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Charles Hill wrote:
Do so, I am very interested. I will check some resources I have as well.
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Hi Charles,
Well I didn't make it to keiko (thought my wife might be going into labor), but I did email Sensei Barrish and he was kind enough to share his understanding of naka-ima. Rather than paraphrase, I'll just copy and paste it here:
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Barrish Sensei wrote:
Naka-ima translates literally as "the middle of now". We can say that Nakaima is the doctrine of "presentness".
"Presentness" implies being fully alive in the current moment—this is a place of amazing power and potential. A place from which all events unfold.
Yamamoto Yukiyasu Guji teaches us about the classical philosophy of Heraclites—who postulated that the present does not really exist. Guji teaches us that the Shinto point of view is opposite--- the present is the only authentic reality. Nakaima means each moment and it's activities are treasures… Guji teaches us that we should not look upon life as a series of peremptory moments, necessary yet irksome stepping stones to the future..but the future as it comes to be.
When we can gather the diverse elements of ourselves from the past and imagined future into the current moment, we enter the ongoing wavefront of creation--- we realize each moment is completely new and will never return, we achieve balance, we have access to all our abilities to act as proxies for Sarutahiko Okami and create order from chaotic situations….. this is the middle of now and the physical, mental and spiritual "stance" of balance is the experience and power of being truly alive as a human being.
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Take care,
Matthew