The Art of Peace

[rev0s]

I just received a new book (actually I stole it from a local Hastings). It's entitled The Art of Peace, by Morihei Ueshiba. He is apparently the person who created Aikido and from what I've found (I haven't finished reading it yet), a few of the ideas presented have rung some bells of comprehension to me. Anyone have any information/opinions on the subject/person/book?

[rev0s]

I decided to post a couple of the sentiments that stood out to me from the book, to try and facilitate discussion.

"ONE does not need buildings, money, power or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train."

"IF you have not
Linked yourself
To true emptiness,
You will never understand
The Art of Peace."

"EIGHT forces sustain creation: movement and stillness, solidification and fluidity, extension and contraction, unification and division."

"CONSIDER the ebb and flow of the tide. When waves come to strike the shore, they crest and fall, creating a sound. Your breath should follow the same pattern, absorbing the entire universe in your belly with each inhalation. Know that we all have access to four treasures: the energy of the sun and moon, the breath of heaven, the breath of earth, and the ebb and flow of the tide.

Some of these sound a little trite and hole-y as far as logic that I've encountered with other systems, but taken more generally contain some evidence of being on some fruitful path.

Anybody think I perhaps just got my hands on a pulpy bit of re-washed "Eastern wisdom" marketed so often in the West as profound and meaningful?

[dev]

Aikido is by far the best martial art ever created in my opinion. I studied it for a few years but have now put it on the shelf, but I intend to get back to it.

The great thing with aikido is that it is all about technique and not strength or even stamina. Another thing that is great about this harmonious path is that is doesn't have to injure anybody, so it is peaceful even here. Forget about Steven Segal!

:cool:

[AfterViewer]

:)Hey revOs. You ask:
Anybody think I perhaps just got my hands on a pulpy bit of re-washed "Eastern wisdom"
marketed so often in the West as profound and meaningful? Not at all. Aikido is very much the Tai Chi of Japan. The Master's words speak of Alchemy and Transmutation as he speaks of learning to breath. signing off the computer, much thunder and lighting outside at this time. AV.

[Taiji Bum]

:)Hey revOs. You ask:
Anybody think I perhaps just got my hands on a pulpy bit of re-washed "Eastern wisdom"
marketed so often in the West as profound and meaningful? Not at all. Aikido is very much the Tai Chi of Japan. The Master's words speak of Alchemy and Transmutation as he speaks of learning to breath. signing off the computer, much thunder and lighting outside at this time. AV.
I liked his life stories much more than the poetry part of that book. It is worth the read though.

AV.... sounds like hell unleashed outside right now!

[rev0s]

:)Hey revOs. You ask:
Anybody think I perhaps just got my hands on a pulpy bit of re-washed "Eastern wisdom"
marketed so often in the West as profound and meaningful? Not at all. Aikido is very much the Tai Chi of Japan. The Master's words speak of Alchemy and Transmutation as he speaks of learning to breath.Thank you very much for this; I stopped reading the book today, because I was worried that my enthusiasm meant that the book was "too good to be true", for something that would be ultimately considered useless in my journey when I found out its falseness. I was connecting with what i was reading simply too much to have it be for a good reason...it's good to know sometimes my intuition is right! Hopefully as I continue to work out the kinks, so to speak, in my mind and spirit, I'll be able to trust it (my intuition) once again as I did long ago.

I very much wish I lived in a more populous area, for only the sole reason that I could seek out someone who could teach me some of these martial arts....I would love to practice Tai Chi, Yoga, or (more and more as I receive encouragement like I'm getting from you, AV and devi, and as I read further in the book) Aikido, but I simply live in too secluded and remote a region that has no interest in these sorts of things.

I must admit, it would be the hardest thing in the world for me to move back into the city. I lived in the DFW (that's the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, FYI) for a period of time, but mostly what I was looking for there was heroin and different dangerous and variously (and more and more as more time passed) idiotic and psychotic ways to demean and degrade myself. Now my nearest neighbor is over a mile, and the nearest after him is five, the nearest town of any size has >1000 population....I could literally unload the largest magazine commercially or military-equivalent available into the air (or people, I suppose) of the biggest firearm I could wield, and no one would even look out their window suspiciously.

I wouldn't have it many other ways. :)

[AfterViewer]

Hey revOs and Darin, Yeah that was a pretty good soaker-storm. Our dog is extremely fearful of thunder/lightning and fireworks so she was trying to climb onto my lap (big dog) on top of it all. Same storm-front, Darin, I think you are just a bit East of me. Ha! We'll have to work out in a park sometime together (full dress). No silk here, but traditional. I used to live in Texas for a number of years, revOs. Mostly Dallas area, later San Antoine before leaving the state. Yeah, great place to blow off rounds! Ha! AV.

