In any given situation, to avoid finding yourself on a path you have not chosen, you must keep control of your mind. In this confusing period, self-doubt can easily arise because we doubt in the future. Therefore, we must be mindful and keep our horizon open.
In a conflict, as a budoka, we know how to take and keep the initiative. In order to achieve this, we have taken control of our defensive responses. The hanmi stance allows us to see the “mountain in the distance” and not stay fixed in the dangerous space that separates us from the opponent.
Conflict is similar to thought. It is elaborated with words, concepts, which come from a human collective to which we belong.
Our thinking is only important because it conditions our choices, that determine our actions that make our lives.
In order not to be led away from oneself, on paths where freedom is an illusion, acting consciously is essential.
Fortunately, thought is not the exclusive product of a consciousness created in otherness. Thought is developed by otherness, as the fern is developed by the environment in which it takes root. But the fern, whatever the conditions of its development, will never become anything else than a fern. Its fern genes are enough to defend what it is intrinsically because it doesn’t think and its fate is to be a fern and nothing else. And if its natural environment becomes hostile or simply unsuitable for its development, it dies.
As humans, empowered with the possibility of choice, we have the obligation to represent ourselves and the world to be able to exercise that choice and determine our destiny. It’s a wonderful freedom but it’s also a risk. Our genetic heritage is not enough to protect us from the environments influence when it threatens our development. We have other means, than the ferns, to defend ourselves. One of them is being aware of the end of our lives. This is inseparable from thought, whose expression is completeness, of a finished being.
We know we are mortal. We have developed resistance capacities which use thought to make the choices which lead to our preservation. Thought is the weak point of our « equipment » and also one of its most powerful weapons.
Our ability to think is a weak point because it creates a permeability to otherness, which is fortunate because this permeability allows relationships. It is a strong point because it is inseparable from self-expression as a subject. To think is to say « I ».
To say « I », despite outside thoughts, we struggle to oppose a thought developed by our own consciousness, that is to say, that manifests the independence of our being, tirelessly repeating our subjectivity. But for that, you have to know what to oppose.
If you want to submit someone, assail them with contradictory information. Not knowing what to think, they can no longer think « themselves », or say “I”.
This creates a disappearing anxiety associated with the awareness of our finitude. Our representation of death is vague and is only based on the experience of others death. It has its origin in otherness and increases the risk of losing self-awareness. So, rather than facing this anguish, a non-budoka reacts by adopting a pre conceived thought, what I call a »ready-made thought ». From then on, he loses contact with his “root subject” and becomes malleable, usable, a slave to the “supplier of ready-made thoughts”.
Our identities are built by our present relationships and by the ties we have to the groups from which we come and to which we belong. But if it were only that, we would be puppets with the illusion of thought. Whatever the power of these relationships, our uniqueness, as a subject, connects us to an « essential being ». Our freedom, which is the expression of this uniqueness, is determined by our ability to want, and by what our thought expresses. Whatever the influence of the environment, we can keep control of how we think ourselves, of the way we project this « I » in the human environment, providing we have balanced the « forces » in presence, the part of our « I » swarmed in otherness and the « ontogenetic I ». Being capable to want implies having established an ethic whose source is not an external morality but a sense of being, independent from all constraints. In other words to walk the path to your soul.
You have been trained for this. The Aiki strategy has taught you how to receive the necessary information for a martial relationship without reacting. To determine your action in a space-time that is created within the relationship. Not to condition your movement to the attack, not to fight against the attacker, his weapons , his will, but to act freely whilst considering his presence in a world that is created by your deep sense of identity.
Your center is stable, you do not put strength in the contact. You do not defend but you are not passive. You neither submit nor counter attack. You do not react but are not stunned. Your ken saki is free and always moving. It is the very image of your moving mind, accepting no constraint, not responding to provocation, as sharp as your soul that cuts the bonds that would like to imprison it.
Submitted to contradictory injunctions, the general tendency is a freeze response, then loss of access to oneself and depression. But you are a Budoka. You have built a free identity based on a free ethic and nothing can constrain you because nothing and no one has access to this « being ». It is in this depth that your thought of the world is elaborated, including your « I », incoercible, imprescriptible, incorruptible. A depth no « ready-made thought » can reach because nothing and nobody knows its shape, its contours, or its origin.
You know how to make your sword invisible. Remember what Kobayashi sensei said, « A budo master requires only one quality, to be unpredictable. » We cannot predict what we cannot see. You, aikidoka, cannot be forced because your mind is not opposed.
Cognard Hanshi