I study and train in violence.
More specifically, I am a budoka, a student of budo, traditional Okinawan and Japanese martial arts. Budo is in part an aesthetic practice, in part a spiritual practice, and it serves as a limited realm in which the pursuit of perfection is possible.
As such, there are similarities between studying budo and devoting oneself to tea ceremony or other such arts, but budo also exists in its own sweaty, bruised, bloodstained category, because it is a warrior way, concerned at a basic level with physical struggle.
Violence and death are its subject matter. Valuing peace and deploring violence, a person might be skeptical about a practice that teaches breaking bones, tearing tendons, and cutting arteries being any kind of spiritual or philosophical endeavor.
But it is the proximity to death, so basic an element of existence and so fundamental a challenge to complacency, that gives budo its special urgency and its value as a way of confronting life.
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Almost all people fear violence and death, and most choose not to think about them if they can help it. For those who avoid facing it, when death visits, it comes as a surprise.
Budo, if taken seriously, obliges us to acknowledge death whenever we set foot on the dojo floor, at the very least. It is obvious in a practice such as swordsmanship that lethal violence is at issue and that full application of the techniques would mean a bloodbath. Those types of budo that evolved from civilian self-defense, rather than battlefield combat, are less plainly oriented toward the direst outcome of fighting; when doing a karate kata or executing a wrist-lock, this ultimate severity is a little further off.
Death or even injury are mainly symbolic presences in the dojo, but their influence is there. In real life, once people cross the threshold from civility and enter the realm of violence, there is always the possibility of lethal force. When training in fighting techniques - even the gentlest - killing and dying are somewhere in view.
This is why it is not appropriate to be silly in a dojo. A smile, even a laugh is not out of place, but only in the context of general seriousness. Too much lightness diminishes what is at stake.
With death ever on the edge of awareness, the basic truth of impermanence informs attitudes and actions. Neither mindless nor grim, students of budo choose to make death their friend, a reminder of the preciousness of the present moment and the uncertainty of the next.
In this spirit, each kata should be treated as if it might be the last, the budoka's final opportunity to manifest his practice. Each time the budoka bows to a partner, at some level he also bows to the danger that comes with living, and takes responsibility for acting appropriately in the face of that danger.
The attitude is not one of mournfulness, or fear, or morbid preoccupation. It is, however, an acceptance of what, after all, may befall anyone, at any time. This equanimity is essential for a warrior who must face the reasonable likelihood of death on a regular basis. But even for a person whose life is less perilous, it sets a standard for coping with situations that are less extreme, but still threatening or anxiety provoking.
Ultimately, resisting death is impossible, as everyone knows. Not only is all the training in the world no guarantee of prevailing against an opponent, but sooner or later violence, accident, or illness takes us all.
And for anyone who practices budo long enough, the experience of training becomes an index of the body's gradual enfeeblement. The tendons stiffen. Injuries heal more slowly. The breath becomes harder to catch - slowed, but never wholly halted, by the healthful effects of training.
Making death a friend, the budoka not only acknowledges its potential to visit at any time, but the certainly that it will come eventually. All efforts to protect one's own life or the lives of others are at best temporarily successful, and so budo is in a way futile, just as eating and sleeping and raising children are.
Perhaps this is the meaning of the samurai's injunction to fight as if already dead. The end of the story is known, more or less; there is little suspense.
Consequently, it is possible to maintain poise and see with clear eyes. In the time one has, one can live.