Something becomes clear after years of practice on the mat. It is not the technique that changes most — it is the quality of attention you bring to it. A tense, defensive mind produces a tense, defended body. When that grip loosens, something else becomes possible. The partner is felt rather than calculated. The movement arises rather than being produced.
At some point you notice that this quality of attention is not specific to martial arts. It is the same thing that makes a conversation genuine, or a walk in the forest quietly alive. The question becomes: what gets in the way? And can you simply see it — not fix it, not improve it, but see it clearly?
That seeing is what inquiry points to.
Listening from the past
We almost always listen from what we already know. From conclusions, memories, the image we carry of ourselves and others. This is simply how the conditioned mind works. But it means that most of what we call listening is actually a kind of filtering. We hear what confirms what we already think. We respond to the image, not the person.
There is another quality of listening — one that sees directly what is, without the filter of expectation or fear. Not through effort. Through seeing. And in that seeing — the one who filters is simply not there.
Meditative dialogue
One of the forms this inquiry takes is dialogue — not debate, not discussion, but two or more people looking at something together without knowing in advance where it leads. No one is trying to convince anyone. No one is defending a position. The question is genuinely open.
This requires the same quality of attention as practice on the mat: no agenda, no defensiveness, a willingness to not know. When that is present, something can be seen that neither person could have arrived at alone.
Mukesh Gupta
In 2012 I met Mukesh Gupta, whose work with the School for Self-Inquiry has deepened this dimension of the practice considerably. His approach is not a method. It is an invitation to look directly — at how thought operates, at what listening actually is, at the nature of the awareness that underlies all experience.
What he points to and what Tomita reveals through the body on the mat are not two different things. They meet.
"Deep listening is the portal to that unconditioned space of being. This deep listening means being fully present without any resistance."
— Mukesh Gupta schoolforselfinquiry.org
For anyone who wants to go further in this direction — through deeply looking & listening, meditative walking, or sitting together in silence — meditative.be is the right place to continue.