Pondering

BY TONY BUJAS
With the assistance of your imagination, direct your mind in thought to the first human fight. Fear, hunger, greed, animal rage, choose one or more as the reason why. See it! Feel it! The victor gets the spoils, gets his way, and if anybody challenges his authority he kills them also. Ego rules! The cunning and skill he has used in hunting food he brings with him to his one-on-one encounters. Others soon learn to fear him. Some of the weaker individuals smartly make alliance with each other to stand against the bully!

Life is good for the tough warrior; he takes a mate, has a child, and, realizes that maybe being the meanest man around is now backfiring on him. Who will protect his mate & child when he goes hunting? And…what if…somebody…who can kill him…shows up? If he tries to force the weaker ones he's beaten to do his bidding when he's not around, they may kill his wife & child and run off. He looks for another family unit, someone in the same situation as him. A tribe is formed, from which will grow a village, and then a city. Cooperation is learned for the good of all. Responsibility rests on the leader's shoulders. The defense of the village is a main priority, for marauding bandits, and other tribes will take advantage of them if they are not strong.

War is a good teacher, in order to survive and conquer; techniques, methods, weapons, strategies, vulnerabilities, psychology, … are all developed to high levels due to the necessity to dominate the enemy. War arts on all terrains, for the individual, a small troop, an army, a navy, as well as healing & cooking arts come to be encompassed. Care for individuals and their animals of war start with good food and methods of injury treatment and rehabilitation. And, when killing makes one turn away in disgust, when one tires of losing his friends and loved ones due to war, spirituality is turned to.

In what we now know as Asia, the art of hunting & survival, flourished into many branches: unarmed-combat, weapons-combat, solo & group combat, military strategy, psychology, cooking, healing, qigong, love, philosophy, religion, spirituality, … Savagery, necessity and war have evolved into health, healing, fitness, fun, compassion, and meditational type pursuits for our current day and age. We modern day pursuitists, have inherited the knowledge of the ancestors, do we have the wisdom to continue to evolve to a higher level. Hmm! Let me ponder the possibilities!

Your 'thinking mind' can be exercised down any branch of possible scenarios, (as exampled above), that you may be questing to answers for. Insights may come gently in the background, directly to your focus of attention, at a later time in you daily living, or in a surprising fashion. Just another tool to try, relax and enjoy.

Play the movie in your mind, run through the gamut of possibilities, PONDER!