testy KI

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CURTIS, CHRISTOPHER DAVID
(b. 23 June 1944). 7th Dan Ki no Kenkyukai. Landscape Design / Builder. B. in Upland, California. B.A., Theater Arts, Carnegie Mellon University. First taught aikido by Shin'ichi SUZUKI in 1974. Trained in Japan under Koichi TOHEI on numerous occasions. Has accompanied Shin'ichi Suzuki to seminars in Japan, the U.S.A., South America, and Europe. Author of Ki-Aikido on Maui (2001), the official student training manual of Hawaii Ki Federation. Appointed Chief Instructor for State of Hawaii by Koichi Tohei in January 2000. Awarded Okuden by Tohei in fall 2001. Chief instructor of Hawaii Ki Federation and Assistant Head Instructor of Maui Ki-Aikido.

Question:
There are so many Aikido Schools today in the world, so could You tell me what is special about Shin Shin toitsu Aikido? What makes the difference between Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido and the other schools?

Curtis Sensei:
Well between you and I, I can easily tell you what the difference is; we practice Ki Principles, and the other schools of Aikido generally do not. But to give the general public a better understanding of what that means, maybe I should go back to how Aikido came to be developed, and particular in my case, how it came to the West, specifically to Hawaii.
I make my home in Maui, Hawaii, and Hawaii has a very unique and relatively intimate relationship with Japan. This is not only because of Hawaii's physical proximity to Japan, being closer than perhaps other countries in the world, but because we have a very large and active Japanese community in Hawaii. In 1953 Master Koichi Tohei, my teacher in Japan and Founder of Ki no Kenkyukai (Ki Society International) and Shinshin Toitsu Aikido (Mind and Body Unified Aikido), came for the first time to the west, to Maui, Hawaii. A group called the Nishikai, a Hawaiian -Japanese organization, invited him to come and teach his Aikido to the Maui Police Department. Prior to this time the original founder of Aikido Master Morihei Ueshiba, taught extensively in Japan and was highly respected and had a large school with a lot of followers but never moved outside of Japan. So it was at the wish of Master Ueshiba that Tohei Sensei came to Hawaii to begin to spread the teaching of Aikido to the outside world. When Tohei Sensei came to Hawaii and encountered the Police department on Maui, a man named Shinichi Suzuki was a Maui Police officer and was assigned to Tohei Sensei to help him get established. (This Shinichi Suzuki was later to become my teacher on Maui.) Mr. Suzuki was so taken with Tohei Sensei that he became his student on the spot, and was asked by Tohei Sensei to head up the rapidly forming new group of Aikidoka on Maui as the Maui Chief Instructor. So Suzuki Sensei had an intimate relationship with Tohei Sensei from the very beginning, and took on the responsibility of a Chief Instructor almost from the first day of his training.
When Tohei Sensei began teaching those in Hawaii, he found that some of his teaching techniques were not as effective as they had been with the smaller people of Japan. Many of the people of Hawaii are very large, some of the 6 ft 8 to 7 ft. tall, weighing perhaps 300-350 pounds, and Koichi Tohei Sensei is a very small man, and some of the techniques that he thought would be effective turned out not to be so. He also found that these westerners asked for explanations that no Japanese student would dare to ask at the time. So from the very beginning he had to begin to develop a more effective way of performing Aikido and a new way of teaching Aikido to these different kind of people. This realization fell directly in line with what he had been suspecting during his training in Japan (as I will explain later). He began showing a much more relaxed and mind centered type of Aikido, rather than a more physically oriented body centered Aikido. However, each time he would come back to Hawaii, (he came back perhaps every 2 years and would stay a month or two), he found that even though he taught the people of Hawaii a very mind centered kind of Aikido, they insisted, (because of their habit of looking at the world from a physical perspective), on turning everything he taught into physical expression, a kind of martial expression, very rough, very much using the upper body - the shoulders , the arms, to force the opponent into a position of submission. So he became frustrated in his effort to teach us relaxation and mind centered Ki Aikido, and therefore began to develop more and more effective methods of communicating to help others to learn to have relaxation, and experience the same freedom of experience that he had. His task in the beginning was very direct and simple, that was to teach us to relax. And as his personal development continued to deepen, then he began to use more and more subtle, and more and more sophisticated methods of communicating the depths of his vision to others.

