Samurai Mind Training for Modern American Warriors

[MA-Caver]

Samurai Mind Training for Modern American Warriors

Not long ago at Fort Bragg, N.C., the country's largest military base, seven soldiers sat in a semi-circle, lights dimmed, eyes closed, two fingertips lightly pressed beneath their belly buttons to activate their "core." Electronic music thumped as the soldiers tried to silence their thoughts, the key to Warrior Mind Training, a form of meditation slowly making inroads on military bases across the country. "This is mental push-ups," Sarah Ernst told the weekly class she leads for soldiers at Fort Bragg. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."
Think military and you think macho, not meditation, but that's about to change now that the Army intends to train its 1.1 million soldiers in the art of mental toughness. The Defense Department hopes that giving soldiers tools to fend off mental stress will toughen its troops at war and at home. It's the first time mental combat is being mandated on a large scale, but a few thousand soldiers who have participated in a voluntary program called Warrior Mind Training have already gotten a taste of how strengthening the mind is way different - dare we say harder? - than pounding out the push-ups. (See pictures of ninja warriors.)
Warrior Mind Training is the brainchild of Ernst and two friends, who were teaching meditation and mind-training in California. In 2005, a Marine attended a class in San Diego and suggested expanding onto military bases. Ernst and her colleagues researched the military mindset, consulting with veterans who had practiced meditation on the battlefield and back home. She also delved into the science behind mind training to analyze how meditation tactics could help treat - and maybe even help prevent - post-traumatic stress disorder.

Rest of the Story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090907/us_time/08599192075300

One would've thought that they could've been doing this after WWII or even Korea... :idunno: But then employing good mind-training might not be such a bad idea after all.

 

[Chris Parker]

Great story, but I'm afraid Flea beat you to it...

Check out the thread "Warrior Mind" Training...

 

[Xue Sheng]

True but samurai did not use thumping electronic music and, IMO, using the thumping electronic music misses the point.

But sadly Chris beat me to what I actually wanted to post

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

What really stands out in the article to me is the pressing beneath the belly button I am wondering if they are pressing on Qihai(CV6). The thumping music I am guessing stimulates a chaotic sound similar to war like sound interesting read.

 

[Carol]

Thats actually why I was leaning towards Kundalini, which is based on the philosophy that your energy center is behind your belly button and through yoga and meditation you stretch the energy throughout your body. Interesting stuff though.

 

[Chris Parker]

Nah, the thumping music is for a very different purpose, I covered it on the other thread. But for completion, here it is again:

"...the use of a constant, unembelished beat for someone to focus on is just another way of inducing an altered state. And that appears to be the method used here. That makes sense, as the military would want something that can be repeated in multiple locations with little to no variation, as that allows them to control the results. The repetitive beat takes over the conscious mind focus, allowing it to be more successful with a range of different subjects and amounts of mental discipline/control (note: self control, not CIA).

This concept is often used more in hypnotic "trance induction", but can work just as well in meditative ways (which is basically a form of hypnotic trance/altered state anyway). And it can help get those soldiers that are possibly a little more resistant to the idea of meditation get past the self imposed stigma by allowing them to just listen to the music without feeling like they are "meditating" (like a hippy...).

There's a reason this type of music is called "Trance"... and that reason also has a lot to do with the little coloured paper and pills associated... "

The pressure on the lower belly is most likely a centering device, I don't know that the Western Armed Forces are going to be so concerned with Eastern Medical philosophies. But to go below the belly button is to take it to the tanden, or hara, and could be just copied from Kundalini or most other Eastern meditative practices without being understood, or could be understood by the person who designed the program, but I feel not by the majority of those who will be taking it around the various bases. It may just be in there for a type of quality control and conformity.

 

[ElfTengu]

One would've thought that they could've been doing this after WWII or even Korea... :idunno: But then employing good mind-training might not be such a bad idea after all.

Dude I'm not sure Japanese mindset training would have been popular at the end of WWII!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Dude I'm not sure Japanese mindset training would have been popular at the end of WWII!

It is not just Japanese.

It is Indian, It is Chinese, it is Japanese... basically it is Asian with origins in Asian religion, Medicine and Martial Arts

But with that said I would have been VERY surprised if they did anything remotely close to this after WW II.

 

[ElfTengu]

It is not just Japanese.

It is Indian, It is Chinese, it is Japanese... basically it is Asian with origins in Asian religion, Medicine and Martial Arts

But with that said I would have been VERY surprised if they did anything remotely close to this after WW II.

You forgot Korean.

Yes of course the samurai mindset, along with virtually every other facet of Japanese culture, was influenced by other Asian origins, and their destruction of most things truly indigenous e.g. Ainu/Jomon etc is well documented.

My point is that whatever they imported will have ended up with a very Japanese flavour (look at the Japanese Buddhist sects for excellent examples of this), distancing it very much from its origins in other arts, especially from the viewpoint of Occidental Military Administration. As far as Allied forces were concerned, the Japanese forces were pretty much portrayed as modern-day Samurai, and this was even propogated by the Japanese themselves, from the issue of gunto to officers and NCOs, to the slogans and imagery of the Kamikaze pilots.

What I have always found particularly ironic, is that having wiped out the samurai as a class with the post Meiji Restoration antics, most famous of which is the Satsuma Rebellion, having effectively got rid of the samurai they then wanted every soldier, seaman and pilot to feel as though they were an embodiment of the samurai, regardless of social background.

Sonno Joi!