Books of wisdom

I'm reading a book that my daughter gave me when I asked her for a recommendation on a “book of wisdom.” It's called The Alchemist: A Fable about Following your Dream, and is an easy-to-read text that reminds me a bit of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. One recurrent theme is about learning -- real learning -- the kind that is not found in books but rather is passed from person to person, in a language that can be understood across dialects and cultures. The story emphasizes that “things have to be transmitted this way because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words.”

I've been thinking about how well this theme applies to the martial arts work that we do together. It helps describe some of the surface attraction of the training, and hints at the additional layers that keep us linked together. Books on martial arts can be bought and studied, and some curiosities can be satisfied this way, but the real learning comes in the sweat and the muscle, the impossibility of the effort, the endless repetition, and the layered understanding that comes with a look, a kick, a word.

Another theme is patience. This kind of learning cannot come in a short, convenient course, and it cannot come without the student being willing to let go of resistance and embrace what is not fully understood – what perhaps cannot be fully understood. It may be that this kind of learning is actually life itself, the real living of it. Letting go, not grasping, being able to let the possibilities be undefined, paying attention (finally) to a constantly shifting “now” and staying in it because that's where the learning is happening.

Heh – it sounds so easy...

Another book (one that I've never had the nerve to attempt to read, The Dancing Wu Li Masters) covers quantum theory, and has a theoretical-level mathematician character who describes a difficult concept in math. The student, after struggling with the explanation, complains that he still doesn't understand it. The teacher explains further, with some surprise: “Math can never be understood. It can only be accepted.”