I just thought I would share a portion of this lecture from a recent seminar in Hawaii.
aloha,
The Meaning of Aikido
HKF Fall 2006 Seminar – Oahu
C. Curtis
In the past year or more, it seems like we have covered many different subjects: What is the meaning of Ki? What is the meaning of Happiness? What is the purpose of bokken training? Etc. But I don’t think I ever asked you what the meaning of Aikido is. So can you please tell me? What is the meaning of Aikido?
Student: The way of harmony with the universe
Student: To better our lives by harmonizing with someone else’s Ki.
Student: The way of harmonious energy.
Student: The way to union with the Ki of the universe.
That seems to be the popular conception of this. Shall we look at it more closely and see what we discover? (writes Japanese calligraphy on board, the adds “Ai…Ki…Do”)
Ai
Ki
Do
OK: Ai: Most everyone commonly interprets ai to mean harmonious, or harmony. The calligraphy for this word ai is made up of three separate characters, and literally means human, one, and mouth. So ai means “human with one mouth”. Maybe you can imagine the meaning already. What do we do with our mouth? We speak, we chant, we sing. So we can say that ai means “everyone singing with one voice”. “Harmony” is a good word to use for that. It is a popular one. But sometimes words have different meanings for different people. So it is important to look carefully at the source of important words like this. Of course, all kanji (Japanese calligraphy) originally came to Japan from ancient China. So this is Chinese from long ago. It is important to remember that when we look at these. So this is all people singing, or speaking with one voice; all humans unified. The challenge with the word “harmony” is that we often conceive of harmony as two or more things coming together. However, this is a relative and limited view. Harmony, as it is used in the word Aikido doesn’t mean multiple things coming together. Harmony here means all things are already together, even though we might not perceive them as in that condition. Humans are already one; unified. There is no need to make them one. We humans, through our limited and relative perception, actually make them separate. The way we see the world, and hence the way we see each other, is almost always relative; you over there and me over here. So you definitely seem different and separate from me, and either better or worse off, but never the same. So since we perceive this incredible variety in the dojo, and in the world, where everyone is apparently so different, then our practice has to be to remember that there is some fundamental essence that is one. And what is that? That is the question. If we are going to practice Ai, then we have to have a deep understanding of what that is, and if that something can even be spoken, or defined. Maybe, when we speak it, or define it, it suddenly becomes part of that relative condition, and it is not what we meant to point to at all. Do you see what I mean?
So when we use words we have to be very careful. It is so easy to say “harmony with the Ki of the universe” and think we know what that means.
So: Ki: Ki is made up of two separate characters, and each has its own meaning, as above. For the first character, on the top and to the right, we can say “clouds and rain”, which would be coming down from the heavens. Or at the same time it can mean “steam”, which would be rising up. And the symbol in the center here, the second one, is the symbol for “rice”. If this above is clouds and rain, then the rice is considered to be growing. If the first symbol is seen as steam, then the rice is cooking. In both cases it is exploding outward. It is important to understand why they made these symbols to signify ki of the universe. We will get into what ki means in this context in a moment, but obviously to the ancient Chinese, what the word ki represented was very significant for them. Because if the rain didn’t come and rice crop didn’t come in, they didn’t live. They couldn’t go to the grocery store and buy some more rice. If the crop didn’t come in that year, there was a famine. Everyone suffered. So having the rains come, having the rice crop be successful, and having the rice to eat as food; for the ancient Chinese, this meant life itself. So they used this combination of two symbols to represent ki - life itself. Life. For the ones who invented this word, ki equals life itself. And with these symbols we are pointing to harmony with this ki of the universe, which can indeed be seen as a kind of energy; more on that a bit later.
But before we go into that further, let’s first complete the word: Do. Do is made up of two symbols. This first one means “way”. And this second one means “leader” or you can say “individual” or it also can mean “prominence”; so we might say “the prominent way” or “the way of the prominent individual”. So, yes, this is “do”, and everybody knows “do” means “the way”. Ju-do, Karate-do, Ken-do, Kyu-do, Aiki-do. However, this has two symbols, which is telling us that there is a further qualification to the word “way”. We have “leader”, or “individual” added on or coupled with “way”. What that is pointing to, or qualifying here, is that there is only one way, but that you have to come upon it individually, from your particular individually conditioned mind. We can say that the action path through life of each individual person is unique. We all have our particular obsessions: be it sex, music, food, nature, knowledge, politics, etc. or even Aikido! It depends on what you particularly find yourself needing to work through. So there is only one general “way”, but this “way” manifests in each of us uniquely. The way is not something that you must follow blindly. Our task it to awaken to the realization of that way, as it evolves in each of our souls.
The Question and Answer can be read at www.hawaiikiaikido.org