So what was the relationship of Tohei Sensei to his teacher, O Sensei? Did this sense of relaxation pass from his teacher to him, or did Tohei Sensei somehow discover some new things or did he add some new understanding to the art of Aikido?

Tohei sensei himself told me, that early on when he met his teacher, he was very impressed with his ability to throw other people with apparently no physical strength. And he wondered about it and tried to do it himself and wasn't very effective in doing that. In fact, he looked around and saw that none of the students were able to do what O Sensei could do. Tohei Sensei began training in some other disciplines as well to try to round out his training and get a better understanding of what it was that his teacher was doing. He trained with another man quite extensively, a man by the name Tempu Nakamura. This man taught Tohei Sensei that mind leads body. In addition Tohei Sensei used to practice at the Ichikukai, which is a school were one goes to perform a severe three day period of chanting, sitting in seiza position, and it is a very extreme and exhausting ordeal. Tohei Sensei went to this school 67 times. No one else has ever even approached the number of times he did this. Because of the intense nature of the Ichikukai training, he would return on Monday morning to train with O Sensei in a very exhausted physical state, and he began noticing right away, that when he was most exhausted physically, he was better able to do the kind of techniques that O Sensei was teaching him. So in concert with his work with Tempu Nakamura, which taught him about mind leading body, and this experience that he was having at the Ichikukai, exhausting the reserves of the physical body, and finding some new source of power within himself, he began to understand that even though O Sensei was not teaching mind body unification, mind leading body, and he was not openly teaching relaxation, that was in fact what he was doing. O Sensei was a very religious man and his lectures involved religious symbolism from Shinto and a sect called Omoto he was involved in. All of his students would say, " I don't know what he is talking about". When my teacher Shinichi Suzuki Sensei went to Japan to train with O Sensei and Tohei Sensei early on, O Sensei liked him very much and was happy to have him there; a visitor from Hawaii, born and raised in Hawaii although Japanese decent. And one morning after class O Sensei invited Suzuki Sensei into his private quarters, and made Suzuki Sensei sit seiza one hour while O Sensei lectured him about religion. Not understanding a word, but not wanting to be rude, Suzuki Sensei just sat there saying "Hai Sensei! Hai Sensei! Hai Sensei!", and nodding his head. Afterward they went out into the room where all the students where practicing, all of these students who had been training with O Sensei for many many years, and O Sensei said "What is the matter with all you people. This man from Hawaii understands everything I said, and you folks don't understand a thing". Later they all grabbed Suzuki Sensei and said" What did he say, tell us what he means?!!", but Suzuki just told them " I don't know, I just said `hai Sensei, hai Sensei".
So O Sensei was a very difficult man to understand, his teaching was very lofty, and very refined, and very much filled with religious imagery. It was not a direct transmission kind of teaching. So Tohei Sensei thought, Ok! That's why no one can do this, because no one understands what he is doing, because he is not actually teaching what he is doing. He is showing what he is doing. It is up to you as a student to grasp what that is. So Tohei Sensei was really the only student that made that complete personal effort to capture the teaching of O Sensei, at the time. O Sensei recognized this and made him the first 10th Dan ever in Aikido, and made him Chief Instructor of his school.
O Sensei came to Hawaii and blessed our Maui Dojo in 1961, and that Dojo lasted all the way until last year when we finally had to tear it down, and build a new facility, and we have a very nice new two story Dojo now. So O Sensei had a special relationship with my teacher Shinichi Suzuki Sensei. And of course Tohei Sensei was his favorite student, and Tohei Sensei was clearly a charismatic and dynamic teacher who was able to spread the teaching throughout the world, not just to Hawaii. He has been around all the areas of the world. But then O Sensei neared the end of his life in1969. The tradition in Japan is that the school, any martial art school, the status and the value, or asset, of that school, stays within the family, so it passes to the offspring. And in this case O Sensei’s son, Kisshomaru, the Doshu he was called, or Waka Sensei, was to receive the school from the hands of O sensei, when he passed on. So on his death bed O Sensei called Tohei Sensei to him and made Tohei Sensei promise to honor his son, Kisshomaru, as the titular head of the school. Tohei Sensei would retain his title of Chief Instructor, and as such would be in charge of all instruction. But because Tohei Sensei was so much more powerful, so much more charismatic, and had such a huge following, O Sensei was afraid that the school would end up going to Tohei Sensei, and he didn't want the school to leave his family. He made Tohei Sensei promise that he would allow Kisshomaru Ueshiba to maintain the status as head of the school, and maintain the asset, and maintain leadership. And that Tohei Sensei would not get in the way of that, and would just teach as Chief Instructor, and every thing seemed to O Sensei like if he could agree to that everything would be fine. And Tohei Sensei did agree. But then soon after O sensei died, these new methods that Tohei Sensei had developed, had learned from his personal development training, not only his understanding of mind and body unification, but how to lead others along this way, how to show others how to do this thing, began to be resisted a little bit by Kisshomaru Ueshiba, the Doshu. And he asked Tohei Sensei "please don't teach this way in Dojo, because my father didn't teach that way". Tohei Sensei very much loved the school, and loved the Doshu and wanted to teach Aikido, and stay in Aikido, but the Doshu was more and more forcing him into a rigid straight jacket of just presenting the movements in the way that O Sensei had done, and not in anyway passing on his inner understanding of what those movements were. So this became more and more difficult and problematic. And finally he agreed; all right I won't teach Ki principles, I will start my own school on the side, and I will only teach Aikido here. Then he made a new school named Ki no Kenkyukai, (Ki Society International). And many of the students then from the original school would learn Ki Principles with Tohei Sensei, and would come back later in the day and train Aikido at the Hombu (Original Aikido headquarters). And naturally, as time went on, these students were learning to be very powerful. If you understand how to truly relax, then when someone tries to move with force it is very easy to hold them back and prevent them from doing that. And of course all sorts of difficulties began to arise between the students who did practice Ki principles, and those who did not. And it began to form a very distinct separation between the two camps; Tohei Sensei students and the students feeling loyal to the original school.
So at a certain point, 1973, My teacher Shinichi Suzuki Sensei and Tohei Sensei went together to a meeting with the Doshu and Osawa Sensei, (a leading figure in the original Aikido school). They sat together at a table, and Tohei Sensei announced to the Doshu that he was resigning his position as Chief Instructor, and would form his own Aikido organization under the umbrella of Ki no Kenkyukai, and it would be called Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, which means Mind Body Unified Aikido. That was the beginning of the kind of Aikido we practice today.

