Retying Knots: Comments

Patrick Bouchaud on "Today's Quote"

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 02:16:01 -0700

If we remove the tautology from Voltaire's quote we get: those who can make you believe can make you commit atrocities. This teaches us that :

1. in our capability to believe lays our capability to commit atrocities

2. in our capability to make others believe we have the potential to make them commit atrocities

This raises the question of responsibility towards ourselves and towards our Shintaido students as, true, a good number of them will not come back unless we accept (at least temporarily) to play the role of a guru.

- Patrick Bouchaud

Bill Burtis on "Today's Quote"

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:57:02 -0700

I'd suggest spending some time without cultivating feelings of peacefulness or oneness -- or perhaps with people who don't.
And it may be true that young people, 15-17, would find Shintaido irrelevant. My experience with young people of that age is that they find little relevant anway.

- Bill Burtis

Patrick Bouchaud on "Today's Quote"

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:40:36 -0700

Hi David,

I struggle with that too: no later than last week my 14 years old son was summoned to decide upon his future profession so that his orientation at school could be decided.

I don't agree with this approach, but I tried to make him see that, even though he does probably not feel that way, at his age he is in the fantastic position of having all options opened, of really being able to become *whatever he wants* provided he just sets his mind to it. I exposed him to the following choices:

1. keep all options opened as long as possible - there is a clear path for that in the school curriculum (CH).

2. feel the wind of our modern society and embark on a curriculum that will maximize his future comfort and revenue (as a matter of fact, in terms of school this is almost the same choice as #1, but in addition that would require him to be more curious about what actually happens in various areas of the enterprise world)

3. feel the state of the world and decide where he could have the best chance to help - could be as humanitarian contributor (then medical field seems appropriate) or environment, or...

To my surprise and shock my son said: "I don't care about the world. I think it is rotten, everybody only wants money" - this with so brooding eyes that my heart winced.

I asked him how many of the people he knew actually "only cared for money". He admitted that none of them were like that. That side-tracked me a little bit in the direction of the effing medias and how easy it is to convince teenagers that this world is rotten, that there is nothing to do - or too much - except to hunt the girl with the biggest tits and buy the most performant car and whatever fantasies make these pop-stars earn your living. But you know all that. We've all been there.

Now I know he does care. Actually I know that he cares so much that it is better for him to not even consider taking a small part of responsibilities wrt the state of affairs in the world.

All this to say that I fully understand when you write : how can we convince others if "we ourselves are not living our lives in a way demonstrably committed to the ideals we ourselves aspire to"? I wish my son could just look at me and see The Way !

Let's let that pass... - and finally reach my point:

When you look at a tree, don't you feel that it is living in a way that is demonstrably committed to the ideals we all aspire to?

- Patrick Bouchaud

mt on "Today's Quote"

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 20:22:46 -0700

Here's a response from a source who wishes to remain anonymous:

... I guess arguing about whether Shintaido as a movement is trying hard enough to fix the world is, I think, to miss the point of Shintaido.

- mt

David Franklin on "Today's Quote"

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:32:04 -0700

At the risk of filling the blog with something that may not seem immediately relevant, here's an excerpt from playwright Harold Pinter's recent acceptance speech for the Nobel prize in literature:

"The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it.

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

"I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay..."

(Read the full text of Pinter's speech is at
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture-e.html )

So what's Shintaido got to do with it?

I'd suggest: one of the effects of Shintaido should be to make our bullshit detectors function better. And if this is true, it has political implications. I hope we in the Shintaido community have the courage to ask ourselves, as people in some political movements with spiritual orientations do, questions like these:

What meaning does it have if we cultivate feelings of peacefulness in keiko, but pay taxes to support a military dictatorship every April?

What meaning does it have if we feel oneness with nature in keiko, but get back in our gas-guzzlers to drive home afterwards?

I don't want to sound holier-than-thou. I'm asking myself, too.

But I will say something a little pointed, which relates to the SOA marketing effort: if I were a young person these days (ie., 17-15), looking for some activity, some community, some movement that looked like it was even trying to address the burning questions and longings that I felt most important to inner self and the larger society -- I doubt I'd waste my time with Shintaido. I'd possibly think it was irrelevant.

