AikiWeb: The Source for Aikido Information AikiWeb's principal purpose is to serve the Internet community as a repository and dissemination point for aikido information.
Hello and thank you for visiting AikiWeb, the
world's most active online Aikido community! This site is home to
over 22,000 aikido practitioners from around the world and covers a
wide range of aikido topics including techniques, philosophy, history,
humor, beginner issues, the marketplace, and more.
If you wish to join in the discussions or use the other advanced
features available, you will need to register first. Registration is
absolutely free and takes only a few minutes to complete so sign up today!
This poem and others are available in my books, Nothing Works: Meditations on Aikido, Buddhism, the Tao, Zen, and other inconsequential things....and, Nothing Special, and Nothing Matters..., available thru Amazon.com, in print and Kindle editions and Barnes & Noble websites.....Also available as an e-book via Smashwords.com. Try this link: www.nothing-works.com for the full array of options.
I'm supposed to focus
On the moment
Be in the moment
On the NOW -
The ever-present NOW
To see, hear, feel, taste
Just smell this NOW
To just be
But, I don't want to!
My NOW just sucks
Pain, suffering - no end!
This NOW I just want
To avoid - please!
I have no future
So, I'd prefer to focus
Focus on the past
On the good times
On how we met
How we loved
All the feelings of those NOWS!
Anything to take me from
THIS fucking NOW!
I close my eyes
And go back, way back
Before the pain
Before the screaming
That NOW I can deal with
You take my hand
Brushing away my tears
And walk with me
Holding me, holding me
Tightly to THAT now!
There, it was said: Try again
The people sitting
In seiza all around me
Avoiding eye contact
I stood and heard Try again
But, could not listen
Beyond that
My own inner voice
Was saying too many
Way too many other things
But, Try again I heard loud and clear
Just finishing fullness
The moon, rising in its arc
Reddish to yellow gold
I close my eyes
Following my own inward arc
As my own rising moon
Illuminates my innerscape
With shadowless light
Kokyu-ryoku...breath power
Flowing from the hara
The breath tying everything together
Each day, every day,
Each practice, all adding up
Many years of hard training
In correct technique
Purifying the body,
The mind, and the spirit
All this thought to be
The secret of true power
But, no, not so! Not so!
The secret of true power
Lies in a liquid essence
Take off that plastic cover
Inhale this very essence
Breath it into yourself
Then sip, sip again
Let it flow into your hara And feel the power -
The real power
The power of kokyu-latte!
I hear the temple bells' echoes
Already fading, fading....
And see the colors of the flowers
With beautiful, fragile butterflies
Cavorting in their midst's
I feel the wind on my face
Carrying falling leaves
And see the sun arcing across
A sky soon to be inhabited
By a waning moon and
A River of Stars
I enter a cool, running stream
And watch as it flows
Around me and past me
To - somewhere...
Around a bend covered in shadows
I look inside myself
And see twinkling, effervescent
Thoughts, emotions, sensations
Come and go, come and go
I come across ancient ruins
Once others' dreams
Is this all a dream - no more?
Transitory illusions?
That same wind that caressed
My upturned face
Also carries the dust of dreams
Sitting in zazen Waiting, patiently
Then it happens
As though invisible hands
Are guiding me onto my path
The waters of immortal life
All around me
I sip and move on
The path/not-path clear
Then, up ahead, mist forms
And I return to my zafu Rested and also frustrated
Why do I have to return
At all?
Unification and separation
The separation we all experience
The unification, some yearn for
To become one with all -
But, what does that mean, anyway?
In aikido we practice, practice
With each practice we are told
Told to blend, to move in harmony
Become one with our uke
Applying our technique With one, instead of to one (other)
So, I watch myself watching myself
Watching myself....well, you get it
A fragmentation without apparent end
So, during aikido practice
I tell myself, as they say in Britain, Mind the gap - such an apropos phrase
I mind that gap of self and experience
Till the gap narrows, narrows
And self and experience become one
No thought, totally one with everything
However brief that moment lasts -
Only known after it is over
However, achievement and acquisition
Cannot be the goal - there is no goal
Practice, practice, practice...
Direct knowing and experiencing -
All without that pesky witness Happens when it happens
Pay attention, pay attention
And, mind that gap...
Sometimes I achieve clarity
Certainly an altered state
Not often, unpredictably
But when it happens
I am grateful
I get to see past the curtain
If only for a moment
And realize, looking back
That there is no curtain
Like a full moon
Behind the clouds
Always there
Just obscured by a few
Insubstantial shades
Easily dispersed
Revealing everything
I try to carry these moments
With me, especially in dark times
I just wish I could do this at will
But, I have to settle
For these few, far between moments
When the curtain disappears
And I can see the world and myself
Clearly, and feel the common vibration
That unifies everything
It was a silent night in the dojo
The only sounds to be heard
Were the grunts of effort
The thuds and slaps
Of aikidoka bodies striking the mat
And the quiet growl of suffering