dissect a problem for hours. Maybe you share that strength. But what can be a strength can also become a challenge. I share some of that tendency, myself.
What I mean is, guys like Jim and even me would try and try and try to get our minds wrapped around something. Sometimes to the point where our sensei would say, “Okay look, let’s go onto the mat and I’ll just show you.” And within five or ten minutes of physical application, the mental gyrations we’d just been going through would melt away. We’d be shown — physically — the nature of the actual problem we were wrestling with.
So, anyway, people knew this about Jim. And they knew he was a technical kind of guy. You see the point, right? That when everyone saw Jim accept something, they figured he’d already put it through the wringer.
In terms of Jiu Jitsu for Everyday Life & Leisure, it would be years before I’d roll out that term. But Jim was learning the Principles, along with the concepts that sometimes there are quicker ways to gain realizations then through intellectual understandings. And sometimes there were far quicker ways to delve into the mind than through formal consciousness studies (which he also participated in). He was learning about the nature of subjective experiences, and that realizations could emerge out of the subjective that simply weren’t possible through mental efforts alone. He was also learning that these incremental realizations didn’t just occur on the mat. They occurred in everyday life applications, and that’s the part that really excited him.
PART 2: Incremental practices lead to deeper experiences
Like any of us, Jim has had some fears. But in some ways, I’ve known him as fearless. The places that our minds and conversations would go could be deeply challenging to see and consider. In matters of consciousness and awareness, there are explorations of the mind that can cause the metaphorical hand to shake, violently at times. But Jim has always tried his best to keep a still mind.
So, for example, if one of us was working on a particularly difficult personal issue (which we’d never be asked to talk about in front of others), the mat training was teaching us how to be in less of a ‘freak out’ mode when we came up against it in our personal practices. Identical to the ancient samurai, we were learning to stay calm in the face of adversity.
Life can sometimes throw us some pretty wicked turns. Some years ago, I heard that Jim had undergone some difficult surgery. I knew my fellow traveler was down. I also knew that it isn’t always surgery or outside events that can bring us down or isolate us. Because when you have an inquisitive and thoughtful mind like Jim, you can easily find yourself in a place that few people travel. And that place, too, can be punishing in its peculiar forms of loneliness.
I recall that early in his training, he was in one of those places. But as it turns out, he ended up having a few experiences that kind of rocked his paradigms. And I am convinced he had these so-called deeper experiences or insights because he was diligently practicing his principles in his everyday life applications.
Here’s a brief look at one of his experiences. (I’m the first person narrator, and this was a vision of sorts, a memory. And hang with me here, because it ties into Jim.)
It was a dark night. The air was cool. I had been walking down a dirt lane, with a very high stone wall on one side and a dark forest on the other. There ahead, in a small clearing, was the flicker of a modest fire. Several armored men lounged on the ground, helmets set to the side. Stones formed a fire ring. These were my companions. I knew them, and sat down.
They were knights of a secret Holy Order, and each man was repeating an oath he’d made before. They were directing their oaths toward the leader, who was reminding his small band of the significance of those deeply meaningful vows.
Now, it’s not for me to say what a person should or shouldn’t do about an oath. But each man around that campfire eventually died.
And then centuries later, each man, to a man, recalled that past life. They recounted the event individually and independently of each other. And I know plenty of other men and women who’ve had similar experiences.
I am acutely aware that in matters of consciousness research or past life claims, there is controversy. And why wouldn’t there be, what with all the unknowns that surround us, the unknowns we work so hard to avoid?
And what about all the so-called beliefs which assault us each day, with their absolute, rock-steady certainty? And then there’s science. Which I fully support.
It’s tragically funny though, because all through history there are major events when “absolute, rock-steady certainty” and even the science of the day have been unceremoniously tossed out the door. It even happens today, right before our very eyes.
Despite all of that or maybe even because of it, I think it’s entirely prudent and utterly responsible to give ourselves permission — at least from time to time — to consider things which are sometimes forgotten or even forbidden.
As a young boy I had questions. I know Jim did too. We’re the same age and we both grew up in similar cultures, in bordering states. It’s very likely we shared some of the same questions.
Like Jim, I was taught that the Bible was the literal, inerrant Word of God. So, taking things literally, I asked things like,
“If Adam and Eve had two sons, and Cain killed Abel and then fled, but eventually Cain returned with a wife and children, where did the wife come from?”
The question was simple and completely reasonable.
