Recently Soke mentioned the idea that with kyojutsu the kyo always comes before the jutsu, and as ninja, we should live or be in the kyo.
This is the type of concept that I love to mull around and look at from different angles! There is so much depth in such a seemingly simple statement! And after several conversations around this topic, I feel like writing some thoughts down….
First, the idea that ninja are always ahead of the opponent. When you are uke for Soke or Nagato Sensei or Nogouchi Sensei or Darren Sensei you have the sense that they at the place you end up and are waiting for you, they are always several steps ahead. The idea is that “now”, “in the now”, “being in the moment” is too late! We often hear people say they want to live in the “now”, or be “in” the moment. But according to Soke, that is too late! Click your fingers as you say “now” and you soon find out that by the time you have done that it is already in the past! To be “in the now” is pretty difficult, so the way I understand Soke’s ideas is that really to be in “now” you have to be already (all ready) in the future, just one or two steps ahead. He always says “next, and next, and next”, as if lingering in the now, or current thing, sticks you to the past, or behind.
Next is the basic concept of kyojutsu. It is truth and falsehood in the same word at the same time. Kyo is falsehood, jutsu is truth (in simple terms). It also represents the idea of the universal concept of duality. If it has a top, there must also be a bottom. A “right” automatically also implies a “wrong”. However, one of our secret teachings pretty simply says, “soft, hard, weak, strong, do not exist….” – the opposites, or duality, doesn’t exist! They are the same. Not soft, not hard, not both and not neither! Or, the opposite of that! Or, both……neither…..
Switch out to a concept that has come up a few times over the years – the san shin of ichi no kamae – again simply, and briefly, and in relation to this topic, the first ichi is to “make it up”, the second ichi is to “make it real” and the third ichi is to “transcend it all and let it all go”.
So, the kyo is falsehood, and the jutsu is truth (simple rendition). Soke says we should live in the kyo. Anything is not true (false) until it becomes real (truth). Nothing (as in no thing) is a vast unlimited nothingness of pure potential – it is nothing, not thing, not real, not true….. until something is formed. Then it becomes true, or real, or some thing, formed, form, kata……. By that stage the human thing to do is to hang onto it, cherish it, and cling to it as “the truth” (“the truth” is so important to most people!). But Soke says to live in the kyo – the pure field of potential before it exists as reality! The creative space. The moment before now.
“Making it all up” is the lie that is untrue as some-thing is fabricated out of the vast nothingness of pure potential. As it becomes real, the only way back to kyo is to transcend it’s real-ness, to let go, and not get stuck.
I get a sense of being in the kyo from time to time, especially during particularly creative moments. The trick (training) is to be in that space more than not, and when something is formed from the vastness of pure nothingness and becomes real, to be able to recognise that and let it go, drop out, transcend and start making it all up again!