Furuya Sensei demonstrating at our annual Nisei Week Open House in the late 1990s
Throwback Thursday
Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on March 6, 2004.
It is oftentimes hard to find order in our lives, but it is not so difficult to find this order in the structure and form of our regular daily practice. Eventually, through our discipline and commitment to practice, this order will filter into our daily Life.
However, we cannot expect Life to be without difficulties. When we understand that it is an essential part of our Life, both hardship and happiness, we have the possibility of freeing ourselves from the bonds in this kind of discrimination.
In trying to make Aikido practice a part of our Life, there is a profound and fundamental paradox of not making our Life a part of Aikido. What does this mean? Competition in our job, hatred of strangers, jealousy of friends, the desire for power and wealth to dominate others, seeking fame to show ourselves superior to others, self-doubt, and envy? These are all a part of our regular life that should not be brought into our practice.
Bringing the reality of our struggling lives into Aikido practice is like pouring dirty water into pure water - there is no improvement that can be seen and in fact everything becomes clouded.
Bringing Aikido into our daily lives is like pouring pure water into dirty water - actually, one can see that the water begins to become a little clearer.
Perhaps, in our lives, we cannot attain 100% purity like pure water, but the fact that the so-called "muddy waters" of our lives can become clearer with daily practice can be a great relief and source of salvation.