I struggle with this almost every day. I don't mean that we should try to be "topically relevant." To be honest, the Taimyo Network is not my cup of tea. But it might be that we are not attracting many new members because we ourselves are not living our lives in a way demonstrably committed to the ideals we ourselves aspire to.

- David Franklin

mt on "Two quotations"

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 09:06:54 -0700

Use the middle one.

- mt

Patrick Bouchaud on "Two quotations"

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 02:55:12 -0700

When we cut our finger what remains of the moon?

- Patrick Bouchaud

mt on "Two quotations"

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:08:52 -0700

Here's another quote from the Thich Nhat Hanh book:

"In the teaching of the Buddha, faith is made of a substance called insight or direct experience. When a teacher knows something, he or she wants to transmit that to disciples. But she cannot transmit the experience, only the idea. The disciple has to work through it by himself. The problem is not to communicate the experience in terms of ideas or notions. The issue is how to help the disciple go through the same kind of experience."

Which is another way of stating the old Zen saw about not confusing the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself.

- mt

Patrick Bouchaud on "Two quotations"

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 11:06:56 -0700

Depends on what you mean by Shintaido 'philosophy'.

In terms of ultimate goal I do not think Shintaido has anything new to say compared to existing religions. I do not even think any religion says anything fundamentally different from the others.

But each has a different way to say it, different 'vehicles' that lead to the same ultimate realization - namely that along with the attitude of going towards instead of away from what disturbs you most, 'something' else develops and starts shining through.

Shintaido's 'vehicle' is the body.

Maybe this actually disqualifies Shintaido both as religion and philosophy, depending on what we take as a definition of these terms? Sure, we know that the creation of Shintaido as a 'new body way' was (at least partially) driven by spiritual concerns, and we Shintaido practitioners have experienced that Shintaido's practice leads to spiritual realizations, and that the 'something else' mentioned above develops and starts shining through (or so we think). But should we not see this as a consequence almost secondary to the sake of Shintaido as a form to be preserved?

So related to the topic of 'philosophy' my personal preference would be to stick to the practice and articulate fundamental, albeit practical, principles focused on guiding and supporting the practice.

If this is doable, then I have no doubt that the 'philosophy' will just shine through.

Otherwise, well : that's an interesting question, isn't it?

- Patrick Bouchaud

David Franklin on "Two quotations"

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 07:09:14 -0700

How about this one:

"I thirsted for rationality in religion, for the worship of truth, whatever and wherever that might be. There was no spectacle more painful for me than the sight of a conscientious and intelligent man defending an absurdity which even a child could see through, simply because it formed an article of his faith to which he must hold at any cost, even if that cost included the sacrifice of reason and truth.

"The conflicts and controversies going on between different faiths on the one side and between faith and philosophy on the other, made me wonder whether it would ever be possible to have a religion that possessed an appeal for all human beings, that would be as acceptable to the philosopher as to the peasant, and as welcome to the rationalist as to the priest."

- Gopi Krishna
Living with Kundalini, the Autobiography of Gopi Krishna
Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1993.

The author was born in 1903 and lived in northern India, a middle-class civil servant for most of his life. He was not a "professional" monk or guru and never lived in an ashram, but he started practicing meditation in late adolescence and supposedly had an authentic enlightenment/kundalini awakening. He never founded a school or attracted followers, though he did write several books.

For me, this quote is suggestive of what we hope Shintaido can be (though I'm not sure the word "religion" would still apply). I remember one time when Michael and I were on a beach near Boston with a guy named Bill Mock, who had practiced Shintaido years before at Hobart, doing some keiko. After Bill and I did Tenshingoso Dai to the ocean, Michael -- who was observing us from a distance, incognito -- overhead some bystanders commenting:

He: What the hell are they doing?
She: I dunno, must be some kind of religion or something.
He: Well I wish to hell they'd do it someplace else.

So while it seems we still have a long way to go, I'm optimistic that Shintaido has the potential to include a broad spectrum of people (note that as of this writing, the Shintaido of America Board is planning a marketing campaign). There have been a few intellectuals with public stature (who Gopi Krishna might call philosophers and rationalists) who have been impressed by Shintaido, for example authors Stanly Krippner and Alan Watts. I was told that Ito-sensei and Aoki-sensei met Alan Watts in the early seventies, and Watts witnessed a Shintaido demonstration at a conference of some kind. He was enthusiastic enough that he promised to help promote Shintaido (but unfortunately he died a short time later and the plans were never realized).

