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Old 08-07-2008, 07:24 PM   #10
Rev.K. Barrish
 
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Dojo: Tsubaki Kannagara Jinja
Location: Granite Falls, WA
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 42
United_States
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Re: What I Think "Ki" Is

Hello everyone,

Hello Ms. Smith. Thank you for your kind words and for your wonderful post:
“"From Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things -- the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals -- and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred, and were brought together by the same Great Mystery."- Luther Standing Bear, Chief of the Lakota

I used to think just like the above folks, and I guess this thought isn't that much different. Everyone above touched upon it.
I stumbled upon a realization one day that our approach as empericaly driven people, fragmented by fragments, is seperate from the wholeness of life that my Indigenous Ancestors spoke of and then it came to follow that my Aikido understandings and my relationship to the founder took on a different dimension; it took on the perspective of an indigenous practice and not of an emperical practice, if one could seperate the two.”

This is really profound and of course exactly as Shinto thinking…

Re: Origin/Genisis of the Universe…………
At the beginning of the Universe (AMETSUCHI HAJIMETE OKOROSHI TOKI NI TAKAAMANOHARA NI NARIMASERU KAMI NO NA WA) from the original nothingness from which all things originated, there came into existence the very 1st Kami AMENOMINAKANUSHI. As the Universe was formed next to appear was TAKAMIMUSUBINOOUKAMI the Kami of Birth and next was KAMIMUSUBINOOUKAMI the Kami of Growth.
the Three Kami: AME-NO-MI-NAKA-NUSHI-NO-OU-KAMI, TAKAMA-MUSUBI-NO-KAMI and KAMI-MUSUBI-NO-KAMI are referred to as ZOKANOSANSHIN or the Three Divine Creators. In this early stage of development of the Universe the core of Shinto, MUSUBI is revealed ...Musubi is: forces of creating, combining, germinating, generative positive forces.

The Kototama thinking of the origin of the Universe is that it is beginning perpetually here and now..I think Kaiso said something to the effect of”

“Aiki is the activity of being taught by Okami about the echoes of the soul of Universal design/creation”

Aiki began with the creation of the Universe” (appearance of AMENOMINAKANUSHINOOUKAMI)

Thank you
Koichi Barrish
Senior Shinto Priest
Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America
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