Quote:
Matthew Gano wrote:
Hi Graham,
In the sense that brave people find themselves within a "fight" and might still be described as not-fighting, I tend to agree. Otherwis, I would say many a brave person fights, too; indeed it is the brave who "fight" against injustice or who might "fight" the swift currents of a river to help someone.
Also, thank you Tom and Chris for your exchange. I've really enjoyed reading it.
Merci, et bon chance tout le monde! May we all learn to speak each others' languages a bit better.
Au revoir,
Matt
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Hi Matthew.
I use the statement as a good contemplation tool. Only cowards fight. Now, holding that as a fact (purely for the sake of the exercise) then proceed to inspect all thoughts that contradict it.
It has led me to many recognition's along the way and re-evaluations.
Just the word fight implies mind and body out of harmony. Fight also is fear based so it leads to considering action where spirit mind and body are in harmony, untroubled, yet active in such a way as to bring harmony back to the scene for then the view is that someone attacking is merely the scene and it is the scene which needs addressing.
Then I found for me that bravery was more to do with spiritual flight and fear. Many 'nutters' can be very brave for all kinds of nutty reasons. So I found that the 'good' condition, where the person is calm and untroubled and spiritually there I would call courage. Thus courage is far from bravery.
Can you really fight injustice? You can see it, stand up to it, communicate it, get it changed. Yes you can handle injustice.
Sometimes one may have to fight but that's last resort.com and nearly always the result of many, many lost opportunities to prevent such a dire circumstance happening in the first place. We could say it's a result therefor of laziness most of the time.
I would say Aikido teaches us these things when done from the viewpoint of harmony. It teaches us to notice the little flags that need handling before things devolve into chaos and fight.
Just my thoughts.
Peace.G.