For those of you who never studied martial arts, a white belt is the rank you are given as a beginner. The rankings then progress after six months or so through a variety of gaudy colors to give the newbies a sense of progress, and then to the first real ranking, brown belt. That qualifies you as a "beginner with good intentions," and in a reputable karate dojo takes 1-2 years to achieve. Put in another 2 years of dues in the same reputable dojo, and you might finally make black belt, which designates you as "still a beginner but one who can finally be taken seriously." Only the higher black belt rankings -- especially above fifth degree -- can ever *really* be taken seriously, and they often require a lifetime of effort.
Back in the Rama trip, we all studied martial arts. People could pick their discipline -- karate, judo, aikido, tae kwon do, tai chi, jiu-jitsu, whatever -- but you had to be in the dojo several times a week. Rama felt that it was good for improving our meditation by making us more fit, but also good for our careers by teaching us how to deal with competition. Interestingly enough, our equal emphasis on career led to a really funny (although you may have "had to have been there" to get it fully) one-liner I heard from a female Rama student towards the end of my time in that trip. We had managed to avoid each other for over a decade, but ran into each other at Grand Central one day after work and, having missed our train, decided to have a drink and a snack in the famous Oyster Bar. When the inevitable subject of "Where do you study martial arts?" came up, she laughed and said, "A new place. I've got a white belt in nine different styles of karate." I laughed so hard I may have spit my margarita on her, because I understood. We moved so often that it was difficult to advance in belt ranks, simply because we moved so much. And in most of the karate dojos, if you came from another school -- even if you had attained a brown belt or a black belt there -- you were immediately assigned the rank of white belt. I always thought that this was a *wonderful* tradition. It weeded out the narcissists and the egomaniacs, who would never allow themselves to be seen in a lowly white belt again, as if they were mere beginners. For those who had no problem with this, like my new friend and I, we had been white belts a LOT, and knew how valuable it was. As a white belt, you unconsciously take on Beginner's Mind again. You don't assume that you "know everything" already, and as a result can actually *learn* from the new teacher. Being willing to put on a white belt again -- even after in my case over a dozen years studying karate -- was IMO simultaneously an indicator of humility and an indicator of having an open mind, being willing to learn something new. Which is why I have less respect for many long-term TMers than they sometimes believe I should have. *Especially* if they've been at some point a TM teacher, remarkably few of them I've encountered have ever had the humility to put on a white belt and Beginner's Mind and learn another technique of meditation. And by learn, I mean *take a class*, and learn from someone who has been trained how to teach that technique, not "read a book." There have been a few long-term TMers I have met on this forum who have done this, and I admire them. Who I don't admire as much are the others who have never -- and who in fact would never consider -- donning a white belt again and learning another technique of meditation. They've become so convinced by Maharishi's ego-pandering that they're "black belts in meditation" that they don't feel that they could possibly have anything to learn from another meditation teacher or tradition. These types of TMers -- who are fortunately becoming fewer as the TM movement falls apart -- IMO couldn't achieve Beginner's Mind again on a bet. I think that's sad, "achieving" a state in which one believes that one really doesn't have anything more to learn. I'd prefer to hang with the white belts any day, because they're willing to learn more, and *build upon* the things they've already learned. The lady I had drinks with in New York -- who had two black belts to her credit when she spoke her one-liner to me -- is now a fifth-degree black belt, working on her sixth. To paraphrase the I Ching, "Perseverance -- and humility -- furthers."
