a quiet place

one of the lessons repeatedly taught in training is the importance of having a quiet place. named alternatively by a host of euphemisms like the zone, the center, the calm, the void, the happy place, the place where things are free, it's not a literal space but rather a metaphor for anything that connotes the idea of a state in which we are able to focus without distraction and act without encumbrance in a liberation of the mind that releases the body and uplifts the soul.

this is not to say it's stillness, nor silence, nor state of doing nothing. because chaos rules the universe and the world is in constant motion and within their workings we must engage. preferably in ways that make them magnified, so that their sum transcends the limits of their making and gives to them the purpose of their meaning. just as much as we were bid to do by the act of our creation in the moment water and wind met sea and sky.

but this, as we learn so very quickly when we hit very hard pavement, is so very hard to do. we are not so free. confined we by our mortality and the limits of our comprehension. because chaos rules the universe. and the world is in constant motion. and within their workings we must engage.

until we become constrained by the afflictions of our own suffering.

which is why we are taught to train. to practice. to study. to work. to act. to return to our craft upon this earth. again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and

again.

until training becomes practice becomes study becomes work becomes act becomes craft becomes

passion

and we submerge ourselves within its waters and subsume ourselves within its winds and come to know its face and hands and heart and pulse and emotion and feel its soul coursing as time beyond eternity and wisdom past reckoning that reveals to us this truth:

we are the nexus

the zone the center the calm the quiet here there everywhere in the midst of even in the midst of especially in the midst of
chaos
motion
working

engaged

free

in the serenity past all suffering

and always have been and always will be.