What can the art of Shinshin Toitsu Aikido offer the modern man today?

Everyone on earth carries with them, as they grow through daily life, a kind of a vague sense of instability and separation; a sense of separation from the rest of the community around them. In order to overcome this sense of isolation and emptiness, we try to fill ourselves with things, with people, with substances, with experiences. Some of us go to great lengths to satisfy ourselves, but in fact only end up in this way intensifying this feeling. Someone who wants to feel more worthy and fulfilled may become a politician, or a go to great lengths to become a celebrity of some sort, maybe even climb Mount Everest or drive a car very fast in a race, or become a great sportsman of some kind, and there is nothing wrong with any of those efforts in themselves as they usually promote a good health and a strong intellect, and a healthy emotional life. These are all fine, except in so far if we are really using them to fulfill this emptiness in us. If this is the case, then we will be unhappy, because the emptiness cannot be fulfilled by something from the outside. We must find out who we truly are, what true stability, true integrity, true character is, and where it comes from. And this is the training that we are involved with in Aikido. It starts on a very fundamental level, and this is really the beauty of Aikido. And it is unique in this way, in my experience. I have never found any other study that involved mind and body in such a simple and really elegant and subtle way. Simply learning to stand with mind and body unified and not to resist or collapse. Amazing! There are 3 positions we can maintain in relation to challenges in life. One is a kind of a tense resistance. When force come towards us, we try to fight back, we conflict with it, we fight against it. We call this fighting mind, or animal reaction. The second method of dealing with conflict might be collapsing in the face of some strong force. Perhaps this is similar to what we do at the end of the day when we come back from a hard day of work, and we are exhausted and sit down in our nice easy chair, open a beer and basically collapse and withdraw from life. This second way we call the state of dead relaxation. Even though one could say they are relaxed in such a state, even calm, there is no intensity there. If an emergency arose, we would likely not be able to effectively deal with it in an immediate fashion. On the other hand, when we are fighting back, we are resisting and we are exited and we are nervous and we are tense. Yes, there can be great intensity there, but there is no calmness. However, there is a state of being possible, where we have both calmness, a feeling of serenity and peace, and yet at the same time we are filled with a tremendous intensity. And this is the state that we call Mind Body Unification. In Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, the simple approach to this is to begin to train in a Dojo, to get a teacher and begin have him or her show how to stand with mind and body unified. Then slowly, little by little, we can begin to try to move with mind and body unified. But we will soon discover that that in itself is not enough, and this realization brings us to what I consider the essential element in Aikido training; personal development. My teacher Koichi Tohei Sensei is a stickler for this kind of training. He feels that no one can develop themselves without doing some sort of personal work, (as he did), above and beyond of what is done at the Dojo. In the Dojo the teacher shows you the way, but somehow you must find a way to practice that way in a very sincere and personal manner. We have taken all these years to develop the erroneous habit of seeing ourselves as separate, of seeing a dualistic world, of seeing "you over there trying to do something to me over here". We have developed this way of seeing things, and in spite of our best efforts this continues to arise. This ego is a very powerful mechanism within us. And we have developed it to the extent that it completely controls most of our lives. So we must transform this way of thinking, this way of living, into a unified non-dualistic state where there is no sense of isolated self, no sense of separateness between the individual self and the Universe as a whole. Universe and Self are not two separate things. But rather the whole together can be seen as a unified stream of being, a constant movement of this unity. And all the actions in life arise out of that stream much like waves arising out of an ocean. Not separate from it, they are unique and beautiful, they have action. And finally though, in the end, we see that they exist completely on the basis of the ocean. Without the ocean they could not exist, so we must identify with the ocean.