What can we extract from this that will help our keiko and our gorei? Gopi Krishna sees the religious or spiritual urge that the individual experiences as the result of larger forces, working simultaneously "from the inside" and "from the outside." In other words, there is both something we open ourselves to, to let it in, and something we are driven to express and release.

Clearly the movements of Shintaido are concrete examples of both. The question is, should we just do the kata and let them work on us, or is it more effective to make the verbal articulation of Shintaido philosophy (especially the aspect related to Tenshin etc.) part of the training method?

Pros and cons of explicit articulation of spiritual philosophy (in abbreviated form):

Cons:
Anything that smacks of "religion" is a turn-off for many people. Discussing aspects of spirituality beyond one's personal experience is dishonest and risks making one appear foolish or worse. Many people crave a (shallow) intellectual understanding, sometimes as a way to avoid the real (and sometimes quite physical) work of self-transformation -- therefore, it's better to stick to the kata, which should itself be sufficient.

Pros:
The philosophy is an intergral part of Shintaido. The original Rakutenkai members spent a lot of time studying philosophy and spiritual topics. The philosophy gives us a compass or litmus test to make sure we are doing the actual techniques correctly and not heading off on the wrong path. It helps us remember what the purpose of the techniques should be (beyond martial arts effectiveness or making our bodies healthy).

And now the key point (on the Pro side), inspired by a recent article in the New York Times science section about hypnosis:

Our reality is constructed according to our beliefs, which can be strongly influenced by what we consciously verbally articulate. (For example, people under hypnosis actually perceive different colors, according to the verbal instructions they are given. There is a physiological basis for this in the structure of the brain). Maybe if our conscious beliefs about Tenshin and the invisible world are not developed, it can prevent us from perceiving and experiencing those kinds of phenomena.

- David Franklin

David Franklin on "Yoga and "software""

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:50:01 -0700

Well-said, Patrick!

About the "Jewish karate": it was a school called "Tora Dojo" (a pun on Tora = "tiger" in Japanese, and Torah = the Old Testament). It was started by H.I. Sober, who is a professor of Aramaic language and ancient Middle Eastern history at Yeshiva University in NYC. As I remember, Sober grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where there's long been a Jewish neighborhood not far from Chinatown. He started studying Chinese martial arts seriously when he was about 13, so he is far from a Johnny-come-lately.

Yeshiva University is located in what is now "Spanish Harlem" (a heavily Puerto Rican area, with Cubans, Dominicans and other hispanic and non-hispanic people -- I think it was a Jewish neighborhood when the college was founded). A tough area by any standards, and you can easily imagine (given that some stereotypes, on some occasions, have a grain of truth) what dimensions "town-vs.-gown" friction assumed in that situation. When Sober's expertise became known, he was virtually coeerced into starting a martial arts class for the Yeshiva students.

He taught martial arts with a strong emphasis on practical applications. What was left out was anything remotely related to sports and tournaments. What was not left out was Chinese (Taoist/Confucianist), Japanese and Jewish philosophy. He didn't talk much about anything that could precisely be called "religious", but he did talk about Kabalah, and the philosophical similarities between Kabalah, Taoism, and other mystical or esoteric traditions. (PS, Aoki-sensei discusses his take on the significance of Kabalah in the on-line version of an upcoming Body Dialogue article).

So what made this style of Karate "Jewish"? Not the body movements. Sober had decided that Chinese martial arts were too sophisticated to give students anything of practical use in the street within the 4-year window of opportunity for most of them. Therefore the initial curriculum (up until 1-kyu I think) was based on Shotokan Karate. For those who stuck around and continued to study, they then progressed "backwards" through history, studying some Okinawan kata, and then the Chinese styles in which Sober was most expert. So it was somewhat eclectic, but one would have to say the "hardware" was completely East Asian in origin.

What made it Jewish were 3 factors:

1) the philosophical commentary and discussions that were often a part of the practices;

2) everyone in the school was ethnically Jewish (though many, like myself, lacked any religious education or upbringing), and the school offered classes in Jewish community centers;

3) there was a motivation (partly due to the historical closeness of WWII and the Holocaust for people of Sober's generation) to make the "Jewish people" physically, emotionally, and mentally stronger and more confident.

