知行合一
Chikougouitsu
Awareness only comes through practice
In a dojo, everyone has to care. When I was a student in the 90s, our dojo was a very rough place where everyone trained hard. The unspoken method of problem solving was to just “beat it out of them.” If a student was too scared, strange, uncooperative or weak, we just beat it out of them. They either changed or left - problem solved. In the beginning, I was not very athletic and didn’t take verbal instruction very well and that made for some painful classes as the students “helped me” by beating it out of me. On my very second day, a black belt was assigned to teach me how to roll. At some point, he got frustrated and just proceeded to smash me for the rest of the hour instead. From that point on, I hated him and Furuya Sensei and pretty much everyone else in the dojo. I only stayed so that I could beat them at their own game. The problem with this attitude is that it can help a person excel but it can also create a monster. As Nietzsche said, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” Today, I do not subscribe to this culture and discourage others from engaging in it. The reason why I don’t condone this type of attitude is because I understand that the universe is reflective. Shakyamuni Buddha said, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” We reflect upon the world that which we wish to be reflected back upon us or in other words we get out of it what we put into it. This is why in a dojo everyone has to care about what happens and take care in how they treat each other. If we want people to care about us and take care of us, we have to care about them. Caring is about awareness. We can’t care if we are not aware. Thus, training is really just teaching us how to become more aware so that we can care and manifest those things that we want out of life. In life and training, we get out of it what we put into it and this is why everyone in a dojo has to care.
Today’s goal: What is that you want? Give it to get it.