Jim’s one of those guys who can respect beliefs, but never lose sight of, or respect for, the questions. But, like me, he’s just an everyday guy. Which makes his ‘inner space’ accomplishments all the more remarkable. But back to our story.
So imagine, if only for a few minutes, that those guys around the campfire were real. And that they died. That part’s easy, right? But then they came back into other lives.
And remembered.
Who’s going to believe that?
The skepticism or the polite dismissal that ends up surrounding such stories is understandable. Because where’s the proof? Yet guys like Jim or me might say, “Well, we are.”
I’m aware of studies stating it has been scientifically proven that memory is highly unreliable. Yet, when I open Google Earth to view places from my own childhood — places I’ve never once revisited in over 60 years, nor had any family photos of, at all — I discover my recollections are highly accurate and precise. So, who is it that is truly qualified to state past life memories are not reliable or possible?
I’m not out to convince the world of the existence of past lives. Many people might even prefer to forget their current past. I get that. But I think Jim would agree with me, that a life worth living is a life that has a point. He should know. He was sitting around that campfire. He was one of those guys.
He’s a remarkable guy to me, in part because Jim’s one of the few people I’ve ever met who remembers the point. He’s not repeating the mantra of the crowd, or what the books all tell him to say. He’s seen and experienced for himself. That’s an incredibly important and vital example he’s showing us — the whole notion of trusting yourself, experiencing for yourself.
Anyway, while the story may seem a little dramatic, I’m contending that Jim would have never recalled such a memory if he hadn’t been doing those daily practices, applying his on-mat lessons to his normal life. So, for those of us who yearn to break through certain barriers within themselves or even certain barriers of deeper awareness and consciousness, Jim was giving fellow students a quiet example, which is to practice what’s on your mat. Put in the repetitions. He did, and some unexpected things happened.
I think about the significance of what he experienced, simply because he did that. I mean, how many people can say they have traveled far enough into the mind and into awareness to claim a stake in the question of why we’re all here?
That makes for an exceptionally worthy life, in my opinion.
PART 3: Training the mind
I’ve previously mentioned that I’ve been reading the conversations that occurred in 1980 between Dr. David Bohm and Jiddhu Krishnamurti. My essay Conversations in Consciousness looks in on the topic of Nothingness.
Without a little context, I’m not sure my friend Jim Coleman would understand the term Nothingness. We never used it around Great River Institute. But if Jim were to read the essay noted above, he’d quickly be up to speed.
If you read between the lines in the book The Ending of Time: Where Philosophy and Physics Meet — which is where the conversations are recorded — we realize that there was a group of perhaps ten people sitting around while Bohm and Krishnamurti talked. I’m not familiar with what roles these individuals played. Were they students of Krishnamurti? Assistants or fans of Bohm? I don’t know.
But either way, they were listening in on the conversations, and occasionally interjecting a question or comment. I’m pointing this out to set some context for my own studies, but also for Jim’s studies. Similar to the Bohm/Krishnamurti discussions, we occasionally sat around and discussed or listened to lectures. But part of what made our studies unique was that some of us were involved in Jiu Jitsu training.
Historically, Jiu Jitsu was the hand-to-hand combat art of the Japanese samurai. The samurai is widely considered by military historians to have been the fiercest warriors ever produced. When the samurai had dismounted, or lost his sword or other weapons, and when all that was left were his bare hands, then it was Jiu Jitsu to which he turned as the last thing standing between him and death. Jiu Jitsu taught him to be calm in the face of adversity, even in the presence of certain death. This is part of what made him so fearsome.
Zen Buddhism has been credited with teaching the samurai how to calm or relax the mind. I have no interest in disputing that, other than to say that mind training is something that emerges in martial arts whether you’re religious or not. My own Jiu Jitsu instructors never suggested that any of us go out and study zen. On the other hand, our personal religious practices were neither encouraged nor disparaged. But mind training was integral, if unspoken.
Martial arts masters tend to be in agreement that it can take years for a martial arts student to arrive at the point where the more serious aspects of training the mind start to occur. But what is mind training, when asked in this context?
I think when most of us come across the term ‘training the mind’ we don’t place it in the same context as a martial arts teacher would. We might tend to think it analogous to learning some form of mental discipline, such as getting up at 4:30 in the morning and heading to the gym.
Seen from that perspective, five or ten years of training would appear excessive. But that’s the thing: the normal, everyday comparisons quickly break down when it comes to trying to get inside of what certain terms mean within the context of martial arts.
