This entry continues to lay the foundation for how Aikido training works, and we will begin to go into the actual training itself next.<\/p>\n
So the first step in determining how to find happiness through Aikido training is to figure out the source of the problem.\u00a0 An inspection of the simple sentence, \u201cI wish happiness,\u201d identifies the problem.\u00a0 What is this \u201cI?\u201d\u00a0 If we don\u2019t understand that which we would like to be happy, how can we affect it?<\/p>\n
It would seem we are born with an innate assumption that we are our body in some fashion.\u00a0 Intellectually, we might have some other ideas, but imagine your arm is suddenly amputated.\u00a0 Your instinctive reaction would not be passive disinterest.\u00a0 From this reaction we know that any ideas we maintain are purely intellectual, and deep down on an unconscious level, we really relate to ourselves through our body.\u00a0 At the same time, we have an underlying belief that we are independent, unitary and permanent.\u00a0 Think about it\u2026when you think of yourself, is this not what you somehow imagine?\u00a0 Yet this does not fit the description of our body.\u00a0 If we existed independently of everything else, we would never need food or water.\u00a0 If we were unitary, we would be represented by our entire body, even if part was amputated.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If we were permanent, we would never die.\u00a0 So we have an unconscious idea of who and what we are which is completely unrealistic.\u00a0 Then when we face the reality of our mortality, we become frightened because we think this false idea of ourselves will suddenly turn from something to nothing.\u00a0 When we try to make this false notion happy, obviously it could never work.\u00a0 In this way we discover that ideas we have within ourselves are inaccurate and obstruct our ability to find happiness.<\/p>\n
Based upon these false ideas, we then go out and engage the world in search for happiness.\u00a0 We look for a very limited form of happiness through the senses.\u00a0 For example, we think our favorite ice cream is a cause of happiness, but if you consume it nonstop for 24 hours, you would probably find it to be a cause of misery.\u00a0 Even if we only have it for a few enjoyable minutes, the joy goes when we stop having it.\u00a0 We cannot find a permanent source of happiness through our bodies.\u00a0 Yet to get the ice cream, we may wind up doing all sorts of negative things to other people, which deep inside will cause a much more lasting form of misery.\u00a0 To solve the problem, we need to go within and correct these false notions.\u00a0 Aikido is a practice that targets our unconscious ideas of how we relate to our bodies so we can stop defeating ourselves and ultimately find happiness.\u00a0 Tamura Sensei explained it very well when he said the point of Aikido training is to destroy illusion so we can directly perceive the truth.<\/p>\n
The next basic step in the search for happiness is to be certain that it is physically possible to achieve the goal.\u00a0 Otherwise, why waste the time when we can just all be miserable together?<\/p>\n
To start out, let\u2019s consider two extreme states of mind, hatred and lust, which represent the basic ideas of pushing away and pulling towards oneself in the search for happiness.\u00a0 Something is uncomfortable, so we push it away.\u00a0 Something is enjoyable, so we seek out more of it.\u00a0 Short term we think the pleasurable physical states will bring about happiness, but we know this is not a permanent solution.\u00a0 We can do the same analysis with pleasurable mundane concepts such as fame.\u00a0 Eventually we will wind up with something we don\u2019t want and become miserable again.\u00a0 The search for happiness through this medium can never work permanently.\u00a0 When we have great hatred or great desire, is that a genuinely enjoyable state?\u00a0 If you look closely, I think the answer is that it is uncomfortable\u2026not peaceful.\u00a0 If you begin to release your attachment to the body as \u201cI,\u201d you will reduce the hatred and lust.\u00a0 That frame of mind is more comfortable\u2026peaceful.\u00a0 Imagine effecting this reduction so that the hatred and lust we experience is zero.\u00a0 If we can reduce it somewhat, logic dictates that it can be reduced to zero through practice.<\/p>\n
So we can conclude that it is possible to find happiness\u2026obviously it is worth the effort, so we are ready to embark upon the task of searching for it through practice\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This entry continues to lay the foundation for how Aikido training works, and we will begin to go into the actual training itself next. So the first step in determining how to find happiness through Aikido training is to figure out the source of the problem.\u00a0 An inspection of the simple sentence, \u201cI wish happiness,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TrRx-a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scarsdaleaikido.com\/aikidoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}