WIE: You've written that a transformation in your martial arts practice occurred sometime after you met the Zen master Nomura Roshi, a transformation catalyzed by your initiation into the Zen meditation practice known as shikantaza and, in particular, by a powerful satori [awakening] you had while doing that practice. Did the goal of your martial arts practice change in any substantial way after this experience, or was it more or less the same as it had always been?

VT: The goal of my practice didn't change because I had never wanted to be a bully in the first place, and I had the ability to fight before I had that experience in shikantaza. What happened, though, is that it deepened. My early meditation had given me my own abode, but I still needed something else, and when I met Nomura Roshi, I suddenly became aware of something outside of me, something that was beyond what I was experiencing, and I saw that I needed to take a leap. I had built up walls around myself that needed to be broken down, so for two years I practiced letting go, or dropping—dropping body and mind. I remember that when I was sitting, I began to become afraid at different times because I sensed I was dying. I was very afraid. I said, "Oh, my God, I'm going to die, something is happening to me, I'm going to die." But I was advised to go ahead and die, so I decided to do just that. I said, "Well, the next time this occurs, with the life I'm living now, I'm just going to let go. I don't know what I'm doing here; what's it all about anyway? If I die, then okay." So an initiation came through Nomura Roshi that brought me into a new level. Before, I'd been more conscious of the things that were happening. Now all of a sudden it became one with me, and there was no "art" to be known as a separate experience. I became the art, wherever I went and whatever I did.

WIE: After your realization, did you continue to practice forms?

VT: Yes, but when enlightenment hits, forms disappear; it becomes formless. Even though what you're doing is a form, you don't cling to it, and that's the difference. There are constant and endless variations on the same theme as you come to master the principle—that's the way of the spirit. You may have a principle there because the body can only move but so many different ways; but once you've mastered that principle, it's just water flowing through, and you're not interpreting it, you're following it.

WIE: Before you had this experience in shikantaza, did you already think of yourself as an individual who had "mastered himself"?

VT: I never thought of myself in those terms. In fact, it was only when I met the Roshi that, being in his presence, I saw myself. And I mean that literally. For the first time I experienced myself because his being was like my being, and therefore it was like two-way communication without a word being spoken. And in that way I became defined, in a sense, because when I was a loner, there was no one like me, and I had no way of knowing who I was. But when I saw Nomura Roshi sitting there in the park, I could feel our relationship, and all my questions being answered with no questions being asked. Then I understood that I was functioning on a plane that was different from the everyday plane that my friends and associates were functioning on—and that was my salvation because now my purpose was becoming clear. Before that, there was nobody to even give me the hint of who I was or what I was doing. All those years that I had been meditating, I had been sitting in shikantaza, without ever knowing that such a word even existed.

WIE: One could say, then, that in that meeting, you actually acquired a notion of self.

VT: Yes, but in a very different sense. "Self" with a capital "S."

WIE: In light of the discovery you've been describing, I'd like to try to distinguish in a very specific way between the two attainments we've been speaking about. It would seem that an individual who has achieved an unusual degree of self-mastery—perhaps we could again use the example of Anthony Robbins—tends to demonstrate certain qualities: charisma, confidence, positivity, creativity and a kind of dynamic freedom. He doesn't seem to be limited in the way that many people are. But all of these qualities seem to arise from the discovery—to use Robbins's words—of one's "personal power": the individual has developed a very deep conviction that could be articulated as "I Can." Enlightened individuals often seem to express similar qualities, but their source, you seem to be saying, lies in a different place—in the discovery of being itself, in "I Am."

VT: Or "Not I."

WIE: Yes, that's true. "Not I."

VT: Well, then, too, you're talking about a difference in purpose. Those who function in the capacity of a spiritual teacher, of course, would be coming from "Not I" because they are speaking from the fundamental source. But where Anthony Robbins is speaking from is the point of reception—"I've got this. I'm using it." And that's what he demonstrates. If there were music but nobody who believed they could actually play it, we wouldn't have any music, because even though music could theoretically exist, there'd be nobody with enough confidence to pick up an instrument. So on this end when a person wants to do something or achieve something and they don't have any confidence, they run to Anthony Robbins and he tells them, "You can achieve anything. If you believe in it, you can do it. Who's your example? Who would you like to be like?" He's showing them how to focus in order to get past their doubt and express something.

