Thread: aikido is...
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Old 11-15-2010, 11:39 PM   #38
Gorgeous George
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 464
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Re: aikido is...

Quote:
Demetrio Cereijo wrote: View Post
If the individidual will has joined the universal will, then the individual has lost his own free will.

Is losing your free will what is aikido about in your definition?
Ah: I see what you meant.

It's an equivocation: I didn't mean will in the sense of 'free will': I meant it in the sense that Schopenhauer would use it.

Essentially, there is the Zen belief that we lose our 'Buddha nature' - our natural state of being; a natural state of being that every part of the universe has, but which we lose because we can - and do - deliberate about things.
Hence why some people speak of aikido as 'misogi': a form of purification.

'A fish swimming as a fish, a bird flying as a bird...'

If we do what is natural, we will be in accord (harmony) with the rest of the universe; to do what is unnatural, is to be disconnected from the rest of the universe/nature.
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