So --- how to do that? In order to develop ourselves more fully, we need to have some form of practice. And there are several practices in Aikido, but the primary one is what we call Whole Body Breathing, or ultimately Universal Breathing. When I first met my teacher Suzuki Sensei, I was so impressed with his calmness and his intensity. I had never met a man that possessed these two qualities at the same time. And it was almost frightening to me that someone could be so calm, and yet beneath that calmness have such a tremendous presence, and so much intensity. I had a feeling of almost elation, but dangerousness too, when I was with him. So I asked him "How did you get like this? Were you born like this, or did you do something?" He said, "No, I was born just like everyone else. If you want to become like me, you must breath one hour every day!". So he showed me about how to do this controlled breathing, which anybody can learn by going to a Shinshin Toitsu Aikido Dojo. And right away, within a month, I was breathing one hour a day. I had to learn, I had to practice. A little bit, five minutes a day, ten minutes the next day, fifteen the next day. But finally I reached the satisfaction of breathing one hour a day, and since then, I have breathed one hour, sometimes two hours or more, in the morning. Before I go to work every morning I get up early and do my breathing, and this way I practice Unification of Mind and Body in a very quiet and undistracted state. It is meditation, but it is meditation with an added element; an edge to it. We are doing Mind and Body Unification by breathing. We are using our mind to follow the breath to the end of the universe as we breathe out. We are using mind to follow breath infinitely into our one point, in to the center of our being as we breathe in. So we are using mind and body together, the breath in the body and the mind following that breath. This kind of practice, if properly executed, gives us a tremendous feeling of calmness and intensity. And over the years this practice begins to grow this realization; the word we have for it in Aikido is Reiseishin. Reiseishin is a state of Unification which is a very powerful but relaxed feeling, that grows and grows and grows, like a great balloon inside of us. This "balloon" soon passes through the skin, bones of our body and becomes larger and larger until all is contained within it; and it is filled with the most potent nothingness. It is a kind of paradoxical experience, because this space is quite empty of thought, of conception, but completely and utterly full at the same time. We feel unified with the whole Universe. And then walking through everyday life, when you are talking to your wife or your children, or your employees in your work, or your boss, or if any kind of difficulty arises, it is not a problem. You don't see yourself as separate or unworthy in any way. You are filled with self-confidence, and have a feeling of strength that doesn't have to be proven or used. So this feeling I was talking about in the beginning, this longing that you have, the sense of separateness, then begins to be dissolved. And then there begins to develop a sense of deep and lifelong satisfaction, that I don't know if can be attained in any other way. Perhaps there are other schools, probably other approaches, different types of meditation, different types of practices, that can be done. I don't practice other things so much. I practice Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, and this has brought me to this state of being that I am talking about, for which I am very grateful to my teachers, Koichi Tohei Sensei in Japan and Shinichi Suzuki Sensei in Maui, because they both insisted that if I wanted to be serious about this, if I really wanted to change as a human being, become a better human being and not just a Dojo expert, I would have to do this kind of training.

