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Category Archives: Shin-kokyu
O’Sensei no kuden: Shin-Kokyu
Through these simple movements, the human spirit, rising upwards, becomes empty of all desires and of all fear, and, becoming like an unexposed photographic plate, it becomes capable of registering directly – in a non-discursive manner – ‘reality’.
– – – translated (and possibly paraphrased in translation) by Itsuo Tsuda, recorded by André Nocquet Shihan in his Hombu training diary, 1955-57. Published in Maître Morihei Ueshiba: présence et message
p. 236
Posted in Kuden (O'Sensei), Shin-kokyu, Translations
O’Sensei no kuden: Shin-Kokyu(2)
Every morning, you must put your heart in the right place, when you set your foot on the floor: turn it towards the kami of creation, and offer it to everyone around you…
– – – translated (and possibly paraphrased in translation) by Itsuo Tsuda, recorded by André Nocquet Shihan in his Hombu training diary, 1955-57. Published in Maître Morihei Ueshiba: présence et message p.276
Posted in Kuden (O'Sensei), Shin-kokyu, Translations
When you inhale your breath…
When you inhale your breath, this is not only about physically drawing in air: you are absorbing the entirety of everything that is in your hara. And so you should feel that you are breathing in the ki of the original, creating kami. And this, if we are going to talk about our community and the world, is you, yourself, being absorbed into the natural universe, so that – as we say – you can purify and make bright our community and the world with the ki of the kami.
– – – O’Sensei, Aiki-Shinzui, p.14
Posted in Shin-kokyu, Translations
“Every time I train…”
When we say ‘Ame-no-Murakumo’, it is as if we are saying: ‘the ki of the [natural] universe’, ‘the ki of Onogoro-jima [ – the earth]’, ‘the ki of the A-Um uttered by trees and the myriad beings of all creation’ pierced through and through by the ki of your own spirit becoming utterly one with them to create total musubi – – – – – – – . This is the divine sword, the tsurugi Ame-no-Murakumo. It is as if you are becoming the root and cause of every possible activity and power of the divine sword, going back to ancient times.
As for me, every time I train, the first thing I do [is perform okorobi ] in the place I am standing. And by my footfall on the platform of the heavens and the platform of the earth, it is as if the founders of my spiritual lineage and the founders of my physical lineage are bursting out of the underworld right where my left foot hits the ground. And through their help I am expanding the boundaries of my ki – taking on the shape of Kuni-Toko-Tachi[-no-Mikoto] – to the farthest bounds of the [natural] universe.
– – – O’Sensei, probably audio-recorded by by Masatake Fujita, transcribed by Sadateru Arikawa Shihan, published in Aiki-Shinzui, pp. 145-6
Posted in Shin-kokyu, Translations
“A-um” is the name of the Buddha…
Munen mushin is the name of the Buddha. When you open your mouth wide [to breath], you say ‘na’ and when you close your mouth while expelling air, you say ‘mu’; and next, when you open your mouth you say ‘a’, when you close it, ‘mi’, when you open it again, you say ‘da’ and when you close it again, you say ‘butsu’. In this way, breathing out and breathing in three times are the same as the Buddhist invocation “Namu Amida butsu” [and is also] symbolic of the lettres a and um [=om]. The sound ‘a’ is produced when you open your mouth, and the sound ‘um’ when you have it closed. So one can say that when your mind is empty – ‘munen mushin‘ – [because you are still naturally breathing in and out]
you are continuously repeating the name of the Buddha, even when you are not pronouncing it out loud…
– – – Takuan Soho, in the Kitsuhyoushu, cited in Le jeu des energies réspiratoires, gestuelles et sonores dans la pratique de l’aikido, J.-D Cauhépé and A. Kuang, pp.223-4
Posted in Shin-kokyu, Translations
…Shin-Kokyu in 1955-58 …
EXERCISE FOR CONCENTRATING ON THE ONE-POINT AND FOR KI-FLOW
[ – – – from André Nocquet Shihan’s Hombu/Iwama notes? – – -]
1) Join the two hands, palms together, both in the shape of the Sword mudra 1), level with your heart, then extend them, while raising your thoughts, to the Polar star…
