good topic!
A completely sheltered life leaves one unprepared for violent disaster.
Kung Lek’s note on “checks and balances” is well put, as is his comment on training the mind to be in the “here and now.”
There are people who chronically worry about mistakes, about what is the right move, and so on, crippled by fear of failure and/or inability to decide. This personality aspect is there, with or without the suggested imagery. I don’t think education to correct this should hinge on harsh criticism, or with emotional traumatizing that almost ensures poor judgment. Unless one wishes to do away with personal judgment, except under extreme circumstances, and substitute obeying a superior officer.
“Conditioning over time.” That’s interesting. What are you conditioning by repeated exposure? If done by someone who is highly practiced, it can amount to specific programming (combined with martial arts training). You training a soldier? For real? A soldier lives with the others, under control of superior officers almost 24 hours day during training and combat times. In no way can this be taken as entertainment. It’s to grind away at the restraints on violence that have been put in place, to impose following of orders as a credo. “Civilized” living is replaced by another code which cannot be disobeyed.
I do not believe in the casual use of violent imagery as presented in the statements presented as a correct conditioning tool. Occasional exposure is one thing, and almost unavoidable in these times. Immersion will not teach focus unless the capacity to focus is already there. To focus at will and have the spirit at peace is not something that will be trained by repeatedly emotionally traumatizing the student by violent imagery. In my view, exposure to brutality, is necessary. Too much, and you might be teaching that same brutality of mind, or provoking an emotional numbness that passes for progress, in someone who feels overwhelmed by pictorial situation which is beyond their ability to deal with on one or more levels.
If the student already possesses great adeptness, then challenges of mind and spirit and body via a Master is the training, not the most gory picture that can be found.
What comes with that focus we speak of? The depth of our being. When conditioning, be sure of what is being transmitted and how it is individually interpreted. How does the teacher respond emotionally to these images? That’s another question of interest.
A picture or a movie can go only so far, because there is a tendency of suspend belief which might kick in. On the other hand, an image might take hold as we allow ourselves to get close to the situation depicted. How lasting this is is debatable. While it is necessary to have exposure, I question what is going on with people who flood their lives with gore. The fear might have been immunized against? I don’t know. One can joke about the terrifying, and take some of the horror out of it, which can exhibit like morbid curiousity, a thrill. Or, denial. There is also the possibility that someone will actually enjoy this stuff, and then we’re getting into something else, sadism.
My exposure to the realities of war, bloodshed, hit home via the movie, Andre Rublev, a 4-hour drama re a Russian icon artist and the times he lived in. Also, in Lancelot du Lak (in French, Canadian), a work of art re the realities of knighthood. And then, there was 9/11/01. A good example of how Nothing, no picture, no movie, no nothing prepared me for that or what I have been feeling, and the dispair that brutality begets brutality, and yet there is a time to fight with lethal force. I have no interest in seeing gory martial arts movies.
Part of overcoming fear is to focus on the moment in terms of acting on it, not being paralyzed by emotional flooding, and exercising one’s will to do so. Types of trained abilities vary, and can include dissociation into one of the animals used in Kung Fu practice, which can distance the threat and bypass the thinking mind. But, underneath is an acceptance of physical death as a probable consequence of resisting, and having the smarts to recognize opportunities, or if none appear, to go with it anyhow because the alternative is untenable. That is where the “indifference” comes in. No picture can teach this.
Frankly, I don’t see repeated exposure to violent imagery as a reliable or viable teaching tool. For #1, knowledge of, exposure is all over the place. Awareness is enough in terms of violent imagery. Anything else is over the top. The mind is not to be focussed on victory, but on being=action.
For #2, seeing a gory picture doesn’t necessarily lead to flashbacks to that fiction in a real encounter. The fear native to the individual will surface with or without pictorial conditioning. I covered fear of mistakes above. Imagery of failure can be there with or without pictorial aids. Only a severely traumatized person will maintain an outside imagery (i.e., movie) of failure to the degree described. I think this is something on its way to Post Traumatic Stress, caused by a picture, a movie. This is an extreme case. Heck, someone attacks me with a knife, I’m not thinking of Jack. Death is part of life. Determining what is the self is as well. Neither can be hidden from for long. Shocking the system can have an effect, can encourage a decision to think along different lines, but you are what you are as an individual. If you don’t admit the possibility of failure, you won’t be able to deal with it, recover from it when it happens in a physical conflict.
thanx,
Cody
