on enlightenment and self-mastery

The current issue of Andrew Cohen's magazine, What is Enlightenment?, has a great interview with a martial arts master named Vernon Kitabu Turner, to whom the secret of self-defense "from the inside out" was revealed in a blaze of light during meditation. With no previous formal training in any of the martial arts, Kitabu put this realization to the test with a number of martial arts masters. In what must have been quite a show to watch, he was invited to participate in a "trial by combat" sanctioned by the highest-ranking sensei on the Board of Dojo Organizations, and he successfully defeated all of his opponents; one trial saw him take on six seasoned black belts simultaneously. When he asked his opponents what they felt when they attacked him, they said, "It's like you weren't there - I thought I had you, but then you were gone!"

The very well-conducted interview focuses not on the excitement of those defeats, but rather on Kitabu's understanding of the relationship between enlightenment and self-mastery. His clarity of vision and expression on this relationship is a joy to read. ( Read on for a few excerpts from the interview... )