QUESTION (resumed) :
Could you teach me how to "defeat before fighting" ?
QUESTION (original) :
Dear Master Kosen,
When I asked you the question about the aspect 'do' of the Martial Arts, you answered me : 'to defeat before attacking'.
I have thought about your answer, `to defeat before fighting' and I finished considering it as a koan. I asked myself : ' to defeat whom, to defeat what ?' Nevertheless, I think I found an answer and I would like you to confirm if I am right or if in the contrary I haven't understand anything.
I think that we have to win the fear of death and the attachment to life before fighting. If you manage it, the result of the fight does not matter because in the end, it will be all the same. If you die, you won't have lost anything, you accept it naturally, you are not attached to life ; if you win, you don't loose nor win anything either.
Could you teach me how to 'defeat before fighting' ?
ANSWER :
If I answer to your questions, it's in all simplicity and not to obsess you. Keep my answers apart and don't bother about them anymore, they will reemerge alone at the right time.
There are some moments when you know that you are going to loose and when you know tha you must nevertheless go fighting. That is the case of millions of people who are going to slog away on a monday once again, but once again they will work for the others and not for themselves.
Practicing is important. Only through the practice can we understand deeply. The reasonings are nothing else than maps that will show you the way if you read them carefully ; but you can read the map and read it again until you know it by heart, it won't lead you anywhere if you don't use your feet. In Cuban, they call it : 'Caminar', to walk.
KOSEN!