“To be discouraged is part of training.” Rev. Kensho Furuya
Budo can be thought of as the ability to weather storms. Sometimes, when I look down the barrel of the coronavirus, it can be daunting. Every day, more and more dojos, like other small businesses, seem to be struggling and some even go out of business. From a business outlook, it’s overwhelming but from a training standpoint it’s just weather. Being an Aikido teacher, I understand this, but I still have a hard time putting it into practice. When times get bleak, it helps me to remember one of the title chapters from Furuya Sensei’s book, Kodo: “To be discouraged is part of training.” Progress in training can be so incremental that most times it seems like we are standing still. We struggle because we think that we “should” be doing better or because we compare ourselves to others who are seemingly “hitting it out of the park.” Life, like training, is filled with just as many downs as there are ups and it’s easy to yearn only for the latter. Shakespeare wrote, “Nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.” Training teaches us equanimity and we learn to allow both good and bad to come and go. We don’t try to control the weather and thus we just accept it until it passes. In Aikido, this process of weathering is called“harmony”where we learn not to control but to harmonize with our opponent’s advances. When we are striving for an ideal and it doesn’t show up, we become discouraged. Understanding that all things have their place, we learn to accept things as they are and in turn harmonize with them. Discouragements will come and go but we only struggle with them when we forget that they are a valuable part of our training because they teach us just where we need to work. The Way is so ephemeral that it’s easy to lose one’s way and become disillusioned. Don’t give up, it’s just part of your training, or as Sensei used to say, “Cry in the dojo, laugh on the battlefield.”
Today’s goal: It’s ok to get discouraged, just don’t give up.