What does it take for an individual to pursue that Way that you are talking about?

Well it takes commitment, in a word. Commitment is a scary word. You know there are many Gurus, many spiritual teachers at large today working, thankfully, with the people of the world to help them. And to begin working with one of these spiritual teachers, the first thing they ask for is an absolute commitment from you. And this is fine, this is very good!, But that also means that their teaching is only going to be available to a very few. Because it is a rare man or woman that is able to commit themselves completely to a course that is basically going to annihilate their ego, or their sense of separate self. This is a very difficult thing to consciously agree to. We generally try to avoid this kind of thing. Everything we do in our life is to build up a stronger ego, a stronger presence. Even in the practice of Aikido we find ourselves mistakenly trying to build ourselves up and become stronger, where in fact true strength doesn't come from that direction, it comes from the Universal. But our Aikido practice is unique in the sense that we don't demand complete commitment really from anyone from the start. I never tell any student " You cannot come and train here because you are not committed". Anyone who wants to come and train with me can come and train with me. I will show them Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, I'll show them Mind Body Unification, I¥ll show them how to breathe, how to extend Ki, how to keep One point, how to relax completely, and how to keep their weight naturally underside. Fine!. But, ultimately, they may want to voluntarily make a commitment to this teaching, and to the training. Because they will begin to see for themselves that if they do not, then they won't have a chance of really reaping the benefits of this work. It takes a tremendous commitment for any kind of true realization; any real change. Only in Aikido we say " It is voluntarily; you don't have to stay where you are, but it is up to you". When You make this commitment to this teaching, and you really want to follow this course of action, then I¥ll say OK!, You are now a true student. But until then it is still OK, and you are welcome to train with me any time. I am happy to teach you. And you can do this for the rest of your life, if you must. I¥ll never throw you out, I¥ll never tell you you're "no good". Because there is always a chance you will get to see. Everyone is on a different level on the path. So just keep coming, keep listening, keep training, keep experimenting, keep testing, keep trying and discovering. And sometime, maybe you will be able to make that commitment, and truly become a student of Shinshin Toitsu Aikido.

Can you define some of the concepts you use? We talk about mind body unification, so what is mind, in relationship to thought, etc. What is your understanding of that, when you talk about mind body unification? Can you define the word mind?

Well, in Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido we are working with a field of consciousness. And we call this field of consciousness mind/body. When I talk about body, I am really talking about this field. All things arise through mind. The body is a reflection of the mind, just like the body is reflected in a mirror. What you do with your body in front of a mirror, absolutely must be reflected accurately in the mirror. There is no question about that. No one would argue. But what people don't understand is that what happens in the body is automatically a reflection of what is happening in the mind. It is possible for mind to move without moving the body, but it is not possible for the body to move without mind. That hierarchical relationship of mind to body is not understood well by the public, but it is essential to the understanding of Aikido training. As we develop in our training in Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, we gradually gain a deeper and deeper understanding of what mind is. But mind is not something that can be cleverly defined intellectually. Certainly from time immemorial, men and women have been attempting to explain mind in some sort of clever way. But mind, to my understanding and experience, is a kind of a stream of being that must be experienced personally. It is not something that I can tell you, "Oh, yes, this is mind " and then you have an understanding. No! Not at all. If you want to understand mind, you have to do the practices that I am talking about. It is not like I can give you a simple explanation. I can tell you what to do, and this will be like a scientific experiment: I give you an injunction, "Ok, do this practice", and then you go on and you do the practice, and let it have its way with you. And then you come back, and I'll test you, and see if you did the practice correctly. If you did it correctly, and you did it long enough and sincerely enough, then the results will show in you. If you didn't, then I'll send you back to do more practice. This sequence of teacher saying, "Try this!", and you are doing the practice, and then you are coming back and showing him the experience; this is the traditional way. It is not like going to college and writing down, or memorizing a list of facts, writing down a field of knowledge. This is not knowledge we're dealing with here. This is wisdom! Wisdom doesn't come like that. You have to actually do the work. You have to sacrifice yourself, you have to commit yourself, and then sacrifice what exactly needs to be sacrificed, whatever is required. And you go deeply into the teaching in the way the teacher explains to you, shows you to do. And then you have the experience. Then you have to establish a personal relationship with the Universal Mind, or in other words Original Mind.