2) Turn them back to back and direct them [in an outward circle] towards the Center of the Earth, passing by the Heart, where they deposit the Heavenly Yang energy, the energy of Love…
3) [Hands moving down towards the ground,] visit your own “Earth” before reaching the centre of the Earthly sphere…
4) Re-visit your own “Earth of Saturn” while drawing back your two sword-hands [ – te-gatana – ] to the level of the one-Point, into which they deposit earthly Yin, the energy of Transcendence…
5) Direct them [index-fingers extended, or formed in the Chinkon mudra, out] in front of you and extend your thoughts towards the infinite…
6) Return – in the same rhythm – to the cardiac Center, then…
7) Simultaneously direct them in opposite [cardinal] directions AND extend your thoughts ad infinitum…
8) Bring the “complementary opposites” back towards your Heart in such a way as to realize their joined-ness… [re-forming the same mudra]
9) [Without moving your hands, ] lead your mental Ki again towards the Centrum in order to realize a new interior [mental] visit…
10) Continue this descent towards the Center of the Earth…
11) Come back up again then raise your Ki, from the base of your feet (R.1 [-the Bubbling Well] ) to the top of your head (DM. 20) in order to revisit again your own “Earth”, before you…
12) Come once again, [moving your hands] axially, to the Polar [star as in 1)]…
This practice finishes with [otakebi/okorobi,] the gesture[s] that allow one to affirm Intention – Yi – in the one-Point.
In addition to focusing on your Centrum, emphasis should be put on the Belt Meridian – Daimai – which has these functions:
a) To allow the exchange and union of Yin and Yang energies, to link the High and the Low, by means of the Yinweimei and Yangweimei at the level of Spleen-points 13, 14 and 15, V.B. 25,26,27 and 28, the Renmai and Dumai in Conception Vessel 5 and Governing Vessel 4, Kidney R.11 to 16 and Channel 52 [in other words: around the hara].
b) To concentrate, direct and project Ki all the time while still maintaining [one-]Point.
– – – J-D. Cauhépé and A. Kuang, Shobu aïki. La victoire selon l’art chevaleresque de Morihei Ueshiba, pp. 174-5
1) probably not truly two sword mudras – but rather: hands clasped with index fingers extended, OR, MOST LIKELY, 
the Chinkon mudra, as in this photograph of O’Sensei – middle-fingers through little-fingers interlocking with right fingers over left – and one variation of the Chinkon mudra being both thumbs laying side by side…
Posted in Shin-kokyu, Translations
“…the feeling of Zen of sitting calmly in the mountains…”
– – – by Koichi Tohei Shihan
“After that, [I] practiced AIKIDO with [my] whole heart and mind, still continuing to practice Zen and Breathing, and [I] finally mastered the art of concentrating [my] thought on [my] lower abdomen.
“In AIKIDO, unless one learns this art, one can be thrown very easily. Concentration on the lower abdomen, then, is the primary art. Since all AIKIDO arts are based on reason, [I] could practice them and simultaneously continue the feeling of Zen of sitting calmly in the mountains…
in Aikido the Arts of Self-Defense, p.174
Posted in Shin-kokyu
…MWASILA magic and SHIN-KOKYU…
These visualizations from the Kula exchange tradition are a great complement to the Shingon-style placing of your heart and mind out in the Heavens, before the Evening Star…
* – * – *
“MWASILA is the magic…will give you a shining presence….
“The physical cleaning, the magic with washing and with the oil is always done at dawn, if possible at a spring. There is always a small spring that runs from the sand on the beach.
“The actual words of the magic are, ‘I am the mountain, I am the earth, I am the tree.’ From the hair to the toe nails you name every part of you and recite in poetic form ‘That is the mountain’, ‘That is the sea’, That is the earth’ and ‘That is the tree’. Then, immediately, you are no longer yourself. You are all in tune with everything. This enables the masters to create rainbows before their arrival so people get the signal. And they know that the masters have created them, the half rainbows, not full rainbows, always half rainbows. Full rainbows are natural features of the weather; directed they are half.