So I would say that in addition to the body movement ("hardware") and philosophy ("software"), there was also an element of identity politics.

I feel a great debt of gratitude to this school and all the people I met there and the knowledge they shared with me. I decided to leave for a few reasons -- one was, I didn't want to study techniques for damaging human bodies, no matter what system of ethics regulates their application. When I started to get some idea of what Shintaido is about, I felt that it truly represented an evolutionary development in martial arts uniquely suited to this era of history, and a more complete integration of the body movement and philosophy into a seamless whole. That is not to deny the continuing validity of older forms -- horseshoe crabs evolved into their current form hundreds of millions of years ago, and continue to live unchanged -- it just wasn't what I wanted.

- David Franklin

Trickpa Chaubdou on "Two quotations"

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 05:05:40 -0700

And the one million dollar question is: what is the difference between chaos and... a mess? Proposition: a mess is chaos turned into a religion.

This was supposed to be some kind of Jodan cut, a bit short I agree, but you were already there :) Now comes my tentative Shudan:

If I look around at nature and at other people I cannot see change. I mean: I do not see things changing. I only see them changed, or about to - but that I can only infer from the past. Hence all I can see of my life is a chaotic succession of still frames, about which I can either wonder - like a child seeing white rabbits pulled out of a giant hat by some hidden magician - or flip. Usually I will flip - I am even encouraged to do so by others and society, if not by nature. I will flip for things changing either too fast, or for them not changing fast enough. I will flip for all kinds of reasons, including for no reason, until at some point I get so tired of flipping that I decide or accept that there must be a reason not to flip. Since I cannot find this comforting reason around me I derive that my perceptions are limited, all happening on a so-called "horizontal" plane from which I can therefore derive a normal, which I call "vertical". Here we go again, but it is much simpler this time, for if I look beyond me at the unknown and unknowable source of all mysteries not only can I not see change, but by definition I cannot see anything. Of course I can just remove the "I" from the equation, and leave all responsibility and meaning to others, who will be all too happy to take it from there. The other alternative, since I cannot see, is to "imagine". I will therefore start building my own religion (or my own interpretation of the religion I have chosen) create my own "philosophy" that connects my chaotic succession of still frames together and make them flow one into the other. I gain a lot from this process, enlivening my life and, for a while at least, enjoying perfect freedom and responsibility, until at some point I get so tired of having to constantly reinvent and adjust my philosophy that I decide or accept that there must be a way not to fool myself any more. This is when I start actually looking *into* myself, first as the only place where I can "see" change and observe chaos, then...

Ready for your next Tenso - or did I miss the point?

- Trickpa Chaubdou

Patrick Bouchaud on "Thich Nhat Hanh"

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 06:36:24 -0700

Me again... So much to say about this image - and images in general. But let's keep it simple :)

In my view the relationship with self is not just a point, but a full axis of its own. This dimension, as a matter of fact, has acquired much more importance in our modern society than it used to have, as we are given (or forced to make) so many "choices" and have so little guidance about how to match them with our deepest aspirations. The power of Shintaido, I believe, is precisely to recognize this third dimension as such and help us take it into account in our everyday life. I remember Ito Sensei used to bring a hand made drawing to his workshops, representing such a "2D coordinate system" : The X axis went from "denying self" to "asserting self", the Y axis from "denying others" to "asserting others".

Took me a while until I thought of asking myself the question : where do I belong?

- Patrick Bouchaud

Patrick Bouchaud on "Yoga and "software""

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 03:31:37 -0700

Hi Michael Sensei!

Thanks a lot for bringing this article to our attention.

I find this article simultaneously interesting and irritating.

Irritating mainly because of the cheap journalistic metaphore : we are not computer artifacts.

Interesting because, by discussing the relationship between body work and religion, it asks the more fundamental question of the relationship between our body and the universe, and further between self and God.

As far as I know (which is very little) judeo-christianism promotes the idea that there is no fundamental relationship, that our body is just a temporary envelop that will go back to earth after we die, while our soul - the real stuff - will go somewhere else depending on some final moral evaluation of our deeds during this life. From these religions one get the image of God as some kind of supreme being standing behind the universe, just as our thoughts are supposed to stand behind our bodies, our selves behind our thoughts, and our souls behind our selves. And by "behind" we mean, unfortunately, "separate".

