One time, when I was on a zen retreat, we sat around in a circle and took turns screaming imperatives as loud as we possibly could. They were very dramatic, too. We’d scream things like “Don’t waste your life!” and “Wake up!” or some such thing. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! It looked really easy, and that’s because, on some level, it is. You’re not being asked to do brain surgery. You’re just being asked to talk…. Loudly…. As loudly as you can possible talk! But when I went to do it, I was told, “No, do it again.” So, I did, and I was asked to go again once more. There were more than a few of us like this, but when we finally got it, we knew it. It felt different. Years of being told to use indoor voices went down the crapper, and we let it all out, startling even ourselves.

This is the thing about convention. Oftentimes we don’t even notice that it’s there, limiting us, but it is. I’d put a cap on my volume for so long that I’d forgotten that it was there. It was sort of like an artificial handicap—a mental “block”, if you will.

Likewise, when the novice starts in martial arts, the first thing (or one of the first things) he’ll have to learn is how to punch properly. If you’re like me and abhor violence, not fancying yourself as a “fighter”, you won’t punch very well because there’s that “block” in your head that keeps you from following all the way through. You don’t want to hurt anyone, after all, and why should you? I think that’s a very noble sentiment. The people who want to fight are probably the kind of people who shouldn’t learn to. But you train, and you get used to it.

When we encounter these blocks, we might suppose they’re what keep us as good, polite people. However, I’m not sure this is true. I tried learning martial arts for a short period of time, and when I did, I learned under a Shaolin disciple. Neither he nor the Shaolin monks I’ve seen in documentaries have ever struck me as violent, hot-headed people, and yet they were capable of doing great harm. You could literally hit some of them with a steel bar and they wouldn’t budge, for God’s sake! And the reason they are capable of both—meekness and forcefulness—is because they have learned to let go of their conditioning and be in freely control.

Like training wheels, conditions are there to guide you and help you keep your balance, but eventually the training wheels have to come off, and you have to balance and direct yourself. Screaming as loud as you possibly can, I suppose, is meant to create the same effect: you are free now, so let go, and show me all that you’re capable of!