The Path… finding the spiritual aspect of my Aikido.
Last week I had knee surgery. Not a major reconstruction, just an arthroscopic meniscus repair. Surgery none the less, that is encouraging me to slow down for a time. As I recover, I am realizing more and more how hard it is for me to be still. I have always thought of the path that I am on as one that is moving. That being on a path of study literally meant MOVING forward as an act of doing something. My path is Aikido. Do meaning way or path. Up until now I think I have focused on the learning of techniques and ukemi. How to throw and be thrown.
My Sensei, Brian Ericksen, talks about the study of Aikido having three parts, physical, mental and spiritual, but I don’t think I ever really absorbed that. I got the physical. That is training hard and learning. I even think I get the mental, watching people and videos, reading theory and arguments about how to use it or not. Analytically processing how to teach better or learn better.
I do not think I ever really absorbed the spiritual portion. He talks about it all the time, but I have conveniently (or maybe not so conveniently) forgotten about the spiritual part of this journey or way. Even when I would think about it, it still seemed like it should be a “doing” thing, not a stillness thing. Some piece of me wants to keep moving.
This week, the five days since surgery, I have not been able to move as much. Even the amount that I can is limited and really feels more like stillness. This is forcing me to learn how to stay still, which generates pent up energy that I don’t know what to do with. If I am not mindful of it, it swirls and carries me away in sensation or thought. After several days of just letting it swirl, I am starting to understand that it doesn’t have to be this way. Despite hearing all of my teachers say that this type of suffering is not necessary, I needed to experience it when I could not just anesthetize myself with activity to truly understand it. I guess this is what stillness does. It lets me see what is really happening inside and allows me to watch that from an objective place.
Brian Sensei equates stillness to the spiritual portion of my path, which he defines as mediation and prayer, speaking to God and allowing the greater universe to work within me. Not his words, but my understanding of them. Allowing and trusting that God is working in, around, or through me. My other teacher, Miles Kessler, talks about meditation being mindfulness, which is more than just awareness, but rather accepting, understanding, and letting go of the need to grasp. Objectively watching what is happening, understanding its characteristics and qualities and where that is going. Both of these require stillness. Metaphorically they are forward movement, but in practice they live in stillness, in calm. It is easier to attain them (right now anyway, it might change later) by sitting down on the path and just being with it.
I was reading something another teacher (Roy Goldberg) wrote about how shugyo (determined training that fosters enlightenment) can also be stillness. This is my time to focus on this part of my path. Not concerning myself with walking down it, but simply being on it and allowing it to move me. Being aware of when I start stepping off of it, and then being mindful of that moment and understanding what is happening and where that will take me. And hopefully coming back to the path.
Thanks for “listening”. If you have ideas of how stillness is part of your path, whether that is Aikido or not, let me know. I would love to hear your stories of growing through stillness.
