The style is important. With it, anything can look good. But if we focus too much on the style, we might miss something more important and crucial behind or beneath it.
Like traditional martial arts—or even modern sports—the style and form are important. First, we need to learn how to do it by imitating the style and form. In Japan, this is called kata (型 or 形), roughly translated as “shape” but with the same meaning as “style” or “form.” For us to master a set of skills, the first thing we must do is memorize such kata and repeat it countless times until it becomes second nature.
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In traditional Japanese martial arts such as Judo, Aikido, and Kendo, as well as traditional arts like Kado (flower arrangement), Sado (tea ceremony), and Shodo (calligraphy), there are usually two systems of grading kyu (級) and dan (段).
It starts with the kyu grades (kyu means “level”), counting down from fifth kyu to first kyu. During the kyu grade period, your priority is to memorize and internalize the kata, a series of the styles and forms until they become second nature. Without them, you can never establish a foundation. At this phase, you are not expected to show uniqueness, originality, or creativity at all.
After passing first kyu, you are ready to enter the dan grade realm (dan means “stage”). This time, the direction shifts, counting up from first dan to second dan and upward. Depending on the art, the highest dan varies—fifth, sixth, or even seventh dan—often achieved later in life, as each art is considered a lifetime commitment. In the dan grade, the expectation is entirely different.
Suppose all styles and forms, a set of the kata, are now second nature, and you can demonstrate them effortlessly. Yet, with such “excellence,” you risk being no different from a machine—or, to borrow a modern term, an AI. Like a machine, your skills are precise, exactly as prescribed by teachings. You become a walking textbook.
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The dan realm is intriguing. After spending years mastering skills and memorizing forms and styles, paradoxically, you must now enter a phase of “unlearning.”
As long as you are confident and proud of the skills you’ve mastered, you cannot go beyond machine-like or AI-like excellence. What you need is an existential awakening.
You may now be flawless—like a perfect machine, an Olympic athlete, or a sophisticated large language model. But this flawlessness is, paradoxically, a flaw. In a perfect world, what is missing is imperfection. Without it, the universe cannot be the universe. Flawlessness and perfection exist only beyond space and time, in the realm of eternity. As long as we exist in this world, we must embrace imperfection as the driving force of life—moving everything forward and evolving.
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When you feel perfect, having mastered everything, you risk becoming static. You feel complete, at 100%. By definition, you no longer need to live; you are already the alpha and the omega. But if your perfection lies only in mastering the kata, the styles and forms, you have lost yourself. So, you must ask:
Who am I? Are you merely an entity perfecting skills, no different from a machine or AI?
God forbid.
Entering the dan realm means embracing the path toward authenticity. Let’s consider the example of a portrait painter in Europe who, upon the invention of a camera, realized he was not a mere camera. He discovered he could express authenticity through painting.
In a sense, the invention and advancement of the camera triggered this awakening. Previously, a painter’s role resembled that of a camera. But as cameras surpassed painters in skill, artists began to see that their pursuit was not the kyu grade perfection of skills but the dan grade pursuit of authenticity, by “unlearning” those very skills and seeking something beyond the kata, the forms and the styles.
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Similarly, modern technology like AI confronts us with a similar challenge. Generative AI excels at content creation, the foundation of any artwork. Yet, just as cameras revolutionized painting, AI compels modern artists—from writers to designers to filmmakers—to rethink their purpose.
This technological perfection highlights the distinction between the kyu and dan realms. For years, we mastered skills and perfected forms. But technology or existential realization reveals that perfection itself is a myth.
Being flawless is, by its nature, flawed. We are called to “unlearn” and seek authenticity.
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What is authenticity?
It is an existential reality—being truly yourself. It involves disclosing your core being. I call this pursuit “naked authenticity.”
Like removing clothing, we must shed our dependence on skills (the kata, the styles, and forms). We must get naked. Yet, this does not mean expressing yourself in an overly self-conscious way, that is yet in the kyu domain, you are “ego-driven,” proud of your mastery. This pride distances you from your naked authenticity.
To find your core self, you must also forget your superficial self. As Dogen, the Zen master, said:
To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.
This is the effort of the dan realm—the path to naked authenticity.
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How, then, can we enter this realm of “unlearning”?
Certainly not by abandoning practice. Skills, forms, and styles must continue, or they will fade. This is not a call to laziness. Instead, we must cultivate humility, consciously adopting a beginner’s mind.
Another approach is “excessive practice”—repeating skills to the point of exhaustion. For instance, a Shodo (calligraphy) practitioner might write thousands of pieces, day after day, until the act transcends thought. In this pure state of drawing, your naked authenticity emerges. Similarly, martial artists may fight continuously, until there is no recognition of self or opponent—only the pure act of fighting. Naked authenticity arises in these moments.
This is the essence of “unlearning.” By using your skills relentlessly, to the point of extreme fatigue, the superficial effort to “do well” becomes dormant and meaningless. True unlearning begins.
Zen’s koan practice illustrates this. A Rinzai Zen practitioner may wrestle with questions like,
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Theoretical answers, saying non-duality or subject-object merge and the like, rooted in knowledge, would be rejected as superficial. The master’s constant “No!” drives the student into deeper thought and exhaustion.
After weeks, months, or years of grappling, the student finally transcends knowledge. If the master perceives this breakthrough, the answer would be accepted.
However, this does not mean that “being exhausted” and “spending years” can automatically lead you to acceptance. Any calculated intentions would end up being superficial to be dismissed in these attempts.
Kitaro Nishida, the renowned Japanese philosopher (known as a friend of D.T. Suzuki likewise the philosopher and Zen practitioner) struggled for extensive years to achieve kensho (Zen enlightenment). His deep knowledge of philosophy and Zen itself, and his fame and reputation as a renowned scholar, ironically became an obstacle.
Knowing that “unlearning” is key does not guarantee you can truly unlearn. Only through effort, humility, and existential struggle can you reach naked authenticity.
Image by Ana Krach
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