Purposeless and Awareness

“Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.
Absence of hurry also involves a certain lack of inference with the natural course of events, especially when it is felt that the natural course follows principles which are not foreign to human intelligence.”

- Alan Watts, The Way of Zen

NOTES: If you have not noticed in the right margin of my blog I have a link to a company called onPoint Tactical Scout Tracking and Survival School, I am an instructor with that company and teach a Basic Scout course. You may ask what a “Scout” is or what is there to learn about the Scout. Most of the skills taught are based on Apache Indian Scouts, the protectors of their people, the silent alarm system of the tribe. They moved about in invisibility keeping watch over their people and alerting them to danger when danger was near. They were skilled in all ways of survival and protection; they lived off the land, on the fly, melding with every terrain and environment with a dedication and conviction that made them an elite Warrior Class, the silent watchers and protectors. The way of the Scout is the way of the Warrior. It is a way of life and a life long path. The Difference between the standard run of the mill Warrior or Soldier and the Scout is the absolute commitment to AWARENESS. The Apache Scouts were so effective at thier skills because they were aware of everything that was going on around themall the time. They understood the language of the Natural World, bird calls, animal calls, tracks and tracking, the wind, the weather, all this and more, in a constant state of awareness, almost to the point of a moving dynamic meditation, allowing them to feel and perceive things going on around them beyond human capabilities. This can only happen when the mind is absent of thought.

So now back to Alan Watt’s quote. When we walk down the street or though the woods and we are preoccupied with our own thoughts we move with a “Purposefulness” that is not within the context of Natural Law. Nature (Natural Law) has an unwritten set of rules and laws that are based on a reward / punishment system. As prey, if you break the rules you get killed and eaten or injured and die, as the predator if you break the rules you starve and die. If you follow the rules then all is in harmony with the great circle of life and things good. When you sit in the woods and spend enough time slowing down modern mans clock you will begin to see the Natural World in a different light and see more things. Now we take that preoccupied human walking into the woods with no awareness other than their own thoughts and they stick out like a sore thumb. Tripping stumbling, moving to fast, making as much racket as a elephant stuck in a swamp puddle. Their minds look the same as they look in the woods, out of context and unaware.

Your mental awareness and absence of thought will help to slow down the chaotic mind and bring you more in tune with the things going on around you. Stop thinking into the past and into the future and pay attention to the here and now, it is a wonderful thing, stop and smell the roses, watch the birds, sit still and calm enough for the birds to land on you and investigate. They know what is natural and what is not. The Apache Scouts had figured this out and used it for a tactical advantage, like any true Warrior would. The most precious of skills if often the one most forgotten AWARENESSS know what is going on around you and be open to subtlest clues that something is out of place. Self-Defense in it’s truest form is not defending an attack, it is sensing that there will be an attack and not being there at all! In a true state of awareness you will know / sense something is out of context and in listening to you inner vision you will not be there at all or in an offensive tactical environment you will use that same awareness to set up an ambush and take you enemy when they are unprepared.

The only way to reach true awareness is to quiet our minds and life in the context with nature and the natural things around us that so many people miss as they think and rush there way through life. There are too many wondrous things in life to miss them because we are in a state of perpetual obsession with man made compulsions.

An Apache Scout Prayer

Grandfather of all Scouts, Teach me to be the eyes of my people, teach me to move like the shadow, allow me to become the winds, the rocks, the soils, and the life forces in all its forms.
Allow me to suffer for my people, and take away their pain, Honor me by allowing me to die for my people, For I love my people beyond myself, and I will sacrifice my all for my people, my earth and for you.
Test me beyond all hardships and pain, create me as you would forge a tool, and if you find I am worthy …
then bless me as your servant Your Scout

- Shadow Walker Age 91, Panther ridge 1807

Good Medicine
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