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Old 05-03-2008, 12:31 PM   #9
George S. Ledyard
 
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Dojo: Aikido Eastside
Location: Bellevue, WA
Join Date: Jun 2000
Posts: 2,670
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Re: The Death of Learning

Quote:
William Hazen wrote: View Post

Knowledge is a sword. I must learn to wield it with both love and compassion... All these "things" must be known to me in order to share them with the other.
William,
That is what "upaya" or "expedient means" is all about in Buddhism. I think that Ross is correct in that ones "knowledge" is a trap that keeps one from seeing what else is there to learn. All knowledge is conditional and therefore not true in any final sense.

On the other hand, teaching that way results in students who are hazy, shallow, and attached to the ineffability of the whole thing, and that just results in crappy Aikido.

"Upaya" allows us to present knowledge, to transmit it to our students, to make it useful all the while knowing that it is without any final substance. What we present today will be different from what we present tomorrow, if we ourselves are growing. What you know today, right now, is what you know. No more and no less. As long as you understand that this will all change, that there is no "arrival" at some sort of "Knowledge" that is final and unchanging, then knowledge is useful and in fact essential to the transmission.

The instant people find some knowledge which they believe to be final, unchanging, irrefutable, you see growth stop. You also have everything required to start slaughtering those who have some other ideas about what is true.

George S. Ledyard
Aikido Eastside
Bellevue, WA
Aikido Eastside
AikidoDvds.Com
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