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Old 06-20-2012, 08:23 PM   #80
Tom Verhoeven
Dojo: Aikido Auvergne Kumano dojo
Location: Auvergne
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 295
France
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Re: My Spiritual Aikido.

Quote:
Graham Christian wrote: View Post
Here is another difference in my Aikido and I would say an age old difference pointed out by many an enlightened soul and always doubted but unfortunately twisted by those who miss the point.

In my Aikido we understand the principle of universal love and the spirit of loving protection for all things.

Therefor our sole aim is protecting the other person(s) Thus it's a game where everybody wins.

This also means there can be no enemy for that is a concept from win/lose, competition, right/wrong.etc.

Selfishness is the reason for not understanding this. All self defence forms and arts are selfish.

Based on the belief of protecting self thus justifying doing to others as they see fit. Thus they seek to be powerful, dominant, better than, etc. All ego.

Aikido is not selfish, it is all embrasive, in fact in spiritual terms it is selfless.

Thus the true concept of universal love and peace and harmony can never be understood by such folk as long as they view from such a base viewpoint. From the seven deadly sins to the words of Buddha to Jesus et al. this has been the message which later has been grabbed and twisted later for service to selfish means once again and power and control. Same ol same ol.

True budo.

Peace.G.
Graham,
Sorry about your other thread. Feel I am a partly responsible for that - I did go on a bit and stayed too long on the same track. It drifted away from your original post. And kept drifting away even after I stopped adding to it.

Heard a story about a modern day Buddhist monk recently that you might enjoy. A Buddhist went to his teacher complaining that although he was fine with the life of a monk, he did not like the fact that people came to him and told him all the stories of their lives, their problems with day to day life, problems with work, with there husband or wife, with their family, and so on. He felt like there was no end to their problems and that they were bringing it to him, as if they were bringing their garbage into his room.
The monk expected to be released from this task, but his teacher said; "you are a Buddhist priest, this is your task. You listen to these people, give them advice when needed and you let them come and bring their garbage. And then you get yourself a garbage-can that on the inside is covered with teflon. The teflon makes it easy to empty the garbage-can. Your mind should be like that as well. With a teflon mind things may be thrown in, but they do not stick and it becomes easy to empty again."

Seems to me that you have had thrown a lot of garbage at you lately on AikiWeb. Yet I get the impression that fortunately it does not seem to stick. Just like the monk you seem to have acquired a teflon mind!

Best wishes!
Tom