Now that's different from dealing with humanity in its wholeness, from trying to heal the soul of humanity. Because if you're honestly concerned with humanity in its fundamental nature, then it's not you as an individual who has the authority to speak on that; you have to become the vessel through which that is transmitted. And that's why there is this concept of "Not I," or "neti neti" ["not this, not this"], or "I'm just an instrument." Because it really is that way: You don't know these things, but the wisdom comes through you. Similarly, when Sant Keshavadas held me in his arms, my bond wasn't with him but through him. It was like God the Father holding me in His arms, using the body of Sant Keshavadas in order for me to be embraced by the same spirit I'd been listening to ever since I was a baby. And now I do the same thing. When I open my arms for someone, I don't open my arms so that they can be grabbed by Kitabu; I open my arms so that God can hold them with my body—so that they can feel Him, not me. In this way, Sant Keshavadas became the link that I needed for the rest of the journey, the link that connects you to the Higher—so that no matter what's going on down here, no matter how hard the struggle gets on the bodily level, it doesn't matter. You're linked, and you have a job to do, and you understand that whatever it is that needs to be done can only be done by a human being who is willing to be God's instrument in this world. You're what the Buddha called "middle ground," precisely that point between earth and heaven where you are both and neither. And that's how you can help people: you can identify with their pain and suffering because you have pain and suffering, and yet . . . you really don't at all. There's a sense of having always been, of experiencing this so-called "now" from a point in eternity, and experiencing the fact that if we human beings are made in the likeness of the Creator—and we are—then we are really reflections of that eternity. We may allow ourselves to become cluttered with the impermanent, but when we clean off the mirror and let it turn toward the eternal, then we realize that although we walk around in these physical shells, we're not bound to them.

WIE: In your view, is it possible for these two fundamentally different orientations toward life, "I Can" and "I Am," to coexist within a single individual?

VT: Well, they do all the time. For example, some of the greatest spiritual masters write books, and when they sit down to write those books, they have confidence in their ability to translate their experience into a publishable work that people can read and understand and enjoy. So it's coming through them—as a conduit—but at the same time, if it doesn't become personal, it has no reality base; it's just talk. So when they can say, "I had this experience, I know," then we see that it's actually possible for something that is universal to be experienced by an individual being. And as we listen to these people talk about their transformation, it begins to take place in us. It becomes real. It's no longer something beyond the cosmos that's happening totally unrelated to anybody in particular.

WIE: I understand. But I was speaking more in terms of the individual's fundamental relationship to life. Is my relationship to life based on "my ability to do something"—in other words, "I Can"—or is it based on the recognition that, "prior to anything I do or say, I exist, and that what's being expressed through me is the fact that I exist—I Am"? It's clear from what you've just said that these two relationships to life do, practically speaking, coexist, but much of what you've said also seems to suggest that on a very fundamental level, one may at some point find oneself having to choose between them. This is not to say that action would then be excluded from one's repertoire, but that where one stands—where one locates the essence of one's being—is something that needs to be decided because what one's life is actually going to express depends upon it. Does this kind of decision accord with your own experience?

VT: Yes, in the sense that if you get even a hint of what enlightenment is, you'll give up everything for it. Because everything that isn't enlightenment is vanishing all the time. At this very moment there's hardly ground beneath our feet, and what ground there is, is vanishing as we speak. People think they're awake when they're walking around in the street, but actually they're asleep then, too. Awakening is when you see through it all—the dream when you're asleep and the one when you're "awake." Then you understand that the viewpoint we have of ourselves is based on a misconception—that because we perceive our personal experience as the ultimate reality when in fact it's not, we don't approach life as we should. That's why we need enlightenment to straighten us out.

Now of course I'm not saying that you and I don't exist, or that your experience has no reality. It's not the molecules and the atoms that are going to go away, but the delusion in your mind. The molecules and the atoms will remain as hard or as soft, as light or as dark as they always were. But how you see them will be different.

WIE: Let's speak for a moment about surrender, which is traditionally thought to mean the giving up of control, whereas mastery is generally associated with the cultivation of perfect control—even more so, generally speaking, in the martial arts, where winning clearly involves asserting one's own will over the will of one's opponent. What is the role of surrender in a practice that seems to be oriented almost inevitably toward the visible demonstration of mastery and control?

