Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Instead of planning lessons like some may think I should be doing, just five minutes ago in an empty classroom, I finished reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

I am not making a "review" of it, and I don't even know if I can recommend it to anyone. At such a strange moment in my life that is occuring right now, to have had this book come into my existence is just dumbfounding. I am greatly humbled, comforted, and maybe a bit terrified of the honesty that it contains. Truly unexplainable. I even feel now as I write this that I am somehow doing the work a disservice. Perhaps some disjointed thoughts will satiate my desire to express something about the effect of this book:

-predictions, answers, and judgements are dishonest?

-immediately after finishing it and walking through the halls and seeing familiar faces, I cannot intellectually grasp exactly what is happening?

-there is only one and it is everything?

-quality is a direction?

-quality is a combination of care, intent, and freedom?

-most people trick themselves into thinking they don't know?

-I want a motorcycle?

Is this worth your time to read? I am only writing this entry because compared to the other events that I have written about, this book is one of the most significant. To not have it in my blog would be to limit the blog itself and the understanding of the readers significantly. I have to write it as much as I need to eat again.

Anything beyond moment-to-moment experience is the fickle clouds of our imaginations.

Into the Fall

In a matter of a day, here in Toyama, Japan, the temperature has dropped 10 degrees celsius, and boy can you tell. My heater air-con has come on for the first time in 6 months, I immediately have switched to wearing a long-sleeve shirt and thermal long johns when lounging in the apartment, getting out of bed and out of the shower in the morning have become chillingly painful, I can see my breath while I eat breakfast, and the high mountains are finally capped with snow. Oh and of course the leaves are starting to change; it's only a matter of time until this whole country explodes in red and yellow leaves. This sudden drastic change in the weather is a little shocking, but intoxicatingly refreshing for me. Fall is my favorite time of the year and we're just getting started here. In a matter of a couple months, weekends will be filled by flying down snow slopes on a board, and weekdays will be inside the chilly bin of a dojo we have. Tanoshimi.

Tonight Sensei couldn't show up to training, so it was another night on the bike for 40 minutes to the next town. When I showed up, just minutes before when we usually start, only Hosogoshi was there warming up. If you're used to training with more than a few people, showing up to train with only one other person can be a strange sensation. But at these Uozu classes, where numbers are significantly less and Sensei can't always make it, it's not so rare. This is a wonderful oppurtunity for training. It's not a time to call off practice because there's only two of you. It's not a time to shrug because you have to be with one person the whole time. It's a time to train as hard as you ever should, and give everything to this one person. In return, you should get the same dedication, and in the end, what you have is a wonderful experience that has brought you closer to that one person. When I notice how close the hardcore people are in my class, I know it's because of many nights of one-on-one training that have happened throughout the years. Tonight, however, people soon trickled in, and by the end we had five people.

Speaking of "fall", I can feel myself improving a lot on ukemi (being thrown). FAR from really good, but improving. Just improving in ukemi, thoroughly benefits my other skills in aikido. This is something beginners should pay strict attention to if they want to progress at their full potential I think.

Foldings in the Katana

As of Oct. 21st I have been in Japan for one year. Also, I just read that the original release of Super Mario Bros. on Nintendo happened 25 years ago. Mario and I are almost the same age. Sometimes it's fun to see the timeline of it all.

Some Snipits

I've been going to lots of Aikido lately, but haven't been posting my "Lessons", but here are a few snipits of information you may be interested to hear.

So, for Wednesday class in the next town over, I usually meet my sensei close to home and he gives me a ride. But last week he said he was going to be late and couldn't pick me up. I said alright, and that I'd see him tomorrow for the next class, and hung up the phone. Then I said to myself, "Wait a minute. I can ride my bike to class." And so I was off for the 40 minute ride, which really isn't much compared to a lot of people's regular commute to martial arts classes. When sensei showed up, he was impressed that I rode my bike, but mostly because I took matters into my own hands and took responsibility for showing up to training.

Also, the past week I've been getting more approving nods instead of irritated scowls from sensei when we train, which gives me goosebumps of excitement.

After that Wednesday class, there was a black belt who showed up I've only seen once before, many many months ago, but after class sensei gave him a certificate qualifying him as a black belt in kenpo. He then went on to give a long talk about something about black belts, but unfortunately, this is one conversation I couldn't really understand. The only bit I got was that, it seems in universities, kenpo classes are very popular, and a lot of the time students will train for the four years they're in college and become 2nd or 3rd dan (degree black belt). Obviously, my sensei scoffs at such a phenomenon, and I think he was explaining it's connection to tournaments and sport fighting. Perhaps there's a lot of politics involved. This reminds me of a talk I had with sensei a while ago where he said that in some other martial arts, the goal is winning matches in tournaments, but the goal in aikido is practicing more aikido. I think this is very interesting, and makes me realize that aikido fits me better than martial arts focusing on competitions. Though I have no problem with competitions, and I do believe them to be great learning tools; as long as its prioritized along with other considerations in the discipline, and not automatically chalked to the top.

Lately sensei and a couple other black belts have been throwing me harder and allowing me to do high falls. (Check the picture above for a visual impression of a high fall). After class, Hosogoshi showed me about 10 different variations for practicing high falls for about a half hour. Unfortunately, I don't think my tatami apartment would handle my solo practice very well, but you can be sure I'll be there after every class on the mat flinging myself in the air.