What troubles most people are thoughts and emotions. So what is the relationship between thoughts and emotions and original mind?

Well, when we are born we are pretty much a blank slate, and, of course, immediately we begin having experiences. And when we are just little children, we are similar maybe to dogs or cats, or animals or plants. We don't have any self-awareness. We do have a kind of freedom, in the sense that we are not worried about what is going to happen tomorrow. We are not remembering and fearing what happened yesterday. And we are not anxious over anything, beyond getting fed. And when we are hungry, or we want to sleep, we are very Zen like in the sense that we live a very immediate life. Many people misunderstand this to be some kind of state of enlightenment, but I say it is not. Enlightenment means that you have this natural state of being, but you are also at the same time aware. The way Tohei Sensei puts it is, "Only human beings have the privilege and capacity to realize [the true state]". Though animals possess this state, they cannot know it. When a horse bolts out of fear or excitement, there is no hesitation, it is instant, immediate. But in most human beings there is a kind of slack that needs to be taken up; a sense of confusion and lack of clarity that prohibits free and true action.. In a baby this can happen, because the baby is like an animal. And then gradually the experiences of separation that develop when the baby leaves his mother, begin to build up a sense of separateness and isolation, which causes a guardedness; a hesitation; a slack in the mind. And as this develops, then the baby begins to lose his animal-like freedom from care. Of course this is very necessary if we are to survive in this world. Babies must grow to be aware of the results of their actions. The individual has to develop this sense of self awareness. So in other words, what I am saying is, it is necessary to build up a sense of ego, "I am", this sense of specialness, to a very healthy and strong state because that is in fact what self awareness is. But then at some point, we have to realize that along with this ego comes this sense of isolation, this distance from this moment, and this distance from other people. So in space and time we have a kind of an lonely feeling, which I was talking about in the beginning of our talk today, and it produces this feeling of longing. And we try to fill that longing with external things, which ends up strengthening our sense of special separateness. Maybe we begin to see ourselves as very powerful, and maybe we are a great celebrity and we have a lot of positive support from other people, but we still feel terrible. We still do not feel fulfilled. Because this feeling of fulfillment doesn't come from the outside. So, as a separate individual, as an ego, a human being going through life, thoughts arise. And these thoughts and related emotions are never concerning the moment, but are always of the past or the future. If you are sitting in meditation and you are watching thoughts arising, you can see right away that those thoughts have something to do with past, or something to do with the future. It is impossible to think about this moment. The minute you are thinking about this moment, you are thinking about something that happened a moment ago. Reflection is always off time. So, any thought that arises comes out of this history that we carry with us, or desire for/fear of some future event. And therefore, it is not free, it is not original, it is not present, it is not open, it is not liberated. Thoughts are not bad or good in themselves, no matter what we might think of them. The practice is to learn to be completely living in this present moment, which means in this Original Mind, and not reacting to, or following, thoughts that lead us away in space and time from this moment.

Another definition! You used the word universe or universal, could you explain that?

Well, people think of the universe as a physical entity, and which of course there is a physical manifestation that scientists generally call the universe. But everyone knows, when you are outside and look into the night sky, and gaze up into this so called universe, we get a funny feeling. "How far does it go?" you always ask yourself. Well it goes to infinity! There is no end to space. And this is totally illogical. It doesn't fit into any concept that we can possibly have. The term infinity takes us beyond concept. It is a kind of a violation of the threshold of logical thinking; that which cannot be logically conceived of. So, what I mean by Universal, or the Universe, is an infinity that can not be comprehended with a logical reasoning mind. So, to give a definition of the Universe would be almost an anti-definition. It is to say it is not anything you can conceive of. It is beyond boundary. There is no beginning to time, and can be no end to time. There is no beginning to space; there can be no end to space. The dualistic world, this relative world that we live in is a construct, based on accepting that there is an end, or limitation to time and space. When in fact we know that there isn't. So, this produces some kind of contradiction in us, and any sensitive human being, (I would think!), sooner or later is going to feel this contradiction, and ask themselves the question: "How can this be? How can I live my whole life according to my senses; my tasting, my smelling, my seeing, my hearing, my feeling. How can I live my whole life according to this, the rules or reality that comes to me from these senses? And that reality coming to me from the senses is telling me that there is a structured time, there is a structured space. There is an end to everything. When in fact infinity suggests something else all together!" So I am not saying that the world we perceive, and work and live in and play in, doesn't exist. But I am saying that it is a logical and useful extension of something that is much greater; much deeper and more mysterious. We all know this dualistic world of the senses, but the non-dual world needs to be experienced. The non-dual Universal, what we call Original Mind. Out of which this whole manifestation arises; not arose years ago, but does arise in every moment. We allow it to arise in every moment. We can watch it arise; we don't try to stop it from arising. But we dwell in the true reality, which is the fundamental Ocean of Being, or Ocean of Original Mind that is underneath.

