Yagyu Tajima No Kami who founded the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu school of swordsmanship once wrote:
The goal of training in the martial arts is to overcome six kinds of disease:
1) the desire for victory
2) the desire to rely on technical cunning
3) the desire to show off
4) the desire to psychologically overwhelm the opponent
5) the desire to remain passive in order to wait for an opening
6) the desire to become free of these diseases
Today more than ever, please don’t give into the disease to hate and become a hatemonger, please don’t give into the disease of fear and become a fearmonger, but most of all please don’t give into the disease of intolerance and become a shouldmonger. When we shouldmonger, we are supposing that our ideas or values are absolute and that other people are absolutely wrong which is a judgement. O’Sensei said, “As soon as you concern yourself with the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ of others, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weakens and defeats you.” All budo arts are built upon calculated assumptions - If an opponent does this then I will do that. With that being said, a warrior must also be fluid and not become tied to these assumptions because assumptions can become judgements and judgements are the mother of all screwups. A martial artist is supposed to be calm, centered and mindful. The basis of Aikido is that every person is suffering and thus ignorant and because we are all suffering and also ignorant then we should be kind, compassionate and tolerant – this is the true goal of training. Furuya Sensei once wrote, “Training should be approached as a naturally gradual, progressive, step by step process of growth. There is never a time when we think we ‘got’ it. We only ‘got it’ at a particular level.” Where we are is just relative to our level of training and thus not absolute. Let’s not judge lest we be judged ourselves. Every person is going through something, especially now. The best thing to do is rid ourselves of the disease to shouldmonger and to change others and shift our focus back to our own self-improvement. That is the way of budo.
“I wanted to change the world, but I have found
that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.”
- Aldous Huxley.