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Old 04-07-2013, 08:14 AM   #123
hughrbeyer
Dojo: Shobu Aikido of Boston
Location: Peterborough, NH
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 653
United_States
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Re: how do we define martial?

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
... The whole universe has an order, a balance, a harmonious alignment. All these 'chaos' viewpoints as far as I can see it are of themselves chaotic.

In all life organisms we find even in the word itself (organic, organism, organised, organisation) that life organizes. In your own body millions of cells working in harmony, organs, tissues, etc. all with different functions yet as a whole working in support of each other. Thus when all are doing their function correctly there are in fact helping and supporting all the others and thus a a version of the spitit of loving protection for all things.
This whole approach only works if you accept that the wolf pack pulling down the moose calf is operating within the harmony of the universe. The orca stealing a seal from an ice floe is operating in harmony. The tsunami wiping out a village is operating in harmony.

Humans are humans because we have the ability to choose other options. The drunk who wanders out into traffic gets himself killed according to the universe's law of natural consequences--but a compassionate observer might pull him back before the universe's law can operate.

I think this is very much where Aikido plays. If you stop a mugger by breaking his neck, well okay--natural consequences, though you may find the legalities involved somewhat more complex. But AIkido aspires to neutralize the attack without harming the attacker and even if that goal is more theoretical than real it affects how Aikido is thought about and practiced. Aikido teaches how to stand in the place of decision, where to harm or not to harm lies in your own hands.

Evolution doesn't prove God doesn't exist, any more than hammers prove carpenters don't exist.
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