Ever since sensei met with the 8th dan in kenpo and aikido about a month ago, he was encouraged to have a short "mokso" session after class. This mokso session is just taking a minute after class as we line up in seiza (traditional sitting position), close our eyes, and try to soak in the night's training. I'm surprised we've been doing it consistently for a month after every class, because sensei always seems to feel weird about it, or at least a little reluctant. After last class he was asking people if they liked it, and of course didn't receive any solid answer. But it's funny that some martial artists would consider it paramount to training, while others seem to have to force themselves to do it. Personally, I enjoy it.

Lastly, I have an opinion about getting-on in Japanese society. Japan is famous for it's emphasis on being "polite", and in being so, I think many foreigners come to Japan trying to be as polite as possible in order to fit in. But instead, I'd recommend doing what is appropriate. Japan surely has it's own emphasis on being polite, but to say that one always tries to be as polite as possible in Japan is very far off. Just because saying "Doumo arigatou gozaimashita" is the most polite way to say thank you, does not mean you should say it while delivering a deep bow to everyone you pass. Just do what's appropriate if you want to fit in (which is an oxymoron for gaijin just to let you know).

Blind Faith vs. Faith by Feeling

This post is motivated by an ever-present curiousity of Bushido, recent studies of Buddhism, and immediate readings of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence" by Robert Pirsig.

I've always been interested in religions, but for my whole intellectual life, I have been thoroughly dissatisfied with the family of doctrines of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism; all of which put such a large emphasis on faith. But what is this faith? It doesn't seem to make sense logically, and apparently, it's beauty is found in it's denial of logic. The farther removed from logic this faith is, the more whole-heartedly you're supposed to believe in it. I've continually tried to make returns to stories of the bible, and one time it took me straight to the story of Abraham; a man who is told by God to take his newborn son to a mountaintop and sacrifice him. The moral of the story is Abraham's faith? Because he was willing to kill his newborn son because he was told to do so by the God he had such faith in, he is rewarded by not having his son killed? Aside from any philosophical tangents you can go on which could be interesting, I can't believe this is preached to a people, and and afterwards they're told to try and foster this "blind faith" in God.

With an equally powerful enthusiasm, but in the other direction, I have an avid fascination with Bushido, drawn somehow by it's sense of honor, discipline, and self-sacrifice that seem to be inseperable from the term. There seems to be something admirable about the image of a samurai's strength that is attributed to such concepts. But for some reason, I've persevered through mountains of explanations of Bushido that seem to foster the same "blind faith" that I've found in the story of Abraham.

A samurai (and his family) is supposed to give his life to his lord. No matter how greedy, lascivious, wrathful, or apathetic the lord is, the samurai must honor his every whim. In fact, if the lord is not happy with his servant, he may ask for the samurai, and maybe his family too, to commit ritual suicide. These warriors were taught at an early age to never question authority ... not a word, look, or perceived thought. And I shudder to think how many millions upon millions of samurai in the history of Japan have been thrown to their deaths at the whims of their belligerent lords.

I've read many sources on "Bushido", but unfortunately most are only far-removed impressions by enthusiastic foreigners (haha, maybe this is one you're reading right now), but for possibly the most credible source, I'd recommend "Bushido: the Soul of Japan" by Inazo Nitobe. In this book, I found some of the gems I was looking for initially when searching for some quality in Bushido, but to be honest, it was philosophy/belief that I had to tease out with my own Reason.

In my eyes, the true samurai serves the universe.

I have a feeling that statement doesn't communicate very much though.

As opposed to the blind faith mentioned above, the highest ideals of Bushido is in the unwavering search for Truth through "right action."

I believe one does not inherently and consciously exhibit Truth through right action initially, but must search for this ambiguously described honesty through feeling. To have one teacher that can give it all to you may be a nice idea, as well as some in-born natural ability towards Truth ... but I think they play small factors in the infinite-scale of feeling. By searching with feeling, we may not be able to label or even explain our search effectively to others, but that is not required. Instead we have a progression of events based on one's feelings of the right direction. One's feelings of the right direction may manifest in numerous finite things or abstract thoughts, but they all have a certain effect and orienting on each individual agent, and thusly, must be carried out as individually as the person they grace.

I think this is the core of Buddhism. I think this is the ideal of Bushido. I think this is why I shudder at sources that call for "blind faith". And this is how I will walk my life: with as much honesty to my feeling as my actions can reflect.

Where is My Head?

Lately all of my interactions with people have been a bit off, and at practice tonight, I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn't follow anything, I feel like I didn't recognize anybody tonight, and maybe I'm making it up, but I think people were noticing and wondering what was wrong with me. It wasn't horrible, and I ended up laughing in the end at either how silly I must look or how I exaggerate these things sometimes. It just feels as is if someone is making gravity pull 1 degree of a difference. I wonder if it will ever go back.

an Ode to my Teachers

Your martial technique impresses me less than the lives you have lived.

Martial proficiency is reflective of the journey, not a standard to worship.

Never compromise your stance,
but sometimes your stance is compromised.

Never fight force with force,
but sometimes you must use force.

On the path one must move forward.

Maybe one day there will be no path.