Time

Every moment counts. Every breath and every heartbeat confirms our living nature. Never waste a moment of this life. Pay attention. Be aware. Watch closely. Listen carefully. Use all of our senses. Combine them, and synchronize them.

Pay attention to our surroundings, our atmosphere, our environment and the climate we create. Everything matters, but we still need to know what weighs the most.

Our present is a reflection of our past, and our future a reflection of our present. Past, Present, and Future are all interconnected.

In fact, all of life is interconnected...everyone and everything.

Does time exist?
I suppose it does.
But the past is past, and the future is not here yet, all we really have is this moment whether we use it to live in the past, or in the future or right now.

I learn from the past, and plan for the future, but live right now.

Breathing

Ah...ok...so how do we breath?

The most important is to breath naturally. Breathing 'naturally' is ...ah... naturally, natural. But again, most of us have lost our 'natural' way. So the real question is how do we regain our natural way of breathing?

Watch a baby...

Our Breathing is naturally complete, should we allow it to be so. The breath should both expand our rib cage out, and move our diaphram down. The in breath fills us completely...we are so full there is no room for anything else...naturally the air must leave...we allow it to go...slowly, slipping away. When we are completely empty a vacuum is created and naturally the air rushes in.

In this way we continue...watching the air come in and out; allowing it to move completely in and completely out. Until we are not breathing consciously but being breathed by the air around us. Breathed by the same air that joins all of us and all things together...the same air that everyone has breathed for all time and will breath in the future...thus the same air that joins all time to this present moment to this present breath.

More on the secret 5 of Budo

We say that Budo (Martial Ways) begins and ends with Rei (Etiquette). Etiquette begins and ends with the bow (The physical bow shows respect and humbleness). The bow begins and ends from our core (tanden).

The Tanden is the center of our universe. If you measure from head to toe...left to right...front and back... there is an intersection in the center of your body. The Tanden hangs from this intersection like a tear drop. In most of us this intersection is around 3-5 finger widths below our navel and 3-4 finger widths inside us.

So the Tanden should be number one, shouldn't it? But it's not. For one, how do you find this elusive Tanden? If you rest yourself quiet still, the Tanden becomes quite clear; but most of us don't rest actually quiet and still, even though this is our natural state. (please don't confuse 'natural' with common or average). Natural is our state when fear and greed are released. So we need a method to help us return to 'natural', sitting quiet and still do this, but for many of us when we do not sit quiet and still; we need something to lead us there. Breathing and relaxing have always been used to lead us to the Tanden and our natural state of being.

The other reason the Tanden is not nunber one is that we can live without it. I'm not sure I'd want to, but many people do. What can lead us to naturalness and that we can live without? Air. We must breathe. If we don't breathe we will die.

The secret 5 of budo:
1) Kokyu - Breathe
2) Yurumeru - Relax...let it go...release
3) Tanden - Center
4) Hone - Bone
5) Hari - Stretch

Esoteric vs. Exoteric

I put down my 'secret' 5 in the previous post. Obviously they're not really secret; I just shared them on the internet. But they were ideas that were previously only shared with my personal students; so they were secret except for this select group.

This idea of 'secret' or esoteric teaching has always intrigued me. We're taught generosity, and to share the teaching with anyone and everyone who sincerely asks. Then we're told that we can only share after they have shown a 'true' desire to learn. This means first they need to ask (even beg) three times, and the criteria grow from there. I guess meeting all these criteria go to prove their 'sincerity'?

In our tradition there are both exoteric and esoteric teachings. For instance we orginally teach GoDai 5 elements:
1) A - Atama - Thought or Consciousness - Head
2) Ka - Kaze - Wind - Corresponding to the Mouth and Throat
3) Hi - Hi - Fire - Corresponding to the Heart
4) Mi - Mizu - Water - Corresponding to the Stomach
5) Chi - Chi - Earth - Which is the whole lower half of the body to the center of the earth.

Each of these has a color, a shape, a deity, and more sounds, and other corresponding relationships that get a bit complicated to spell out in text as they interweave.

But in the esoteric (Mikkyo) portion we are taught RokuDai or 6 elements. It's not that one is true and the other is not, they are both true.

I think these teachings are not really exoteric and esoteric, but just that we teach according to what the other person is ready to hear...to lead them to the experience that they need. Since this can take time, and most people don't stick around long enough to hear the rest...maybe they think they know everything already, or maybe they realize their looking for something or someone else, or maybe they just move away...but by the time you get to the esoteric portion there's only a few people left listening, so it seems like a secret just for the small group. But really the Truth belongs to everyone...and everyone knows it.

My Budo Secret 5

The secret 5 I have always taught in all my budo classes are:
1) Kokyu - Breathe
2) Yurumeru - Relax...let it go...release
3) Tanden - Center
4) Hone - Bone
5) Hari - Stretch

My first teacher taught me these;
every teacher that I've liked since, included them in some way.

Perception

I copied this from someone's blog. sorry I didn't mark down whose it was.

A man was driving home after a long and hectic day at work. He was tired and stressed and frustrated with the heavy traffic. Finally he got off the freeway and was nearing his home. As he turned down a side street suddenly he saw a women in a fancy car swerving into his lane coming right for him. She honked her horn squealed her tires and swerved, just missing the front end of the man’s car. As she sped past she yelled at the man “Pig!” The man was furious. How could she be screaming that at him when it was obvious that she was at fault. That was the proverbial straw and the man leaned out his window, shook his fist at the women, called her every name in the book, then turned around to re-focus on the road ahead just as he... ran over the pig!

Absolute Truth

If we are asked to clean, we might ask, 'clean inside or outside'. But when I say this, I mean clean every-side. There is no separation between inside and outside.

There is an absolute truth. But we can't just point to and say, 'There it is'.

If someone has a Truth different from ours we say theirs is wrong, and ours is right. In doing so we lose the Truth. For both Truths are true, they must be. Everything is Everything; even nothing, by definition of Everything, is included in Everything.

Reality is the Truth. Most of our view points are limited to such a degree that we think what we see is the Truth, or what we think is the Truth, or what we feel is the Truth. But the Truth is much bigger than anything we can see, think, or feel. The Truth is bigger than anything we can perceive with any of our abilities. But with all of ourselves the Truth is plainly seen. All of ourselves means both the whole individual and the whole of humanity, in fact all of the cosmos. When we are one with all, we are all and the Truth is us and we are it, everything is clear.

Reality is the Truth...and Truth is Reality.