“Morning and evening are the most conducive times to reach for the qualities within oneself. Why is that so? It is quite simple: at those times you actually experience c r e a t i o n taking place from one minute to another. Once the sun is in the z e n i t h , everything appears to be more static. The strongest angle of power is at the beginning and at the end of a day, at sunrise and sunset. There you are confronted with the range of change that takes place in nature, stark and vivid. Those are the times to carry out mwasila….
“Mwasila is like washing yourself before you sail, or on arrival. At a new dawn, you cleanse yourself of pettiness and the weight you carry on your mind. Then you can see the pointers towards the strong and good points of the day ahead. Every day, in the fantastic colours of sunrise and sunset, nature provides for creative renewal.
“You can see where your [Kula] partner lies, the colours and shading of your situation. You see the distances and that there will be dangers. You are on a unique journey and exist to the fullest in your environment. It is the ritual preparation and the magic of mwasila that makes you completely one with everything around.
“When the masters prepare the oil for the crew and everybody to wash, they repeat this: they name their own name, then, ‘My hair is the mountain, my forehead is the mountain, my eyes are the mountain, my mouth is the mountain, my nose is the mountain, my ears are the mountain, my neck, shoulders, arms, elbows, hands, fingers’ – you name every part of your body.
“Then you go through a process: you are the clouds, the breeze, the sea, the trees – everything around.
“Those r e p e t i t i o n s open you up immediately. All parts of the body tune in, communicate with the environment and heighten your perception. With this perception each motion, every step you take is also the movement of the mountain, the wind, the sea that you have made yourself one with. That makes you aware of responsibilities, that you are not moving alone. You cause all sorts of reactions, from the mountain, the clouds and the trees.
“This preparation at dawn makes you compulsively creative. You are more than awake – you are a l i v e .”
* – * – *
JM: “What will I have to do to get MWASILA, John?”
JK: “Okay, this morning I will introduce you to the technique which you will practise in the coming weeks: to glow, and to express mwasila to your [Kula] partner, you use the total environment around you. It will communicate and speak for you, speak your mind, as it were, rather than you yourself.
“In order to achieve this, you must become the environment. The technique is simple: you will have to get up at sunrise and recite. You will find a good site, at the sea or where you can see the mountains. You settle there in a comfortable position and project yourself to those things that you will be in empathy with.
“Then you compose your own formula. You start with your hair and go through every part of your body, down to the toes. You take one feature of the environment, for example a prominent mountain like Mount Bwebweso. That’s where all the dead spirits of that area go, like Tuma Island in the Trobriands.
“You must name about twenty or thirty parts of your body. Your mind will take this part away from you and make it a part of the mountain, or the earth, the clouds, and so on.
“Putting this ritual into a set formula is the method of breaking the barriers of conscious mind control, the limiting factor that causes us to think that we are complete and isolated within ourselves. That is the first problem to overcome. You must merge with the whole environment.
“Communal mwasila is prepared in the evening and in the morning by the toliwaga, the master of the canoe. The evening before sailing, the toliwaga spreads out the coconut and puts it into special leaves. With the shredded coconut, he casts the communal personality into that parcel. That is for everyone that goes with him.
“At dawn, everyone in the crew of his canoe uses that oil to wash. The spell, the concentration, is already in the oil, and that effects everybody. Individual mwasila is never given, it is achieved, and then enhanced by the communal mwasila. Then you are a power unto yourself, a power that people will feel, see and react to.
“The secret and the irony comes from the fact you, yourself, become powerless. You are now a part of the whole environment. Even though you are conscious that you are a separate individual, you are that no longer. That is why you have to prepare yourself and learn to let go of every part of your body, put it into a formula.
“Then you visualise yourself as the mountain, see yourself as the sky, make yourself into the tree, everything that is around. If you follow that exercise formula for half an hour every day, it will be an excellent preparation [for the coming Kula voyage]. The quality of your experience follows automatically…. Your perception will be heightened, your intake widened and finely tuned. The actual Kula is [not the simple exchange of mwali and soulava, but] the entire awareness of whatever you touch or do during the hours of the day…”
– – – Chief John Kasaipwalova
– – – in Kula, Jutta Malnic, pp.49-51, 54-56
Posted in Shin-kokyu