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Old 06-08-2008, 01:36 AM   #32
mathewjgano
 
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Dojo: Tsubaki Kannagara Jinja Aikidojo; Himeji Shodokan Dojo
Location: Renton
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: The poll on aikido spirituality

Quote:
Jonathan Hay wrote: View Post
I'm sorry for being a bit thick about this, but what do you mean by "spiritual experience"? And can you give me an example of purposeful action that is spiritually enriching? (As a guess, do you mean something like prayer? Or some kind of misogi ritual?)
No worries . I mean pretty much any experience that lends itself to one's sense of spirituality. Prayers and Misogi have both seemed spiritually enriching to me...sometimes more than others.

Quote:
So, are you saying that, for you, a spiritual experience may result in feeling good, but that good feeling isn't itself the spiritual experience?
I would say feeling good isn't necessarily the spiritual part of the experience, but certainly it's a part of a spiritual experience...so far as I can tell.

Quote:
Well, you see, that's what I'm trying to get at. What do you mean by "nurturing the soul"? I've found that there is a fairly wide spectrum of thought on what this means. I'm curious to hear what your is - if you don't mind. I do believe that one can nourish their soul, but how I as a Christian might do this I expect is rather different than how one who is not might do so. As a Christian, my soul, I believe, is not particularly nourished by Aikido training. How about you? Have you encountered spiritual moments in your Aikido training?
Yes I have. I've come away from training sessions with a heightened spiritual sense. Imagination or no, that was the sense I had. I'm an agnostic though: I don't ultimately know what I experienced, only that I experienced something.

Gambarimashyo!
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