VT: In a state of surrender, you're not attacking, but neither are you defending, because the action does not take place from your consciousness. On our own scale, we may look upon someone who does the Lord's bidding as a murderous person, but on the higher level where it's all played out, we are sometimes instruments, and if you are the Lord's instrument, you are not striking, which means not that you're merely saying you're not striking—you really aren't. You are not moving, but your body moves anyway, and things definitely happen. So when people say, "That was great, that was a wonderful move," you say, "Well, I cannot take credit for that. It wasn't me."

WIE: Could someone be an instrument of evil and be said to be surrendered?

VT: Yes, in the sense that if a person is an instrument of evil, then they've surrendered to evil. And if we're talking about the mastery of a particular art, or a skill that comes totally under the control of that person's ego, I suppose that's possible. But if we're talking about spiritual mastery, that's a misnomer in a way because spiritual mastery makes you an instrument of the Divine, and you could not use it to do what God would not do. Your mastery takes the form of a servant—you reach out to people, you love people, you try to help transform them; you work with them, not against them—and you would never do anything to harm anybody because you can't make a distinction between them and you, not even if they're bad. It's all you because it's all one. If you were to attempt to harm someone, it would pain you as much as it would them because you would feel their pain, and you wouldn't want them to suffer. So it would have to be taken out of your hands, because you'd let yourself get annihilated rather than bring harm to another.

WIE: Is that what is known as the "warrior ethic"?

VT: Yes. In Bushido, the word "bu" means to cease struggling—it means that there is no one to struggle against. Now, not all warriors embrace this ideal at the highest level, but at the highest level it's said that the true master of the sword carries no sword. It isn't needed, because he's the weapon. His weapon is his continence, his stillness. His enlightenment is really something that is not of this plane at all, and for that reason it's not something that people can easily recognize. People can recognize mastery, because mastery manifests on the physical plane, but people generally don't beat a path to an enlightened person's doorstep unless they are spiritually seeking. There are enlightened people in the world today, but most of them don't have a highway coming to their house because most people are looking for things in this world, and when they see somebody who seems to know how to get these things, they're very interested. But an enlightened person is really not that interested in this world, and in a sense the enlightened person draws people away from the world, not into it. You see, as long as you want to be in the world, and of the world, you can't really be enlightened because the demands are different. In mastery, you have to focus body and mind, and in enlightenment, you've got to let go of them.

Now the "letting go" we're talking about here is a letting go of all those preconceived concepts and limitations that frame our mind into a channel that repeats itself over and over again and keeps us from experiencing ourselves holistically. When people hear the word "surrender," they sometimes say, "Oh, if I do that, I'll have no mind!" Well, if you have no mind, you have the right mind. And it's not so much that there is no mind as that there is no preconceived concept, no defining mind, nothing there to know what mind is. It still works, though. It's still functioning. It's just that the mind that's functioning is no longer obtruding on its own self. Then if you do something extraordinary, someone may ask, "How'd you do that?" and you'll say, "How'd I do what? What'd I do?" They'll want you to explain, but you'll know that that's a different kind of monster you'd be creating; you'd be using your mind to create "yourself" when in fact you are yourself without having to do anything at all. It's like the mirror reflecting the mirror: you see an infinite number of images, but there's really only one—and it's not in any mirror! That's what we've been doing with our mind. We don't really know the true state of our being because we've been reflecting upon reflections that are reflections of other reflections. When we can remove all those, there'll be nothing but what is real.

WIE: When did you begin accepting challenges?

VT: When my first book of poetry, Kung Fu: The Master, came out in 1975, the martial arts were beginning to become quite popular, but they were always being emphasized as a violent sport. And whenever I would do talk shows, people would ask me, because of the title, "Do you do martial arts?" I'd say, "Yes, I do," and then the host would say, "Could we get a demonstration?" "A demonstration? A poet demonstrating martial arts?"—that was their idea! So I began to do more and more of these demonstrations, but for only one reason: to point out the unlimited freedom and power of the spiritual way, of the Zen way. Then some people started talking in the martial arts world: "Is this a joke, is he a charlatan, is this for real?" So I said, "It's not me that they're attacking, it's the truth, so I'll tell you what: I'll accept any challengers, day or night, twenty-four hours a day." And then I started getting them!