The concept of ‘mushin’ or empty mind is itself perhaps a bit misleading. Because while on the one hand it is about being empty, it does not imply the kind of emptiness that suggests non-responsiveness. It does not empty the lake of water, but rather it calms the water. The idea being: if you have too many thoughts, you can’t think. Or, put another way, if you have too many thoughts, you can’t accurately sense or hear what’s actually occurring, because there’s too much noise or interference. Perhaps more succinctly, we can ask: Can you still your mind?
Persistence in mind training, using martial arts as the vehicle, takes us into unanticipated experiences in consciousness, including the holistic connection that we have to each other. It touches on concepts such as the holographic mind, championed by people like quantum physicist David Bohm. Our concept of ‘center’ becomes a gradual, radical series of insights, sometimes amazing and sometimes a bit disturbing.
It starts slow.
Here’s an example of a young nun, first beginning to realize that something is happening. She can’t quite explain it, but somehow certain things are becoming easier. And that’s my point: that if you just start putting in the practice on the things that help you right now, today, you’ll start seeing results. And over time, those repetitions end up having a cascading effect.
Every day, the nuns put on the same style clothing made famous by classic martial arts movies in the 70’s and 80’s, and engage in an intense two-hour training session complete with hand chops, punches, high kicks and exagerated kicks. The benefits of training in kung fu are many-fold, according to the nuns.
“It’s good for our health. Meditation is very difficult and if we do kung fu, then afterwards meditation becomes much easier,” 16-year-old Rupa Lama told the BBC.
http://www.odditycentral.com/news/the-kung-fu-nuns-of-nepal.html
Our own teacher said it a bit differently:
“If you can take what you’re learning here on the mat, and then go out into your normal everyday life, and find ways to cross-relate it — then you will find that the everyday life practice will have improved you when you step back into the training hall and onto the mat.” — Sensei Scott Walter
So, what I’m touching upon here is that the martial arts, under a skilled teacher, can take us on a journey inward unlike anything we’ve ever imagined. While on the one hand it can help us defend ourselves against the conflicts of a physical attack, its higher forms and deeper underlying principles teach us to overcome the conflicts in our everyday lives — assuming we are smart enough to look at it that way- and it can teach us to overcome the conflicts buried deep within our own minds. In my opinion, you can’t have one without the other.
PART FOUR: Consistent practice and unfold deeper experiences
As profound as these understandings and realizations can become, there can be far more to explore and discover if you keep pressing onward. That is, if the years of challenging and difficult practice and training don’t dissuade you.
What can eventually occur is a better sense of mind, and a deeper sense of refinement in terms of stilling or calming the mind. Around the time Jim joined Jiu Jitsu, something happened to me:
I was in the car with my teacher. We were on the road, heading from Virginia to Nashville. The smoothness of the highway created a lazy lull in the conversation. Sensei was driving. After a time, the silence was broken with a single word.
“There,” he said.
With not a clue about what he meant, I just sat there. Whatever was going on seemed dumb. Stupid. Some kind of lesson. Always with the lessons. Dumb.
“There,” he said again, after a bit of a pause.
I glanced over at him quizzically, still mute. A little more time went by in silence. He stared at the road, the miles still clipping by. And then…
“There.” Pause. “And there.”
“And there.”
A light went off in my head.
“There.” He did it again. As soon as the light had gone off.
Suddenly, I was startled. “Wait a minute,” I said.
“There it is again,” he stated.
“What? What are you doing? You’re sensing when I’m thinking about something!”
He said nothing, but just kept driving.
“No wait! You’re not sensing when I’m thinking. You’re sensing when I have the actual intention to think!”
“Yes,” he replied.
“The actual moment of intention! The blip, the moment, the first indication of intention!”
“Yes.”
I was about seven years into my training at that time. That particular trip cascaded into dozens of similarly intense and stunning experiences. The trip lasted for ten days or so. When it was time to go home, he turned to me and said something like,
“I’m going to have to turn you off, now. You’re not ready to manage this on your own yet.”
I begged him to not do that, and to this day I have no idea what he did, but as I was driving back alone to Virginia I was sobbing. Weeping uncontrollably, because I had tasted the honey. And I knew I had years of hard, disruptive training ahead of me, but I had no idea why.
I’m telling you this story and the next one, because it’s important to set some additional context into the kind of study and training my friend Jim had immersed himself into.
Anyway, several years passed, and the next phase of my training incorporated learning more about the nature of the mind and this elusive thing that is called ‘hara’ or center.
‘Hara’ is described as point in our body that is roughly one to two inches below the navel or belt line, and residing in the center of the torso. It is sometimes described as an imaginary point. But what I came to find out was that it was far from imaginary.
