Dear teachers, dear students,
This period of lockdown obviously questions us about who we are and what really matters to each of us. Whether the situation physically creates a family reunification or on the contrary, an insuperable distance and therefore isolation, family circles sees its importance grow.
We may be very happy to be reunited with those we have missed because the hectic rhythms, to which we have been subjected, have kept us apart. Conversely, isolated, we can deplore not being able to reach those we already missed and better appreciate the importance they have for us.
In either case, there is a way to seize this opportunity to increase your inner space, that of self-awareness of course but also that of feelings.
In Aikido there is a recommendation which challenges us today and which, perhaps, will help us, not only to get through this period, but to find freedom thanks to our partial and temporary confinement.
Kobayashi sensei insisted on the use of the eyes. He urged us not to look at the attack, not to look at the attacker’s weapon or hands but to keep our eyes open « on the mountain in the distance » without excluding anything from our field of vision. The near and the distant were present to our consciousness and the attack expressed the climax of a conflict before its decline. It had to be seen exactly as it was, a particular feature belonging to a whole that kept its balance in spite of it and its unity thanks to the conflict.
This provides freedom of action that is impossible if the attention is only focused on the attack. Put simply, directing our eyes and with them our conscience frees us from the grip, which is characteristic, of conflict: one is a prisoner of the other and vice versa.
Let’s put these few weeks back into the course of our life: thinking about it today, we feel deprived of our liberty, but if we look to the future, in a year, in ten years. What will be left? Probably the good times, the good memories!
It depends on us. Let’s not accept being overwhelmed, depressed, or regress to an identity deprived of its possible development, of its possible growth. Feeling like you can’t stretch your wings anymore is necessarily painful. However, certain things which seemed almost essential to us are no longer possible and have seen their importance diminish. But are we diminished by it?
Our life is what we make of it. Good times are created and shared. You have to know how to write your own story.
And here, the other advice concerning the use of the eyes, makes perfect sense.
An aikidoka can make his eyes shine. He can translate intensity into brightness. And eyes can’t shine by themselves. They glow with the intensity of the heart. Be Fudô Myôô. Look at those around you as you would look and those you miss, kindle them with your love, light the fire yourself and nourish it with your illusions of being a « noumenal being », with your belief in the reality of your » monadic Self « .
Identity only exists within a relationship and the more you nourish it, the more the beings present will be released. The only real freedom is to give yourself. The only way to nurture a relationship is to love. Lack of privacy is destined to make us close. Like politeness, love needs to be expressed to be. Really take this opportunity to speak up about what matters, whether yours are right now, very close or very far, too close or too far.
Cognard Hanshi