Shape of Quality

 

This is the one connecting road I see between cities, mountains, islands.

Posts have been infrequent this month. That does not mean there is nothing to talk about. Rather, it's quite the opposite. Too many things to talk about render me frozen amid sparse breaks from the movement. The changes are too fast. At the moment of impact, I could potentially imbellish curious minds, but the passing of mere moments already begin the rotting process.

Spring winds change the clouds so much in a single day, I can't remember the blue sky under such grey broodings.

Like going to kyudo, I can never predict what kind of practice it will be. False anticipations only make the results more the strange.

A quality form, base, skeleton, is important.

A room's shape, simple and strong. Bland is a quality to build from. Various furnitures can define spaces, pictures can direct moods, plants can breathe. Dirt can accumulate inside, clothes can litter floors. But those walls, that shape, comes before and lasts beyond it all.

In kyudo, aikido, and tai chi bodies are placed into desirable positions in order to maximize all abilities. From those correct positions, various techniques grow out for myriad purposes.

I can see these things, like a magazine. I flip through the pages and let my interest guide eyes to something of an undefined "quality."

But what about the mind? What is the shape of our mind? How is it structured? What is it designed to do? How can we adjust these settings?

It's like trying to see the back of your head.

All you need is a couple mirrors, or a camera.

So, I guess we can just move along and not care about such matters.

Or we can use some tools to figure it out.

The mind, its use and un-use. This is what I've been thinking about lately. How does that base structure of my mind affect my actions and the world I move in.

It's not static.

It's fluid and changing. We cannot stop to rearrange. We cannot accurately judge what's good and bad. We move in directions, falling, floating, swimming, gliding. In that shifting moment we move ourselves in ways beyond what we can conceive.

Like James Bond.

Quality. That single word can be magic. A compass amid worlds of painful complexities. Quality is a shape we color in with the instruments of our decisions.

For me, practicing budo is how I consciously affect my mind. Budo is quality. But it's not the only thing. Budo is a shell, and my guts are the decisions I make.

I don't know. Nobody knows. Some moments I'm peacefully unaware. Other times I'm trying to figure out how to get out.

Sometimes, it all feels just right.

That is quality.

(picture above found at http://www.photographycorner.com/galleries/showphoto.php/photo/25216)

Going Inside

You'd think people living in places far from the equator would have a very strong relationships with their internal selves. Away from that great center line of the Earth, daylight dwindles from the expanding grip of night as winter waxes. Inhabitants of such distant lands reach the solstice and enter a cold that won't retreat for months. Snow, wind, freezing rains. Humans are not meant to venture out in the winter dark, and so, people amass inside large communal dwellings. I think of my two respective homes: the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., and the Hokuriku Region in Japan. Both have very distinctive homes designed to provide cover in the winter.

In the PNW, the indiginous peoples built longhouses.

Hokuriku is famous for gassho-zukuri houses; their construction unique in Japan for resisting the heavy snow falls that come every year in this region of the Sea of Japan.

 

 

Next to the largest shopping center in Toyama City is a print shop. In the window is a large black and white paining of one of these gassho-zukuri houses in winter. There are a few people inside huddled around the fire, and a few people outside in twisted forms. I once sarcastically said to my girlfriend who isn't particularly fond of the snow, "Look, they're dancing!" But it's obvious they're not.

 

Winter is a time unkind to those who cannot find such lodging. For people who have lived in these regions for so many generations, a way of life evolves around the invincible winter. Though I live in this area, I've been to these houses, I'm not sure what the people really did inside. For my home in Washington though, I'm well aware of the dances and art that were created and performed for and by the people during their long winter months.

 

 

My mind also goes to a region that may know long dark winters better than any other culture: Scandanavia. Memories I've never had of pagan rituals come to mind as I visualize their unique art.

 

 

 

In these cold regions, a vast pantheon of gods inhabit each regions' mythologies. My ancestors hailed for who knows how many centuries in such countries of northern Europe. I was raised in the dark and cold pacific north west. Now I live in a region of Japan famous for harsh winters. I can't help but feel a connection to such places known for unwelcome climates. I feel most ... something ... when looking at a dark green forestline blending with fog into a dark afternoon overcast sky. I relax when it rains. Somehow, like one cannot tell what time of day it is in such conditions, I could be there forever, as if the clock has stopped. Somehow, excitement floods in at the sight of snowfall first thing in the morning. If it's dark at five p.m., I wonder in anticipation what I will do for the long night until I sleep.

 

But I also enjoy this due to some kind of happy lonliness. People of old most likely had quite an opposite feeling of winter at times: given that everyone was stuck together in these small dwellings. "What did they do?!" I often ask myself.

 

I think now of a place that is never empty in winter: a gargantuan hall of heat. It is also a place that is never empty in summer, or fall and autumn for that matter. It is the pachinko hall. Pachinko is the most popular form of gambling in Japan. No matter the time of year, the inside will never change from the stimulation overload it provides. The people of often inhabit such places, know the same life, no matter the season, no matter the location.

 

I have a deep fascination for winter and crappy weather, but I wonder if it's all just an image fix. As a modern, my physical dealings with the elements are increasingly limited. Would a screen saver suffice?

