Aspects of Ken Zen Ichinyo

This note is a short elaboration on Ken Zen Ichinyo, one of the key principles in Shorinji Kempo. Ken Zen Ichinyo is freely translated to body and mind are one.

All main principles in Shorinji Kempo can be interpreted in a mental and a physical way. The mental interpretation of Ken Zen Ichinyo is based on that your thoughts and your actions should be in harmony and not conflicting. If you think something is right you should do it, and if you see something you think is wrong you should try to stop it, especially if it is in yourself.

All basic principles work both ways, so this also implies that you should not think about doing something which you would not do in reality. Now you may ask: why does it matter what I think as long as I'm not doing it? The answer to that question has its foundation in the fact that your sub consciousness has more influence on your actions and behaviour than you might think. Your conscious thoughts are slowly programming information into your sub consciousness; this is a constant ongoing process. It goes faster when you are a kid but it happens all the time. When you are reacting without thinking your sub consciousness is in total control of your actions. This is why you should take good care about what you are programming it with. That is: what you are thinking.

Another reason to strive towards harmonizing your thoughts and actions is that any conflict between thoughts and actions creates stress. One example being if you thought you should have done something which you knew was the right thing to do, but you didn't have the courage to do so. Another example is your relation with another person; your thoughts need to be translated into action for a successful relationship. The kind of stress produced by conflicting thoughts and actions extends out from your brain, through your nerves and blood system, and affects your body with tensed muscles, digestion problems etc.

But then we begin touching on the physical aspect of Ken Zen Ichinyo, which would be the topic for another note.