A swordsman stands opposite his opponent. The air is still, the tension palpable. A strike is coming. If the swordsman thinks, "He is about to move," he has already lost. If he thinks, "I must block to the left," he has already been cut down. His mind cannot stop, not even for an instant. Instead, he simply stands, his mind as empty and reflective as a polished mirror. When the attack comes, his body moves without a command from his conscious self. The block, the counter, the final strike, they do not come from him, but through him. The sword in his hand, as the Zen master Takuan Sōhō wrote, seems to move of its own accord, guided by a deep, subconscious intelligence. This is the state of mushin: the mind of no-mind.