Homage to the gurus…
Our job isn’t to find more techniques and tactics, nor is it to find magnitudes, and directions, nor is it to justify or claim, nor is it to compete and gain… it is beyond polish, it is to forge, and in that forge, that great fire of keiko, impurities arise to the surface in relative safety, and under the master’s guide, these are removed with the mastery of heat, fuel, and wind meeting material, anvil, and hammer. All mediums fall in service of awakening, and accomplishment will demonstrate beyond self, beyond other, beyond we, beyond they…
And what is it that this forge is built for? What is this divine space called dojo? What is this shrine on one and a half foot square? To invite the divine, and the earth, together, and having shared in that work, live in real harmony, in appreciation, in kindness, in love, and compassion. Not a false one, a real one, and not being destined to the six realms, gone beyond, offering a way beyond suffering. Happiness, true happiness.
“Must[ing] making more spirit!” – 五月女貢師範
Finding this spirit is not resolved by technique, nor tactic, yet once found, technique and tactic emerge in a continual flow. Train to test? No. Train to demonstrate? No. Train to give? Yes. To receive another, to care for another, to truly love as one is loved?
This is aiki.
So now the jazz plays, the strings move, the sounds emanate, the piano plays. Great movements abound. Jazz Noir, even in the midst, of the battlefields and respites of samsara.
In suchness.
