“The Way of the Warrior has been misunderstood. It is not a means to kill and destroy others. Those who seek to compete and better one another are making a terrible mistake. To smash, injure, or destroy is the worst thing a human being can do. The real Way of a Warrior is to prevent such slaughter — it is the Art of Peace, the power of love.” - Morihei Ueshiba
On this day in 1969, Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido passed away. Aikido can be difficult for some people to understand because of the dichotomy of being a martial art that doesn’t advocate violence. The reason for this was that O’Sensei came to realize shinmu fusatsu (真武不殺) or that“true budo does not kill.” O’Sensei was a religious person who began his religious studies when he was six years old. Throughout his life he studied various religions and spent a lot of time studying various budo arts and this pattern continued throughout his life. It is thought that through a series of events in the 1920s that O’Sensei achieved “enlightenment.” In the early 1920s, O’Sensei was confronted with mortality as his father passed away in 1919 and two of his sons, Kuniharu and Takemori died in 1920. He also had a near death experience in 1924 while accompanying his spiritual teacher to Mongolia where they both were arrested and set to die by firing squad but were saved by a last minute reprieve. After returning to Japan, O’Sensei spent a lot of time engaging in spiritual training and performing misogi or “spiritual purification.” In 1925, O’Sensei reached the pinnacle of his martial arts training and was challenged to a duel by a naval officer who was also a kendo master. O’Sensei easily defeated him because he felt that he could sense the direction in which the blows would fall before the officer’s wooden sword could strike him. After the duel, he lied down in the garden and experienced a serenity of body and spirit and felt a golden light pour over him and he felt reborn. I believe that as O’Sensei skirted the line between life and death, he realized the value of human life and from this attainment, modern Aikido was born. Aikido teaches us that the journey of our lives is not about the destruction of others, but the destruction of the self and we can thank O’Sensei for that. True budo is about the preservation of life.
Today’s goal: Take a moment and remember O’Sensei and try to understand what it means to preserve life.
Photo from the private collection of the Aikido Center of Los Angeles. O’Sensei is perhaps on the top of Hombu Dojo with Mount Fuji in the distance.