Yesterday, my husband and I saw the movie ‘The Last Samurai’. Usually I don’t watch movies with a lot of violence, because it makes me uncomfortable. But my interest was piqued when I saw an interview with Tom Cruise, who was curiously unable to express the personal effect this movie had on his own life. It had clearly been an experience that had deeply effected him. To see him, usually so articulate, stumble for words made me want to go see the movie.

I won’t be describing the story; that’s not what this article is about. But there was something really impressive about it that I want to share with you. The movie portrayed the way of the Samurai, the Japanese warriors of old times. Tom Cruise’s character, an army captain captured by the Samurai, describes the concept of mindfulness of the Japanese people: ‘when something is being done, it is done to perfection.’ He is amazed by their discipline and the focus they have on whatever task they are doing.

Each action they take is based on this spiritual foundation of mindfulness. In one scene the captain is practicing his fighting skills with a warrior. Tom is loosing time and again.

Suddenly one of the watching warriors tells him: ‘Too many minds!’ With this the warrior addresses the fact that Tom’s attention is diverted to many different thoughts: he’s focusing on the watchers, on the warrior and on himself, which makes him lose. The sentence ‘No mind!’ brings the captain fully into the present moment, which ultimately allows him to finish the fight in a ‘draw’ instead of defeat. In our western culture we often act from a different perspective. We feel that the more we ‘multitask’ the more we are able to achieve and this makes us a better person. It’s almost like we have to defend our right to exist by how much we accomplish!