Beyond words

Deeds speak louder than words, so it seems. I remember seeing some instructors who accompanied the demonstrations with a great deal of verbal explanation. I believe this is the common way of teaching, especially in the West. Students are expecting to have a verbal instruction. Some people who come to observe a class at our Dojo tell me afterward that they expected to see more verbal instruction than was demonstrated during the class. I say that I learned that Aikido practice should not be taught on an intellectual level. The least we try and explain it with words, the better. In my own practice I find that repeating a technique, and experimenting with it, in silence, brings about more clarity than talking about it. There is wisdom in our body that allows knowledge to avoid being filtered by our mind, embeds it with our muscle intelligence, and creates true understanding.

The great Zen master Takuan Sōhō, wrote:

"We must know that it is not enough just to see what the Mind is, we must put into practice all that makes it up in our daily life. We may talk about it glibly, we may write books to explain it, but that is far from being enough. However much we may talk about water and describe it quite intelligently, that does not make it real water. So with fire. Mere talking of it will not make the mouth burn. To know what they are means to experience them in actual concreteness. A book on cooking will not cure our hunger. To feel satisfied we must have actual food. So long as we do not go beyond mere talking, we are not true knowers."

~ Takuan Sōhō (沢庵 宗彭, 1573–1645)

Source: Takuan's Letter to Yagyū Tajima No Kami Munenori
on the Mystery of Prajna Immovable,
as found in Daisetz T. Suzuki's book, Zen and Japanese Culture

Takuan wrote this in a letter to the famous sword master. Here is an interesting story told about Yagyū Munenori (柳生宗矩, 1571-1646):

He was meditating in his garden facing away from the door when his assistant brought him his sword silently and without any declarations. His assistant, being a young and imaginative sort of person, thought to himself how it would be interesting to see if he could attack Munenori from this position. Before he could act on the fantasy, Munenori leapt to his feet and turned around, stunned to discover only his assistant was behind him. He was sure there was some impending danger.

Later on he was still troubled by the event. How could he have mistaken his assistant for impending danger? Was he losing his edge? He spoke of the incident to one of his trusted advisors while his assistant was in the room, and, being a virtuous youth, his assistant admitted that he had "thought" about attacking him earlier, but made no physical movements in accordance with the attack. Therefore, Munenori concluded that he was not in fact losing his edge but had actually achieved a new level of swordsmanship, one where a man can anticipate impending danger even when people are thinking about it. (from Wikipedia)