Ninja Mind. Kevin Keitoshi Casey

Take a deep breath, and let it out slowly and completely. Imagine yourself as much heavier than normal. Settle your weight into your bones and let your legs soften a bit. Be relaxed and concentrate on your own heaviness.

      Let your partner try to pick you up. If you start to get moved or lifted, don’t focus on fighting them. Focus instead on relaxing more and getting heavy.

      It will make a difference if you can remain relaxed and focused on heaviness. If your partner is very strong, they may be able to lift you anyway, but they will feel the difference distinctly. It is like when a parent tries to pick up a child who is passively resisting.

      The author gets earthy and his training partner cannot lift him at all.

      Once you have this trick working for you, try not telling your partner which it will be. See how soon they can feel the difference when they try to lift you.

      If you’re feeling particularly comfortable with the exercise, you might even be able to activate the heaviness after they’ve lifted you, and thereby sink back down to the ground against their strength. Be careful, though, because it is possible to hurt your partner if they are not aligned properly for your weight. Take appropriate athletic precautions.

      “The patron of the power of Kuji One was called Fudo Myo’o in Japanese lore, or Acalanatha in Sanskrit,” An-Shu Hayes explained. “His name means The Immovable One.”

      I had read about Fudo Myo’o (不動明王) as one of the Five Wisdom Kings known to Japanese Buddhism, certain historical ninja groups, and the yamabushi mountain shamans. I hadn’t realized that the image of Fudo Myo’o has existed in ancient India as well under the Sanskrit name Acalanatha.

      “We can start with the practice of being physically immovable, but it goes much deeper. Fudo Myo’o also represents how to be imperturbable, unflappable, not distressed by the chaos around you.”

      I thought of how in the exercises we had practiced, the physical manifestation of immovability was generated by holding my mind to the right thought. If my attention slipped, or I doubted myself, or I let my training partner’s struggles distract me, I would immediately lose the ability to resist their power.

      “An obvious example of the use of that mental strength is the confidence and focus you can generate to bring strength to your martial arts practice,” my teacher continued. “Deeper than that is the ability to hold a space under social and emotional pressure.” He looked right at me as he said this, though I wasn’t sure why.

      I raised my hand. “Do you just mean not backing down?”

      He looked slightly irritated at my question. “You could put it in simple terms like that, but in real life it is much more difficult to do with intelligence and grace. When I was providing personal protection for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we often needed to secure a space for His Holiness, but we were working with monks, spiritual practitioners, celebrities, fans, and media. It would have been totally inappropriate to just get tough and ugly and throw people out like bar bouncers.”

      The group laughed at the image of the Dalai Lama’s protection team roughing up Buddhist monks who had come to pray. An-Shu Hayes nodded at the laughter for a moment, and then suddenly became very serious. “It sounds funny to imagine, but well-meaning people make this mistake all the time. If your idea of strength is mere ignorant resistance, then you have no ability to project intelligent force in the world. In which case, your only choices are to be a doormat or a difficulty.”

      The room went quiet while we absorbed that. I remembered role-models in my life, good-hearted people, who had either been pushed aside by the insistent needs of others, or who were pushed until they exploded with too much anger and righteousness. I cringed on the inside remembering loved ones who were not able to harness strength in an intelligent and appropriate way.

      “So how do we harness the power of Fudo Myo’o?” I finally asked aloud.

      Now he smiled at me. “That’s the right question. There’s a full practice for taking on that energy and power, with a number of safety mechanisms built right in so that you do it in the most positive form possible. Another day, when we have more time, I’d like to walk you through that practice. For today, let’s do an extremely condensed version to give a little taste of what it might be like to own that strength.”

      He folded his hands into an unusual shape. It almost reminded me of a shape we used to make with an old childhood rhyme that went, “This is the church, and this is the steeple… open the doors, and there’s all the people.”

      Forming the mudra (Moo-dra) hand seal associated with the Kuji One power of Strength.

      “This special hand shape is called a mudra, sometimes translated as a seal,” he explained. “It’s used to anchor an idea. We make an unusual shape with our hands that wouldn’t come up in ordinary life, and we program that shape by focusing on certain thoughts and energies whenever we make the shape. Later, once we’ve put enough energy into programming the mudra with the right thoughts, we can go the other way and use the mudra to bring up the thoughts.”

      Somebody in the group commented that it reminded them of NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, an approach to anchoring ideas in the mind developed in the 1970s.

      “Maybe like that,” An-Shu Hayes agreed, “but thousands of years old.”

      As usual, we fell silent for a moment as he reminded us that while these ancient practices may be echoed in modern attempts to understand the mind, they are far deeper and more thoroughly validated than anything created in the last few decades. I realized what a poor intuitive grasp I had of the scope of time these practices spanned.

      “You could think of it like a checking account,” An-Shu continued. “You can write a check as big as you want, but you can only cash a check as big as what you have put in the account. Of course, you’ll want to start writing checks right away, using the practice to generate strength, but start small and make regular investments to build up your power. Don’t try to write a huge check with nothing behind it, because all you’ll do is damage your own credibility and confidence.”

      An-Shu came around personally and helped us fold our hands into the correct shape, interlacing the lower two fingers, making entwined rings with the middle fingers and thumbs, and pointing the index fingers forward. “These rings of the middle finger and thumb represent the rope of Fudo Myo’o, with which he binds negative forces and holds them down. The index fingers extended represent his flaming wisdom sword, cutting through obstacles and delusion.”

      “Take a deep breath in,” he said, “and let that oxygen focus your mind on the mudra representing the rope and sword. Release that deep breath, and settle yourself into a more solid and resolute state of mind. Go slowly. Luxuriate in the breath, and build that power.”

      We went through a series of breaths, slow and deliberate, focusing and settling.

      “Good,” he said after a few moments. “There is so much more than that, but this is an excellent start. Let’s try an exercise.”

Exercise Three – Manifesting Power

      Get a trusted training partner who can put a little social pressure on you but can remember that they are playing a role to help you practice strength. It is essential that you succeed in the exercise, because the point is to program memories of success into yourself. Therefore, your partner’s job is to ensure that you succeed. You probably don’t want to try this on your lifelong rival…. Yet.

      Preparing to practice Strength.

      Start several