Kotsu Kotsu

Recently I heard that a colleague had had bad year. Her boyfriend broke up with her, she lost her job, and on the day in question, her sweet, loving dog bit her in the face. Now, while all these are things no one wants to have happen, I was interested that she grouped them together to define the year as a bad one. We construct entire landscapes of self image and judgment, based on some pretty insubstantial evidence! Finding some quiet time to be mindful of inner thoughts can really help illuminate this. It's astounding how many of our simple thoughts or even feelings in the body are accompanied by a judgment or an emotion. Wow. My brain just seems hard-wired to calculate, measure, and compare me to others, and to make predictions about the future based on my calculations and comparisons. That would be fine if the predictions were useful, but, frankly, most of them are not. By the time I'm consciously aware of these thoughts, they seem inevitable or given, for example: ...

When I meditate, it's pretty hard to keep from getting lost in my thoughts. One thing that helps a lot is to try very hard to just listen . I imagine that there's some very subtle sound I'm trying to hear, just barely at the limit of my ability to hear it. Sometimes I can become very aware and attentive. It struck me that this is a great thing to practice in general. So often, when playing music with others, or by myself, I'm generating thoughts, judgments, desires, remembering what just happened. It would be so much better if I could just listen. In my conversations with others, I've found I do the same thing: I start to generate a reply, or a judgment, or a reference, and suddenly I'm not listening anymore.  I think the analogy extends easily to the martial arts, but in a more metaphoric way, in that I can learn to be more attentive to what is happening with the other person, instead of myself. It's not easy, but maybe with practice, I'll ge...

Some time ago I read a really great book called "Thank You and Okay: Diary of an American Zen Failure in Japan" by David Chadwick . It's mostly about him spending time in Japanese monasteries and the culture shock that ensued. Chadwick's writing is simultaneously humble and hilarious, with lots of food for thought. In the first chapter he describes the difficulty of waking up to the alarm clock at 3:45 for morning zen service. Groggy and warm, the idea of staying in bed was inviting. But he remembered his teacher Shunryu Suzuki's advice: "When the bell rings, get up." Short-circuit the grumbling mind, and do . There's lots of things I know I should do, but I just don't want to get started. Meditation, exercise, practice. (Why do so many of these involve getting up early???)  How to get started? Just start! Very good advice. Even so, sometimes I just collapse back into bed.

Aikido students often ask me what they can do when they are away from Rutgers for the summer and they can't find a nearby Kokikai dojo to practice in. Koichi Tohei taught that the practice of aikido technique was just one of five disciplines or aspects of practice, which include: Aikido Technique Ki Exercises Kiatsu  Breathing Practice Meditation Maruyama Sensei was Tohei's student until he founded Kokikai Aikido, and many of the concepts in Kokikai Aikido have roots in Tohei Sensei’s teaching. I tell students that if they can't come to the dojo for an extended period of time, they can take part in any practice that will help them develop awareness of their bodies, increase their ability to relax while they are engaging in effortful activities, focus on one point and balance. This might include attentive practice of sports, music, yoga, and/or one of the activities listed above. 

What if, just for a moment, you imagined that everyone in the world was actually part of you? Maybe some part of your psyche, that you had perhaps neglected or forgotten, to a greater or lesser degree. Let yourself explore this thought, ranging over the people in your life, the ones you care for and the ones you don't, the ones you know better and less well, the ones you find approachable or difficult, weird, stupid, wise, frightening, thinking of them as a part of yourself, therefore worthy of your forgiveness and compassion. If, as in this little thought experiment, we approached all other humans as if they were a neglected part of ourselves, think how the world would change!

I was raped. I have osteopoenia. I didn't go to college. I love puppies. My back always hurts. I'm an athlete. I hate math. I have beautiful breasts. I walk funny. I always wanted to learn a musical instrument. I am creative. I'm the friendly one. Nobody ever notices me. I'm the greatest martial artist. I hate parties. I love teaching. I am suspicious. My mother loves me best. I'm a slow learner. I'm strong. I'm clumsy. I'm getting old. I'm a liberal. I'm a Marine. I'm a mother. I'm American. I'm gay. I'm female. These are thoughts. No matter how often we think them, they are not who we are. No matter how deeply held, our beliefs are not our essence. You are so much more than your thoughts and beliefs. Can you grow beyond them?

A fascinating episode of Radiolab is called  Words . The question examined is: what do words do for us, and can we live without them? Most mindfulness and meditation practice focuses on the benefits of stilling the constant chatter of the mind, and yet anyone who has tried knows that this doesn't come easily! My brain gushes words at all times.  Even as I go to sleep, nonsensical phrases blurt into my brain. What would life be without this constant flow of comparisons, associations, self-criticism, self-adulation, fears and anticipation? I'm sure that without words I would be more invested in the present moment, more able to relax and interact with people around me. I was therefore fascinated by two stories in the  show  that are about people who had the experience of being without language. The first is a deaf man who had never learned sign language, or any kind of language for that matter, until the age of 27. Until he was an adult he had never known tha...

Leon Brooks Sensei (L) - Shuji Maruyama Sensei (R) Maruyama Sensei has pushed Brooks Sensei's bokken aside and is completing the thrust. This is a lovely word I read today. It made me think about several things at once. The first was: the way we react to thoughts that arise during meditation. The mind has been likened to wild horses because of the difficulty of "reining in" these thoughts. A better way to bring about equipoise is the practice of noticing the thoughts and then gently guiding the attention back to the breath or other focus point. The second thing I thought of was: a sword technique we practice in aikido . Please bear with me while I describe it - it's a simple practice but hard to explain in words. Two people face each other holding bokken (wooden practice swords). The swords are held diagonally across the body and the opponents' swords are crossed, with each person applying some pressure. This is in effect a standstill. But theoreticall...

Gil Fronsdal , in one of his online dharma talks , (I'm not sure, maybe this one ) spoke about the power of subtle thoughts. He described how, in the early days of his practice of meditation, he became interested in the idea of "falling in love." Because his meditation practice involved noticing the thoughts that came into his mind, he was able to distinguish a point when his thoughts about someone changed, when he thought, "Ah, this woman has such and such qualities. I could be in love with her." It was after that decision that he began the process of "falling in love." Many forms of meditation practice (including traditions such as Zen, Vipassana and others) involve mindfulness or "noticing" of the types of thoughts that come to mind as we sit. Many people find as they practice in this way that they are gradually more able to distinguish these subtle thoughts. This can lead to a sense of having more power or control over one's life, ...