奉仕活動
Hoshikatsudo
Labor of love
The martial arts are a labor of love. The dark secret in the martial arts that nobody tells us is that every person has to put in the work regardless of their level. An often quoted but anonymous aphorism is “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Naively, most think that this means that if we find something that we “love” then it won’t be work. No, it will still be work or the act of putting in the effort but it will be our work and thus a hoshikatsudo (奉仕活動) or “a labor of love.” At every step on the Way, we are confronted with obstacles. Some of those obstacles are physical but a vast majority, even if they seem physical, are mental. The normal person views “work” as something bad and associates it with suffering. Gordon Allport said, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” Martial artists are different people and so they can see past the immediateness of work and embrace its toil because they understand its meaning in their self-development. At different stages and levels of ability, the work is different, but the perspective is all the same. Kendo legend, Moriji Mochida said, “It took my body 50 years to learn the basics of Kendo. After I reached 50, that is when the real training began. This is because I finally started to practice Kendo with my mind and heart. When you reach the age of 60, your legs and hips will weaken. You will learn to conquer this weakness with your mind and heart.” Understanding this, every obstacle which we face is the Way. The martial arts are a labor of love where each of us, master and beginner alike, must put in the work but we don’t see it as work. Every person has to work, but not every person sees it as suffering. A martial artist sees it as a labor of love and so it never feels like work.
Today’s goal: Can you make everything that you do a labor of love?