How to Harness the Power of Intuition: The Polished Mind.
Intuition uneasily straddles the worlds of hard business fact and fuzzy New Age hokum.
Attempts have been made to define it. All have been only partially successful.
Anecdotally the great entrepreneurs swear by their sixth €business sense€ but nobody has been able to bottle and sell it.
The limited available research suggests intuition accounts for 95% of the decision making process. How can we verify these experiments? Who could measure a gambler's €gut feel€ during a winning streak? How can we eliminate pure chance from the equation?
Recent experiments with MRI scans indicate that conscious awareness is preceded by very substantial pre-conscious processes. The lag between thoughts moving from the pre-conscious to the conscious can be as much as 6 seconds; interesting but no real proof of intuition.
However, for some inexplicable reason during my years in direct selling there were many weird moments when gut-feel about a client was correct. We came away from apparently successful presentations and just knew we would not get the business. Equally there were occasions when it just felt so right despite poor client reactions. Facts and logic did not come into play in these cases.
It was never possible to comprehend when or if this inner sixth sense would come into play. It was almost as if just thinking about observing it scared it away.
Some management text books try to help prepare for moments of intuitive insight. They suggest taking time out to meditate, being open, creative hobbies, interrogation of the intuitive voice or keeping journals. They all help but don't really get to the heart of what's going on in this mystical realm.
Studying martial arts for many years eventually shed more light on the nature of intuition. In his little-read book €Family Traditions on the Art of War€ the Samurai Master Munenori described the amazing benefits of attaining what he called €The Polished Mind.€
In the right frame of €martial arts mind€ it became possible to react with lightening speed and even pre-empt the actions of an attacker.
He drew an analogy between the mind and a gemstone. A freshly mined diamond is undoubtedly a great treasure but until it has been worked it will not be possible to see the world reflected in all its facets. If the uncut stone fell into the mud then some would stick until it was scrubbed off. Polishing the rough edges off the uncut stones makes it possible to quickly wipe away any lingering dirt.
A perfectly polished diamond will effortlessly reflect everything around it without distortion.
Munenori argued that extraneous or lingering thoughts, our fears, doubts and prejudices were the equivalent of the dirt that needed to be removed from the diamond. Facing an opponent free from anything but an undisturbed and non judgemental approach will allow the body to access all its potential and perform at breathtaking speeds.
His suggested technique was to sit quietly and simply listen to ones thoughts. We should silently observe our mental activity without passing any judgements. We can ask where they came from and why but should not be drawn into anything more than observing and waiting for them to evaporate away. Gradually we develop the capacity to settle the mind into silence. In this state we become super-aware of the world and can almost read the minds of others as our emptiness receives the signals being given off by an opponent without any interference or delay from us.
This is no small order. Attempting to free the mind from all thought is like trying to tame a wild tiger. If you achieve just ten seconds free from the dishwasher head of modern living you will have been unusually successful. The Masters can take mental chatter, their breathing and heart rates down to near zero but only after years of practice in the art of doing nothing. We are not talking omphaloscepsis here but a learnt process of observing and eventually discarding all but the most immediately relevant sensory inputs.
When we first see the world as it really is then ands accept it as it is then we can allow all of our self to respond to it simply as it just really is. This, to me at least, is the way to develop intuitive capability.
For a very readable book on living in this mindful state €Full Catastrophe Living€ by Jon Kabat Zinn is worth your time. His video clip below sheds more light on the gentle way to do nothing and be everything.
Intuition uneasily straddles the worlds of hard business fact and fuzzy New Age hokum.
Attempts have been made to define it. All have been only partially successful.
Anecdotally the great entrepreneurs swear by their sixth €business sense€ but nobody has been able to bottle and sell it.
The limited available research suggests intuition accounts for 95% of the decision making process. How can we verify these experiments? Who could measure a gambler's €gut feel€ during a winning streak? How can we eliminate pure chance from the equation?
Recent experiments with MRI scans indicate that conscious awareness is preceded by very substantial pre-conscious processes. The lag between thoughts moving from the pre-conscious to the conscious can be as much as 6 seconds; interesting but no real proof of intuition.
However, for some inexplicable reason during my years in direct selling there were many weird moments when gut-feel about a client was correct. We came away from apparently successful presentations and just knew we would not get the business. Equally there were occasions when it just felt so right despite poor client reactions. Facts and logic did not come into play in these cases.
It was never possible to comprehend when or if this inner sixth sense would come into play. It was almost as if just thinking about observing it scared it away.
Some management text books try to help prepare for moments of intuitive insight. They suggest taking time out to meditate, being open, creative hobbies, interrogation of the intuitive voice or keeping journals. They all help but don't really get to the heart of what's going on in this mystical realm.
Studying martial arts for many years eventually shed more light on the nature of intuition. In his little-read book €Family Traditions on the Art of War€ the Samurai Master Munenori described the amazing benefits of attaining what he called €The Polished Mind.€
In the right frame of €martial arts mind€ it became possible to react with lightening speed and even pre-empt the actions of an attacker.
He drew an analogy between the mind and a gemstone. A freshly mined diamond is undoubtedly a great treasure but until it has been worked it will not be possible to see the world reflected in all its facets. If the uncut stone fell into the mud then some would stick until it was scrubbed off. Polishing the rough edges off the uncut stones makes it possible to quickly wipe away any lingering dirt.
A perfectly polished diamond will effortlessly reflect everything around it without distortion.
Munenori argued that extraneous or lingering thoughts, our fears, doubts and prejudices were the equivalent of the dirt that needed to be removed from the diamond. Facing an opponent free from anything but an undisturbed and non judgemental approach will allow the body to access all its potential and perform at breathtaking speeds.
His suggested technique was to sit quietly and simply listen to ones thoughts. We should silently observe our mental activity without passing any judgements. We can ask where they came from and why but should not be drawn into anything more than observing and waiting for them to evaporate away. Gradually we develop the capacity to settle the mind into silence. In this state we become super-aware of the world and can almost read the minds of others as our emptiness receives the signals being given off by an opponent without any interference or delay from us.
This is no small order. Attempting to free the mind from all thought is like trying to tame a wild tiger. If you achieve just ten seconds free from the dishwasher head of modern living you will have been unusually successful. The Masters can take mental chatter, their breathing and heart rates down to near zero but only after years of practice in the art of doing nothing. We are not talking omphaloscepsis here but a learnt process of observing and eventually discarding all but the most immediately relevant sensory inputs.
When we first see the world as it really is then ands accept it as it is then we can allow all of our self to respond to it simply as it just really is. This, to me at least, is the way to develop intuitive capability.
For a very readable book on living in this mindful state €Full Catastrophe Living€ by Jon Kabat Zinn is worth your time. His video clip below sheds more light on the gentle way to do nothing and be everything.
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