– – – by Takeharu Yoshi Renshi
So, thinking about Ame-no-Ukihashi, or Wuji… we were talking about O’Sensei describing that feeling: that life force feeling… right?
So…
In order to really enjoy something you have to allow yourself to reside in a sort of a stable place. You have to kind of let yourself into the place and be there. And because you’ve been programmed by this society to constantly move, move, move… and pay, pay, pay. Every little thing, is like some middle-man has to extract from you. So you’ve been conditioned this way. So now you’re going to free yourself.
So… part of it is this kind of yi. Being able to have a very stable enjoyment of something. And not need to move on. So the restless quality…
…you can use the restless quality to be creative. In a really profound way, like artists… It’s a very restless quality, but when it’s held a certain way it becomes very focused. Creativity is a very deep form of focus with a kind of rolling, perpetuating sense to it.
So… if you feel yourself. Just take your yi, and just feel yourself. Don’t judge yourself in anyway. Feel the energy that you are.
Just feel it. Be with it. Don’t shoot ahead to a better place…
This thing you’re feeling is with you as long as you exist. It never changes in its basic state. It may be more rapid.. But that is like: a glass of water can be frozen or rippling or steaming… but remains basically water. So feel yourself existing. Don’t judge it and look for a better one or worse one. Just feel that you exist.
This is the body of existence itself.
If you kind of hang out here a while, you can take the yi that you have here and connect it to the universal yi. There’s an energy body of you, that’s all the energy in all the universes that ever will be, doing exactly what you are doing right now. They are being. They are being just so.
Isn’t this the thing that you long to bask in? Let’s do it.
Just be there.
Just be that way.
And just like discovering this body that being-ness has hands and feet and a heart. You just have to stay present and just keep feeling it.
Don’t give it a job or judge it or want it to be better or categorize it. Stop categorizing your existence. It doesn’t make you wiser.
This presence you’re feeling is also kokyu.
I think that you deserve to have lots of moments of this every day. Where you just stop… feel your existing. So when you have a real connection to someone a kind of intimacy to someone that’s really deep… it’s this part of you and that part of them blending together. It doesn’t require actions, but it can have actions… it is not required.
Often when I try to help people, I ask them if they’ve ever been willing to be intimate with another being. I don’t care what it is: a dog, a chicken… it does not matter. Most people say they don’t know how.
Feel this part of you. When you get past all the noise and all the smoke and mirrors: this is you. This is what you actually offer people.
As if you could see what your true nature is in the mirror: it’s this, underneath all the other stuff: the sad face, the happy face, all the faces: it’s this thing And that’s the part of you I love so much: your presence, your existence… right?
From there you don’t need to prove anything, do you. Or push back at me. Or require anything.
So… this is your soul This is the strong underlying current of you.
O’Sensei suggested you live here. And he began to create the necessary structures for you, that allow you to be free to keep doing this and doing this until it’s permanently who you are. And when you put on a mask and you dance around you know you’re doing it. It’s fun. You realize you put your yi a certain way. Which is fine. Sometimes you need to.
Particularly if you have a particular job you’ve got to do. It’s the kind of thing you do.
This would be ‘position’, wouldn’t it?
So, have you ever just let yourself bask in the condition of existence? As the true gift you were given. It’s the only actual true gift you were given: existence itself.
Put your yi there.
When you do it, you all look very radiant and beautiful. It’s quite interesting. You dissolve all the other little yi‘s you have.
Now, it’s been suggested that the ability to dissolve into this, lots, allows you to connect to the universal yi: the direction the universe is moving so you can move with it. So true aiki would be this.
Whether it be in combat or art or sleeping, whatever it is, it’s this.
So I find that beings who will do this a bit no longer struggle with self-esteem or all that. They don’t need to be prouder or to fix something. They just are present. They realize they are giving every bit of themselves that they have: because they now know who they are. And so then your relationships with other beings are very direct and real and true.
It cuts out the middle man: the great delusion.
And you have to ask yourself: “what little bit of my yi thinks this is not true or real or what I can be…?” “Or not enough…” How about that: “I am not enough, coming from my soul…” ?
You are.
Most people, that’s all they truly wish from you. Unless they think you are an illusion: an extra in their movie. Which is a little pissy. You know… an unpaid extra… it’s really not my best job.
So when you’re doing uke/nage I want you to put your yi in this condition: feeling your life force. Get used to the idea of coming from this deep place.
This isn’t sucking is it? It’s kind of tender and powerful at the same time.
And if you had to encounter another being, the only two beings hanging out on some island somewhere, wouldn’t you rather be this way? Instead of strategizing every moment? It would happen. It would happen simply because there’s just no energy for the other crap.
I was told this is a cure for all ailments.
In the last moments of your human existence, won’t you be here?
So… sometimes they say: “you should live as if dead”. It’s not a negative statement. It’s like: “Be that being at the last moment. Be authentic the whole time.” Authentic isn’t blurting out every Tourette’s-based truth you have going on. It’s this. It’s this pure being.
You figure if you encounter someone who is in this place, you will not be having the same experience you normally have. You will be slow to anger.
This is the cure for anger, actually.
No big deal, no exalted specialness either, is there? It’s what you’ve always been. It’s just stopping and like: “I need to do… whoo…. I need to get back to my base root self. What the heck! Life got complicated and I went shooting off in some fun-house… some tricky fun-house-distorted-mirror world…”
So, when you’re doing your kata, just keep tuning back into this.
Put your yi in this.
Often we get a little performance anxiety… so I will tell you I did take a sneak peak at you all doing one to twelve, and you did great. Sorry. I had to check.
Okay, Barry… ready? Do whatever you feel good doing. Twelve moves, or fifty or a hundred or make up your own… They’re going to do what…?
Whatever you do, they’re going to follow you. That’s aiki.