[izi]

stop stealing shit motherfucker

[rev0s]

Ha! It honestly took me this long to see what you were talking about...actually I haven't visited in a while, but I'm still so shameless I couldn't figure out what in the hell you were talking about, stealing...I'm still laughing about it every time it hits me again. But I've continued to read the book and it's been a good way to help me see a lot of things going on around me.

And, I probably won't be stealing as much shit....but I'm sure I'll still be a motherfucker to some extent....:laugh:

[izi]

well alrighty then

[Saxarba]

Earlier this year I was homeless in San Fran and I stole The Sacred Path of the Warrior from a borders. My reasoning was that I needed some spiritual upliftment. Ironically the book got stolen from me, along with my Wilhelm I Ching. I still haven't gotten around to picking up another one.

That book though (The Art of Peace) is really good. I got it for my friend for his birthday a couple years ago. It was one of the few things that really got through to him. He has the potential for spiritual and magickal stuff but he just doesn't apply himself. Hes a sucker, but Ueshiba awakened a spiritual impulse in him...albeit temporarily.

-SAX

[rev0s]

I've really enjoyed it and am continuing to read it, it's lead me on to multiple other books and topics which have started my journey off on a decidedly Eastern path (a good direction, I think, in general).

[The Infinite Within]

I didn't know the guy who created Aikido wrote a book entitled, "The Art of Peace"

but I can see why a practitioner of Aikido might write a book on the subject.

The entire art-form is circular in nature, and Sensei came from sword-culture. If you watch Aikido, it appears to be an artform purely concentrated on redirecting the energy of one's opponents, and subduing/constraining them. Unlike ninjitsu, for example, which is a purely offensive / assassin's art.

[Creed]

Being a urban ninja I laugh at the philosophy. On a windy day I would dodge and strike the air among the whipping branches around me. I would fall down a cliff on purpose to learn the art of that. I do not know about aikido - I know the art of experience. I am not a master but the masters I have met like my company and buy me a beer. They laugh with me as I tell them stories of standing on a speeding car - or leaping from rooftop to rooftop with the police behind me.

I am not strong and I am not a fighter - but I am always open to the possibilities of the human experience.

[Creed]

ok maybe i am little strong

[rev0s]

I like that turn of phrase...'the art of experience'. Lately I've come to have a more "style-of-no-style" kind of outlook, I guess it would be classified as eclectic, but experience is almost always what it seems people are lacking the most when trying to accomplish a goal or achieve a state, and certainly something I'm sure I'll always be lacking enough of.

All things have their place under the sun.

[s1m0n]

Morihei Ueshiba. He is apparently the person who created Aikido

No way. Everyone knows it was Steven Seagal who created Aikido!

[Saxarba]

Apparently Steven Seagal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Seagal) is Tulku.


...has been recognized by Tibetan lama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lama) Penor Rinpoche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penor_Rinpoche) as a reincarnated Tulku (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulku).

[m1thr0s]

What kind of lunatic asylum world are we living in when one of the most livid ego-trips in popular cinema is hailed as a f*cking Tulku ???
Can't we just call him a great entertainer and an all around cool cat and leave it at that?
Here is a guy who can't even take a good punch (let alone die) in a movie without going through a major emotional meltdown...so huge is his ego and so adamant is he regarding his own invincibility!

It occurs to me that religions of every kind in this world place such a high value on money & status that they cannot distinguish between reality and non-reality anymore at all...their whole profession is rooted in entertainment anyway and apparently they are not even very interested in pretending otherwise at the very highest rungs of leadership!

It's just an amusement so far as I am concerned...nothing new to me personally, but the complete and unabashed saturation in political and economic corruption we are alluding to here is so extreme as to even surprise those who long ago resolved that this must just be the way of things in the so-called Kali-Yuga...

okeedokee then...my respect for Buddhism just slipped a disk or two...:o_O:

Now Jackie Chan I might have believed...:laugh:

m1

[izi]

I don't like Steven Seagal I like Antonio Banderas

[AfterViewer]

:dull:Jackie Chan is totally "believable". As in: YouTube - Jackie Chan - Snake In The Eagles Shadow Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItP6o5hqF5g)

[AfterViewer]

:laugh:Steven Seagal and I have some things in common, I just learned, from his Bio a few posts previous. He was born in the year of the Dragon like m1thrOs and myself, born in the same State in the U.S. as I, and is an Aries born 6 days after myself. NO WONDER HE IS SUCH AN ARROGANT BASTARD! Ha! AV.

[izi]

he's a bad actor, bad actors shouldn't be allowed to perform.

[AfterViewer]

:laugh:Bad Actor has such a B-Movie status ring to it. Ha!

[s1m0n]

Steven Seagal is an actor?