 

I turn one one machine to fix it all. It gives me heat, it gives me cold. I turn on one machine to find it all, videos, music, my friends, the news. I have a drink to get up, and one to get down. At this great control panel of modernity, our Great Choice may be just a Great Farce. We want to be up all the time, so when we make choices, it's to maintain that higher location, and change does not occur. Only when going down can we feel something, and scrambling we hurry to find a way to get back up, usually through a means of cash, which we earn from our "sweat"? Our "hard earned pay"? Is that what most people encounter at their work? Winter is a kind of down to many states of humanity, but our control over the beast is more able every year.

 

I think of my kyudo sensei. He goes to the dojo and pulls a bow every single day of the week. Every day he goes through the weather to arrive at the dojo, which is a half open compound: The place from which one shoots is under cover, but the face is open to a field the arrows fly over to a covered target area. If it's cold, he's cold. If it's hot, he's hot. If the weather was erratic and was sunny for a bit, but poured rain for 10 minutes, he knew about it. If he is feeling crappy, he will probably shoot crappy. If he's happy, the bow will tell him. He is a man who knows pretty clearly what is going on every single day of his life. If he doesn't know, at least he's out there trying, in a world with such varied circumstances that at least one source is bound to tell him.

 

I wonder how many days of my life have been a haze, cursed to some inside of myself where I don't really do much at all.

 

I wonder how many winter nights I've been able to go inside of myself and uncover mysteries I think I would never find under a warm starry night in a hamoc.

 

How much are we products of our environment?

 

Very much I would say, and yet there is something that lives, untouched by the outside world. Something that we see only in a dark place where snow and rain cannot fall, where sun cannot light.

Thank you again for reading a post that may seem to have nothing to do with budo, living in Japan, or anything in particular at all.

 

It's all just relaxing

 

In aikido we learn to relax in movement.

In kyudo we learn to relax while doing something impossible.

In zazen we learn to relax while being human.

It's all just different kinds of relaxing, and all you have to do is just ... relax.

But you can't "just relax". I went to onsen today, and I didn't have anything to do. There was nothing directly in the world that I could say was interfering with my relaxing, and I was arguably in the most relax-easy place in the world. Yet, I was still holding my body instead of letting it go as I've experienced before, and I had something in my mind I couldn't let go of, but it wasn't anything in particular.

You have to practice "just relaxing", but while doing something else. I think "just relaxing" in its essence is sleeping. But when we're awake and we want to relax, we are essentially doing something as well, right? Even if we're sitting there just thinking. It's not "just relaxing", but relaxing while doing something else.

Why can't we "just relax"?

The Moment We Stand

 

You want to take away my answer.

We've come here by no accident.

I stand in front of you. Now what?

I've never turned back before.

I can feel some warmth inside.

 

It only ends in sleep.

By my own hand?

By another's?

By fading time?

We always wake up.

The REAL Martial Art

"Material martial arts fixate on physical objects. That kind of martial art is a source of endless contention because it is based on the opposition of two forces. A spiritual martial art views things on a higher level. It's base is love, and it looks at things in their totality. It is things in their totality. It is formless, and never seeks to make enemies."

These are the words of wise, Osensei, the founder of Aikido, Ueshiba Morihei. When reading this I am reminded of a great teacher who would mention the differences between martial arts that seemed to be beautiful and harmounious like the internal arts of Tai Chi Chuan and Bagua Zhang, and others meant for overtly violent forms one may see in K1 or UFC. It seemed there was in fact a clear difference between the two, but how could you define it? I've read in some places that through techniques that work practically, art and creation will manifest itself naturally from its successful application. But I've also read that physical domination and inflicting pain upon someone doesn't necessarily make a martial art art.

To me, this quote is most telling on the subject. Perhaps we can get away from just what we call physical pain, or what we call beautiful, and look at what is behind "it" ... what is the reason for an altercation where martial arts are applied? What is the reason to even study martial arts? Philosophically, by giving a reason, one must focus on and address it ... one must contend with it; agree with it, disagree with it, call it conditional. Maybe that contention is where we run into problems. We must solve the problem, classify it with our logic, label it, control it.

When studying martial arts, I believe its inevitable to ask yourself questions like, "when would I consider using my martial art?", "which martial art is the best one to learn?", "how come not everyone like me wants to learn martial arts?" Well, when you finally find an answer that satiates you, can you be content with your answers and move on to the next one? Surely answering these questions to yourself is vital, even asking yourself over and over again to reevaluate, but what about not having an answer?

Is that OK?

Here is one more quote from Ueshiba Sensei that may not be apparently relevant, but it seems to fit.

"You cannot imitate what I do. Each and every technique is a unique, once-and-for-all experience. My techniques emerge, freely, spewing forth like a fountain. Rather than try to copy what I do, listen to what I say. That is where the essence of the technique lies. Someday you will understand."

Friedrich Nietzsche as a Taoist

After reading, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," I noticed many parallels between Friedrich Nietzcshe's writings and those of many Taoists. Many years ago I read, "Human, All Too Human," which is surely also an amazing text, however I read it before my introduction to Taoist thought and could not possibly recognize the parallels, but I think this work is even more evident of the similarities. There are also many differences between Nietzche's writings and what one would normally read from the Taoist point of view, but honestly and literally, one could write an essay on the parallels between Nietzche and Taoism on every single section (of which there are hundreds) in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." In my blog, I will attempt to do so on particular ones I found most poignant.