I was facing my training partner. Sensei told my partner that he was to throw a punch at me. Any kind of punch. Then, turning to me he said,
“At the first sign of movement, I want you to move in and take him down.”
So, when my partner started to swing his arm, I moved in and took him down. We did this a number of times. Sensei returned to us.
“At the first sign of movement, I want you to move in and take him down. At the first sign of movement.”
There was something about ‘how’ he was saying it that caused me to pause. It was as though I wasn’t moving in at the ‘first’ sign of movement. So, I ‘watched’ closer. Again, a successful take-down. Sensei was right there.
“Yes, but at the ‘first’ sign of movement.”
And my mind flashed back to 1997, and that defining realization in the car on the way to Tennessee. I started watching my partner with a different kind of eye, almost like a sixth sense. And I effortlessly, without even trying, somehow started taking my partner down before any physical movement. And that’s when Sensei said,
“Yes. Good. Now everyone, let’s all take a seat.”
The lesson was over, but my mind was reeling.
There is far more to “mind training” than I am conveying here. For example, I eventually learned how to move from ‘hara’ or my center. Then I learned how to stay centered when under attack by first one, then two, then three attackers. Then I learned how to connect to their centers, and in so doing how to disturb their sense of balance within themselves in a way that that rendered them ineffective as attackers. I learned that ‘center’ can be defined physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I learned that ‘center’ can be defined as integrating all of these things together. It became a layered, highly nuanced study.
I saw my teacher throw people to the ground without ever touching them, only to find myself doing the same thing many years later.
I saw him put people on the ground from across the room. For years this was an utter mystery to me, but eventually I began to better realize the nature of the mind.
And because of that highly disciplined mind training, I was able to go into what might be termed deeper states of consciousness, and not lose control. By losing control, I mean not falling asleep or not getting overcome by thoughts or distractions, or not getting consumed by regret or guilt as I descended more and more into the so-called innermost ‘me’.
PART 5: Experiencing deeper consciousness with a trained mind
This is not the place for me to continue to elaborate using my personal experiences as examples. I’ve only used them to provide some context of the term ‘controlling the mind’ when sharing about my friend Jim and his experiences.
I saw Jim do many of these same things. I suspect he’s far too modest to point to them in any way. Indeed, my praise of him would be quickly waved away if he were here. Brushed aside.
The thing is, all the time Jim was learning, I was learning too. What I discovered from some of these more so-called powerful experiences was that as profound as they can be, as unsettling as they can be, the greater value arises out of what we can do right now, today. I realized that, in part, by being around people like Jim and many other adult students who were proactively applying martial arts principles in their daily lives, that I saw martial arts unequivocally validated as a true way of living. I constantly saw people achieving successes where before they may have been at a standstill, locked-up in the problems they were bumping up against.
The so-called deeper work is vital, but it has to be digestible. And that begins by teaching our minds to adapt and pivot in ways that allow us to digest right now.
This is why I feel that, in a practical sense, the everyday life applications provide far more opportunities to create benefits when compared to some of the consciousness realizations, however profound and rattling they may be.
PART 6: Conclusion
A big part of my respect for Jim’s studiousness in these matters is that I saw him focusing on those fundamental kinds of questions that we all have. And in so focusing, he concurrently practiced the so-called ‘small practices’ enough to sometimes dive deep, deep enough to come back with at least a few answers. Frankly, I find that amazing.
Jim’s steady practices and quiet demeanor inspired a lot of us. For me, I got the opportunity of a lifetime to watch a fellow student diligently work on my passion: everyday life applications. I learned a lot.
There’s another reason I’m writing about Jim today. He’s facing a difficult life challenge. And I think it’s completely alright to say to him,
“I’m still sitting next to you by the campfire. You've overcome some really tough stuff. You’ve learned how to approach uncertainty with calmness. You’ve inspired a lot of people, including me. Keep working the principles, dear friend.”
* Mark bows.
UPDATE: 10/27/17 — I just received word, from my brother and our Sensei Scott Walter, that Jim Coleman passed today. Jim’s life deeply affected me, which makes it hard to imagine the sense of loss to those close to him. My heartfelt sympathies extend to Jim’s family and loved ones.
I hope to meet you once again in the meadows.
To be clear, I’m not claiming in any of my accounts that some kind of ‘miracles’ took place. While I’ve witnessed inexplicable phenomenon, that’s just what it is: inexplicable. That’s why such things are called studies. Science will eventually catch up.
