Enlightenment through Aikido by Kanshu Sunadomari

Author:Kanshu Sunadomari [Sunadomari, Kanshu]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781583945315
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2012-01-09T22:00:00+00:00

JULY 11, 1994

The Founder cradling the baby of a member of the Kagoshima dojo in 1961. At left is Fukiko Sunadomari.

You must break free from set form, create, generate, and evolve. Takemusu is both vast and subtle.

—MORIHEI UESHIBA

Understanding Gratitude

This year saw many people badly in need of water and in distress due to drought. In situations like this, before we even start to feel an appreciation for water, we often begin to wonder why it won’t rain for us, and inner voices of resentment toward Heaven begin.

Last year due to damage from unseasonably cold weather and the ensuing poor harvest, riots occurred and many people felt frustrated, cursing nature for seeming to hold out on us with the blessing of the sun’s heat.

Just as there are many who never truly appreciate their parents until they have passed away, many people only come to truly appreciate peace after they have experienced the misery of war. Feeling gratitude and thankfulness, even if momentary, is something we generally experience not during normal times but rather during troubled times or when something out of the ordinary occurs—hence the writing of the word “thankfulness” in Japanese using the kanji characters for “to have” and “difficulty/distress.” This points to the sensation that we feel in times of distress when we truly come to understand our blessings, realize the true value of things to us, and gain appreciation for them.

Yet after the storm blows over and things return to normal, many people tend to forget that anything happened and lose this sense of appreciation. There is an expression in Japanese describing this tendency that says, “Once it passes your esophagus, the heat is forgotten” (referring to people’s tendency when eating something extremely hot that burns their throat to forget the pain as the food reaches their stomach and continue eating). Of course, it is perfectly alright for us to put our hardships and difficulties behind us and move on, but that being said, it is ignorant to fail to recognize the importance of life’s basic essentials such as the sunlight, water, and air provided for us by Mother Nature. Worse yet is neglecting to express our gratitude for these things in our daily lives that are so often taken for granted. Prayers of thanks to the divine for Mother Nature’s blessings are a fundamental expression of the spirit of gratitude.

Among the recorded words of the Founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, is the following:

“All things on Earth are a function of universal love, therefore the true unification and harmony of all things is the spirit of the universe. Each and every person must endeavor to realize and carry out this mission. Aikido is the way that brings to fruition the true spirit of universal harmony and is the only path for bringing the universe into accord.”

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