On Yugen by S. Silman

Yugen is a gardening term; it refers to the subtleties of nature, to what is hinted at rather than what is obviously revealed. Yugen involves obfuscation, shadow, partial reflections and the silhouette of ideas. Yugen invloves vagary, but a vagary that points to the profound. This applies not just to body mechanics but to all levels of interaction:

Position yourself so uke stumbles over you, so gravity insists they go down, so they have nowhere else to be but falling, from their own momentum, so that their actions can have no other result but their falling.
Do not concentrate on winning; focus on the principles that allow you to achieve.
Cultivate economy of motion.
Like becoming the rock, guide your interpersonal relationships so events simply happen because they must.
Nobody ever knows. No matter what you learn or how much you practice, you have never lived your moments before, there are always variables: infinite possibilities.
Do not rely on any one response, do not pick a favorite technique, do what is necessary to each circumstance.
You can be one thing or you can be anything.
Learn to understand everything as an opportunity to learn; to learn is to change, change = death. Recall Myamoto Musashi’s adage: "learn to see everything as an opportunity to kill". Meditate on this.
Nothing can be taught; you can only provide opportunities for learning to happen.
A good student can learn from even a bad teacher. Become a student in and of the universe, not just a student in the dojo.
Strive.
When someone attacks you, all you need to be is out of their way; all you choose is whether they hurt themselves or not.
Every mountaintop is the next plateau at the bottom of yet another mountain.
Pick one thing to become more aware of and your pattern-loving brain will naturally present to you other missing pieces. Somewhere in your tangled mess of neurons your brain is a toddler that wants to touch information and shove in it your mouth like cake. Feed your brain.
The process never ends, because-there still remain possibilities.
There is no meaning, because meaning comes only in retrospect.
There is no One Way One Truth that we can discern, as that too only comes in retrospect, after all possibilities are spent, when we have ceased to be ourselves and the universe is no longer what it is.
Everything you know is part of your "resume"/repertoire; the larger the list, the more adept you become at anything.
Breathe.

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