I accepted those challenges. I allowed people who were at the master level to challenge me, to bring me into their schools to test me; I accepted challenges on television, I even went to prisons. A local newspaper, the Virginia Pilot, sponsored an event at the public arena—a night of poetry and "defense of the title"—in which I took on every challenger from every martial arts school that chose to attend, and all of them were defeated. I even allowed myself to be blindfolded! But only to demonstrate one thing—what I'd been telling them all along—It isn't me! I'm not that good! But when Zen taps the spirit within, then all things become possible. So what I was trying to show them was the potential that lies within us, not trying to say that I'm that great.

Still, you walk down the street and people say, "See him? He's the deadliest guy in Hampton Roads." I say, "No, don't say that. Please don't say I'm dangerous. I'm not dangerous." There are a lot of martial artists who are more terrifying—fancy techniques and all that kind of stuff. That's not what I represent. I go to a school; I see somebody with all the fancy techniques and everything. I praise them. And I say, "Strike me, hit me, kick me." Then I knock 'em down with one finger. They say, "Well, how'd you do that?" I say, "Now you're asking the right question! Tell me, what did you feel when I struck you?" They say, "Nothing." I say, "Well, if you felt nothing, then why did you fall?" "I don't know." "Why didn't you resist?" "I couldn't resist." I say, "Well then, that should answer your question. It wasn't coming from my physical body, otherwise you would have felt a blow." That's what I try to point out to them: "No, it's not from my physical body. Were you just pretending? Were you just trying to make me look good? Did you just fall on purpose?" "No!" I've thrown policemen around in demonstrations, three-hundred-pound policemen, with one finger. This is something that is real.

I've often wondered how a person who was a ninety-pound weakling could have become so associated with the martial identity. I've tried to draw it aside and could never do it because no one lets me. And I think this relates back to the karma of my own people. Sant Keshavadas told me, "Your mission is in America, and especially to black Americans who could benefit from learning about the dharma." You see, centuries of enslavement are also centuries of distortion of the mind, and a misperception of self even more profound than that which occurs in other people because of these extraordinary circumstances. The most terrible thing that happened to the African American male was the loss of his sense of manhood. Every man wants to feel like he's strong enough to take care of his family, to defend his honor, to protect his loved ones. If called to go to war, every man wants to be a warrior. Nobody wants to be a wimp. But when it has been bred into you through psychological and legalistic means that you cannot raise your hand, you cannot defend yourself, that you have no right to any kind of power, then although that natural sense of manhood is still there, it becomes suppressed, and it can become self-hatred; you hate yourself for never acting on it, and you're scared because you feel surrounded by a power that you believe to be only in other people. Well, one of my ancestors was Nat Turner, and Nat Turner was a mystic as well as a warrior. His prayers and meditations prepared him for his battle. I had a visitation from him. I saw him standing in flames with chains on, and I said, "What's wrong with you?" He said, "My people have forgotten me." And I said, will not forget you."

So before I can be a guru, I must first be a man. Let me express this manhood before other men, so they can see that inner light and respect me for that—then they can take in the rest. But to have a priest who is himself a wimp is not real; it doesn't go deep enough. "Turn the other cheek" means nothing at all if the other guy can slap you around at will. It only means something when you're so strong that you're gonna have to turn it for them to get to it—you just allow them, you see what I'm saying?

So what I've come to understand is that this warrior aspect is not something that I personally want; it is something that is necessary in the healing of the African American soul; it's a part of genuine manhood. And you cannot separate manhood from the spiritual part, you see, because we've always had adversaries. There are angels in the scriptures who choose to make war because if they just stood there, the other guys would own the place. They have to say, "No, you're not coming any farther than here because we're gonna stop you." So you have the bad angel and you have the guardian angel, and the guardian angel has to be stronger than the other guy; otherwise he can't guard you. What good is a guardian angel if, when the bad ones show up, they punch him out and get you anyway? You want to be able to hide behind the guardian angel! So that's what we're talking about—being an angel—and implied in that angelic nature is the strength to defend the children of the Divine.