Anthropologist Ruth Benedict on Japanese self-discipline and how it can help you cope with life's challenges, from exams to depression.
1. A small child is born happy, but has not "tasted life." It is only through spiritual preparation (or self-discipline - syuye) that a man and a woman get the opportunity to live fully and “taste” life. This is the only way to love life. Self-discipline, on the other hand, “strengthens the gut” (the seat of self-control), which means it strengthens life.
2."Skillful" self-discipline in Japan has a logical rationale: it improves a person's control over his own life. Any impotence he feels as a beginner is surmountable, they say, because eventually he will either start to enjoy learning or give up. The student properly masters his profession, the boy masters judo, the young wife adapts to the requirements of his mother-in-law. It is quite understandable that at the first stages of preparation, a man and a woman who are not accustomed to the new requirements may want to get rid of this suye. In this case, their fathers are likely to say to them: “What did you want? In order to get a taste for life, you need to go through some preparation. If you give up and do not train yourself at all, then you will certainly find yourself unhappy as a result …”Suye, according to their favorite saying,"Removes rust from the body." A person turns into a sparkling sharp sword, which, of course, he would like to become.
3. The nature of this state of mastery (muga) is that … "there is no gap, even in the thickness of a hair, between a person's will and his action." The electrical discharge travels directly from the positive pole to the negative pole. In people who have not attained mastery, there is, so to speak, an insulating screen that sits between will and action. It is called "the observing" I "," the interfering "I", and when this screen is removed by special training, the master loses the feeling "I am doing this." The goal closes in on itself. The action takes place without effort … perfectly reproduces the picture that the performer painted in his mind. This kind of skill in Japan is achieved by the most ordinary people.
4. A person in childhood is strongly taught to be aware of their own actions and to judge them in the light of what people say; his "observer self" is extremely vulnerable. To surrender to the delight of his soul, he eliminates this vulnerable "I". He ceases to feel that “he is doing it,” and then begins to feel in his soul his true abilities, just as a student in the art of fencing feels the ability to stand on a four-foot pole without fear of falling.
five. The most extreme, at least for the Western ear, the form in which the Japanese express this thought is an extremely approving attitude towards a person "who lives as if he had already died." A literal translation would sound like a "living corpse", and in all Western languages this expression has an unpleasant connotation. The Japanese say: "he lives as if he died" when they mean that a person lives at the level of "mastery". This expression is used in ordinary daily instruction. To cheer up a boy who is worried about his high school graduation exams, they will tell him, "Treat them like someone who has already died and you will pass easily." To reassure a friend who is entering into an important business deal, they will say, "If you were already dead." If a person is going through a serious mental crisis and reaches a dead end,quite often with the decision to live, he leaves it "as if he had already died."
6. Muga is based on the same philosophy as the advice to live "as if you died." In this state, a person lacks self-awareness and, therefore, all fear and foresight. In other words: “My energy and attention are directed unhindered directly to the realization of the goal. “The observing“I”with all its load of fears no longer stands between me and the goal. With him, the feeling of stiffness and tension, a tendency to depression, which bothered me in my previous search, went away. Now everything has become possible for me."
7. According to Western philosophy, by practicing muga and "living as if you died", the Japanese eliminate conscience. What they call the "observing self" or "interfering self" serves as a censor judging a person's actions. The difference between Western and Eastern psychology is clearly manifested in the fact that when we talk about a shameless American, we mean a person who has lost the sense of sin, which should accompany the offense, but when the equivalent expression is used by the Japanese, he means a person who stops be tense and constrained. Americans mean a bad person, the Japanese mean a good, trained person who is able to fully realize his abilities. They mean a person who is capable of the most difficult and decisive selfless actions. The main motivation for good behavior for an American is guilt; person,who because of a hardened conscience ceases to feel it, becomes antisocial. The Japanese present the problem differently. According to their philosophy, a person is good at heart. If his motivation can be directly translated into action, he acts chastely and lightly."
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