"In order to be happy, we must first possess inner contentment; and inner contentment doesn’t come from having all we want, but rather from wanting, appreciating, and being grateful for all we have."
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The best Aikidoists embrace appreciation, recognizing it as the difference between perspective and perception, and understand that it is at the core of contentment.
When I was a student, one of the few life lessons that Furuya Sensei gave me was, "You need to learn appreciation." As a willful teenager, I thought that Furuya Sensei was talking about me appreciating him and that I should be more subservient to him. Now, I understand that perhaps what he was talking about was the difference between perspective and perception.
Perception is self-centered and has to do with how we interpret the world that is spinning around us. Perspective is the ability to view the world outside of ourselves and see things as being parts of a whole. It is very hard to appreciate things and people when we can only see them from our own limited perception, which is the definition of self-centeredness.
In Aikido, many things are metaphoric. For instance, we neutralize people’s attacks with movement. As we move in, we align our bodies with theirs. This alignment is what enables us “to use their power against them,” as we are so fond of talking about when we explain Aikido in a bar to the uninitiated. However, at the same time, we are unknowingly teaching ourselves something called perspective taking. Perspective taking is “the act of perceiving a situation or understanding a concept from an alternative point of view, such as that of another individual.” The shift in perspective that we have goes from seeing that other person as our enemy who is trying to hurt us to moving in and metaphorically seeing what they see and realizing that they are just human beings who are suffering and are in need of compassion rather than destruction. Thus, we move from our own self-centered perception to taking their perspective and gaining empathy.
The Japanese have this concept called mono no aware (物の哀れ), which directly translates as “the pathos of things.” It has to do with impermanence and the understanding that all things will die, break, or fade away. Pathos means “sadness,” but it is more of an appreciation rather than a sadness. Sad implies mourning the loss. Appreciation is the ability to fully enjoy something knowing that it will not last.
Appreciation is a form of awareness. Essentially, we must become aware of something in order to appreciate it. Aikido training circuitously teaches us this as we strive to master the techniques because the only way to master a technique is by becoming thoroughly aware of its details. Striving to master the technique and its details is the gateway to teaching ourselves appreciation.
I understand now what Furuya Sensei was saying when he admonished me about appreciation, as appreciation is the foundation of contentment. We cannot move forward and be content if we cannot change our perceptions and adopt the perspectives and appreciations for all that we have in life.
Today’s goal: Cultivate gratitude and empathy by shifting your perspectives, and appreciating life’s little moments.
Watch this video to better understand perspective vs perception