Whereas as far as I know (which is also very little) the Eastern point of view is that God *is* the Universe. And that our bodies, being parts of the universe, are living parts of God. Thereby body work is not just the oiling of mechanical parts with no incidence on our other parts : body work, for these religions, *is* a religious practice, whose purpose is to tune or enjoy the connection with the divine, through our bodies. The imagery and overall teachings of the religion remain applicable there as in any other domains and, more than that, help guide the practice.

What personally I don't quite see is how to take only one part - the physical exercise - of this very consistent system, without taking the whole thing with it!
It would seem to me a more appropriate approach for Western religions to develop their own set of exercises - provided their purpose is to add a body work branch to their spiritual practice - and, why not, inspiring themselves from other religions...

Maybe then not call it Yoga?

- Patrick Bouchaud

David Franklin on "Readings"

Sat, 08 Oct 2005 10:58:34 -0700

An interesting addendum to the discussion about "An End to Suffereing" -- this is an article about the new directions in psychology and the scientific study of happiness:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1793873_1,00.html

- David Franklin

mt on "And furthermore..."

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:21:52 -0700

That's a nice harvest for a little quote. I'll try to come up with another one.

BTW: I found a nice little philosophical primer while waiting for a plane connection in Amsterdam: "The Little Book of Philosophy" by André Comte-Sponville, published by Vintage. Like Aoki-sensei with various body movement disciplines, he mines the writings of the major Western philosophers to present their essential positions on various "biggies" such as love, morality, death, God, atheism, etc. I especially appreciated what he has to say about atheism.

- mt

Mike on "And furthermore..."

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 00:24:37 -0700

"I believe that television is going to be the test of the modern world, and in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our own vision, we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television, of that I am sure."

E.B. White, 1938

There's another bit in there about the days before television when people looked about themselves and were generally happy, and how now they peer beyond the oceans and are filled with unutterable sadness. For some reason nobody ever quotes that part. Not that I think television has that powerful an effect these days, but what I'm trying to address is the feeling of having a lot on your plate that you can't do a damn thing about. As for religious fundamentalism/dogmatism, we often wonder if it's authentic. The guy that puts on the jacket and blows himself up obviously has strong feelings about something. But someone who's just repeating talking points about the sanctity of this or that might have other motivations. Having said that, (which is short for 'I just said that, now I'm going to say something else') I agree that it is one of the big koans of our times.

- Mike

David Franklin on "Recommended reading"

Sun, 26 Jun 2005 07:51:05 -0700

I took the plunge ( Amazon delivers to the Czech Republic) -- this is a really excellent book. It's so well-written and traverses such a wide range of viewpoints so naturally, I'm even thinking of suggesting it to my father, and thinking he would enjoy it -- one of the last people you'd expect to have any interest in "Buddhism". But this book is about much more than just Buddhism or the life of the Buddha himself.

- David Franklin

pb on "Recommended reading"

Mon, 30 May 2005 05:50:48 -0700

Isn't necessity what stands between dogma and free will?

I believe the Nietzchean dictum applies in times when the "map" (dogma) totally occlude the underlying "territory" (reality). Hence the 'license' to tear it all apart, all preconception, rules and dogma, shake the whole thing to reconnect with sheer necessity (e.g. the real limits of our body).

Then, ultimately, we create a new map (since it appears we can't do without), until...

God is dead! Long live to God!

- pb

Michael De-Campo on "Translation"

Tue, 10 May 2005 05:58:53 -0700

Yes, it would be really useful to have a kind of written guide that gave a broad enough overview of Shintaido's principles, values, philosophy & more.
I remember when I first received the Shintaido, new art of movement and life expression, book in June of 1982. I read it 3 times, was deeply moved by a few of the photos, and greatly inspired by the freshness of thought of Aoki Sensei.
I tried to copy and practice the forms.
Than Alex and Vera came from Japan and we practiced keiko. The actual, real practice was beyond my imagination. I thought I caught the feel and mood of Shintaido through the book. But nothing could have prepared me for the actual keiko. It blew my worldview wide open, and has not stopped since that first day.
So, yes let's put together some remarkable writings, but remember that it can only be a mere shimmer of what the keiko is (and I am one generation removed from the broken koshi keiko-nin, so I can't even imagine what that world may have been like!).
Cheers
Michael De-Campo

- Michael De-Campo