Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Daily Sayings for the past few days

Sorry about the past few days.  Went to climb Mt.Fuji and had no access to the blog.  As such here are a few poems from the mountain.


Beauty runs outside
Green streaks blaze by like lightning
Heart breaks the window
~至道

Clouds on the mountain
Never seen clearly before
Eyes miss nothing now
~至道

Grow, fade, strengthen, weaken, live die.
As the dreamer, so the dream. 
~至道

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Daily Saying for July 26th, 2011

The most beautiful thing about understanding and life is that they grow together, are shared with others and one day they disappear into the night but their touch remains on the universe until the morning.
      ~至道

Friday, July 22, 2011

Daily Saying for July 22nd, 2011

Capturing beauty with words is like catching a fish with a spear.  You can only catch its corpse.
         ~至道

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Daily Saying for July 10th, 2011

A broken heart is the world's way of showing us just how overwhelming beauty is.
    ~至道

Monday, July 4, 2011

What is violence?

I was recently asked:

What is violence?

This was my response:

What a good question to ask someone who does martial arts!  When I was in high school, I tried writing a paper on this and found it of little success because at that time, I was under the mistaken impression that it could be written from one single perspective.  Violence as a topic is something beyond a single perspective.  In fact, it is when something has only one perspective that makes it violence at all.

We describe violence as being something in war, conflict and the media.  However, violence is different for each being.  To the average American, it involves one person hitting another.  To a war general, it's casualties on his own side.  To a director, it's something that conflicts with his vision.  To a martial artist, it is inappropriate intent.  To an ant, it's rain.  To a flower, it's drought, To God or the universe, it's irrelevant. 

The best answer to this that this one can give is that violence is a mix of fear and disgust.  These two things are only determined by the one feeling them.  To another it might not be actually violent at all.  There are no limits as to what one can determine as violent and non-violent but their own experiences.

For example, one time a good friend came to visit me during my training.  I invited him to watch a sparring match.  I was hit with a solid kick to the jaw and my gums bled.  The match continued and I was fine with the tiny amount of pain and taste of iron.  After the match, the friend asked me, "Are you okay?  That was pretty violent!"  I shook my head in mild confusion.  "What was violent?" I asked.  "The whole thing!  You got kicked in the face and you bled!"  I had gone from confusion to laughter, which I realize now scared him more.  "It wasn't violent and the kick wasn't hard enough for me to have any problems.  The violence you see is your lack of understanding how hard I need to be hit for it to hurt me as well as the fear of yourself getting injured."  I went on to explain that in time, if he trained, that he would not only do that kind of thing, but he would then see that the actions there were utterly peaceful.  The person I was sparring was only trying to teach me where I was vulnerable and at the same time learn what they were capable of doing.  At the same time I was trying to teach them their vulnerabilities and learning what I could do in such a situation.  The exchange was positive, beautiful and we both were doing our best to help each other.  One who doesn't have that kind of experience and understanding will only see fighting as violent.  To us, it was the most calm and clear moment of our lives.  No thoughts of other things, no worries, no fear, no desire, just emptiness and serenity.

This violence that we think we know as violence is all just manifestations of the way things are in our world.  The experiences have need to be experienced and we must learn to let go of our fears and disgusts.  After all, our presence is nothing but violence in the face of nothing. 

Osu,
   ~至道

Thursday, June 30, 2011

I was recently asked:

When someone says the word "Beauty," what do you think of?


This was my answer:

The first 10 things to come to mind:
1) The feeling at the point where a bell quiets beyond the capacity to hear.

2) A flower as it speeds through its life cycle in less than a second.

3) Light at the end of a deep breath.

4) The first moment of pain.

5) The warp in time one can see if they intensely stare at the space between a white line and a black line for about 2 hours.

6) 84,000 moons, each in a drop of water having traveled so far and without disturbing the moon, the sky or the water.

7) The look of sudden understanding in someone's eyes.

8) Wrinkles on old people, old books and old trees.

9) That which can not be experienced with senses but is simply understood.

10) Pure selfless-sacrifice.  This is also called 'love.'

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Daily Saying for June 18th, 2011

Let all colours be your favourite.  Then the world will have more life, rainbows will have more meaning and every choice will be beautiful.
           ~至道