What is an excuse?
Some might answer a kind of apology for something you did and later realized it was wrong.

Some others might say the fourth option in a situation when there are only three.
And also it is possible to mention that an excuse is nothing else then endless fear packed in a few words.

Historian it seems have proofen that the human mind made no significant improvements for the last thousand years.
What has improved is the knowledge in front of our eyes. About nature, about our bodies.
But knowledge about our spirits still lacks tremendous.

Never before the human kind had so much possible knowledge about other people then before in history.
Internet, Mass media, Facebook, you can talk, write to someone on the other side of the planet in seconds.
But this also has its downside.
In combination with your skillset of reminding and learning, which you got indoctrinated in school or university, many many people mix knowledge with experience.
Knowledge is a brainact, a memory stored in the head.
Experience is a bodyact, a feeling found out on-site.

You read a book, you see a documentary about Japan and Zen, mix it up with your knowledge you have about philosophy so far and ready is the ZEN-caipirinha!!!
But we also went one step further.

The idea of Zen is very touchy. For a intellectual being the goal is very attractive.
Despite the fact that less people really take the effort of MAKING it, nearly every western person once in his/her life comes to the point, where he/she realizes that a specific action taken only based on Ego-issues went catastrophic.
Not to  do this again the methods of ZEN seems appropriate.

But what are this people talking about, when they all tell others in conflict situations: You must loose your ego, you have to much ego…?
ESPESCIALLY in Bujutsu and Budo soooooo many so called Senseis tell this to their students.
Imagine someone really does.
What is left?
A monkey!! Even more monkeys!!

And here comes the excuse. The students asks the sensei (like I did many years ago) „How do I loose my ego?“ The answer:“ Continuous training and doing what I say“.
Follow the reiho (etiquette) and you will find it“
Haaaalllooooo do you see the point??

If there is really someone having studied and practiced ZEN and Bujutsu long enough then there is one thing very very obvious, I would say, cristall clear.
It needs a teacher. A person, a human, from this planet, earth, milky way.
As master Yoda (from which planet is he actually?) is not available it needs someone around here.

To excuse yourself to the reiho, to the training, to something else is the MOST egoistic act someone can do.
Because you do not take responsibility for your student. You do not offer him the ONLY egoless act, yourself.
You hide behind curtains of hierarchy, rules and tradition. You do not open yourself to be taken, consumed to be used for experience.

Well, I was lucky enough after long time of suffering from false teachers to finally find a real master.
And do you know what my master told me after I asked him „How do I loose ego?“

„Not to think about that question is the first step in the right direction“.