April 2021 Letter
Texts / April 21, 2021
The path we are following together is not subject to material conditions. Certainly, these influence our way of practicing, but, even kept away from dojos, we are nonetheless budoka, that is to say individuals engaged in a process of evolution that is not limited to to bodywork.
A budoka knows where he is going, where he should go, where he should not go. Every day is a time of practice, every place that you go to, that you pass through, a dojo.
Your budoka soul is strong. It lives in each of your actions, in each of your relationships. You are never afraid, tomorrow is only made of happy prospects, your entourage is never a threat, you do not know your enemy.
You know how to mobilize your energy. Faced with an adversity presenting an imminent risk, you know how to explode your energy. In the face of a persistent adversary, you are able to maintain your flow of energy, constantly, with infinite perseverance.
No matter what problem you have, you have that kime strength that lets you decide what to fight, how to fight, what to fight.
The opposition freezes us, imposes its rules on us. But you, aikidoka, are trained to think beyond the ordinary framework. You know how to redirect any conflict situation towards the framework imposed by the universal rule, the one which means that nothing can be opposed to anything because everything belongs to one world, everything belongs to each other. You are armed to understand that any trial is an opportunity for interior growth, that it only makes sense through the victory to which it leads.
Your fighting spirit needs you to bring your heart closer to that of the opponent to understand the meaning of the fight to be waged, that is to say to understand it. When the adversary is the one we know now, invisible and without sensitivity and therefore necessarily without compassion, it is with yourself that you must come closer. It is inside, in the biological depth that the fight is waged.
By introducing this dimension, life or death, this virus brings back a fundamental questioning:
What meaning does my design have? Who am I in this biological dimension? What destiny have I unconsciously chosen? How can I redesign myself since everything that calls my life into question requires this renewal of my conception?
A budoka has no doubts about his legitimacy as a being. You can answer all of these questions because the practice has given you access to your soul and this is where the answers lie.
This does not mean that you should neglect the recommendations in force. Be cautious without giving in to fear. This is a poison for the conscience which forbids you to answer the essential and existential question.
A budoka never commits recklessness, and in particular he never commits that of challenging life. But the worst recklessness, the one that leads irreparably to defeat, is to move away from oneself, to which fear condemns.
Ki no nagare should never stop or even slow down. The kime must always be present, a quiet force, a bastion of consciousness. And you know how to explode it if necessary, as a volcanic eruption puts the environment back to its starting point to fertilize it again, to bring it back to life. On Etna, when the endemic broom of the volcano (Genista aetnensis) persists the lava flows, the birds immediately return and all the flora restart.
This period of inactivity will end and we have worked hard enough on our ability to hold on, to resist, to last so that we do not need to wonder when.
We will know how to hold out until the end, and in the meantime, invent different ways of working and you will be the first to cross the lava.
Cognard Hanshi
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