To return to the art of Aikido, How do you see the art of Aikido in relationship to society?

I think it is very unique, thanks very much to Tohei Sensei. Because never before, in the east or the west has there ever been a method of discovering, for ourselves, the true state of our mind, in an open and exposed fashion. In the past it was a very private and intimate thing that took place between teacher and student. But now, because Tohei Sensei developed Ki testing, which I will describe in just a minute, since he developed Ki testing now there is a way for everyone in society to find out what state they are really in, to constantly check themselves. And this will encourage and awaken in themselves a sense of Mind Body Unification. Like I said before, body is like a mirror of our mind. So let's say you are standing upright, and I apply a gentle pressure to your chest. First, you can have a feeling to resist me, a kind of fighting back that I was talking about. You will easily fall over. This feeling of resistance arises in your mind, because you want to succeed! You want to do this thing yourself, you want to pass the Ki test. But it isn't a point of passing the Ki test, it is a point of understanding this process of what arises in mind and causes us to be the way we are. So this is a simple practice that shows us what we are really like. And in the second instance, you might collapse, as I apply pressure to you, your power might collapse and you might fall back. Those two instances; the first one is resistance, there is your intensity, you are resisting with intensity. But it is a mistaken intensity, it is a resistance and it's fighting the testing. Whereas in the second case, that of collapsing, you might have a sense of dead calmness. You think the world is greater than you. You fall over because this person testing you has so much more power. This is a kind of passivity. Calmness is a positive thing, but it is being used in the wrong way. It is a misunderstanding. So instead of these two ways of reacting to the pressure, we simply allow ourselves to just be in the state we are naturally in already. We don't try to alter that state, we stay calm, we stay relaxed, but we allow the feeling of tremendous intensity, which pervades the universe, to fill us. We can imagine that we are not limited by the bag of skin which apparently encloses our body. We can identify with the entire space of the Infinite Universe. This allows us to move if we wish, and not to move if we choose not to.
Tohei Sensei has 3 principles of the universe that he has offered. The first is that the Universe is an infinite sphere with an infinite radius, the second is that the Universe is an infinite gathering of infinitely small particles, and the third is that the Universe is always changing. The Universe is always in motion, is another way to say that. Well, we all know that the universe is always in motion. The physicists will tell you that the atomic/subatomic microcosmic world is moving at incredible speeds. We know the earth is turning at over 5,000 mph. We know the earth is zooming around the sun at tremendous speed. Everything in this universe is moving with tremendous intensity and speed at every moment. However, we don't notice it ourselves. We are ignoring it. But in fact it can be experienced, when we relax and quiet our mind, and become calm. We begin to have a sense of some underlying intensity which can be, in the beginning, a most frightening power. And this that we identify as "power" is simply the existing force of the Universal movement. So we relax and remain natural, and don't try to overcome anymore; don't try to resist anymore. And at the same time we don't cave in and run away from, or give in to the pressure. We just maintain our integrity, our natural truly worthy positive and powerful state, and we find that we are completely immovable. I push on your chest and you don't move.
This is called Ki testing. Of course we do it in all different kinds of positions; bending over, bending backward, holding our arms out, making our arm unbendable, and the principles work the same in every instance. We are always looking for these three alternative ways of being. (1)Resisting intensity, (2)caving in calmness, or (3) what we call living calmness or Seishi. The Japanese word for living calmness is Seishi. So this living calmness is being in, what I called earlier Reiseishin; a state of our natural beingness. And not allowing the desire to become more or better, or different or somehow achieving something different than, what is happening right now. Never disturb equanimity, and never sacrifice our integrity. So anybody can take this test, you don't have to be an expert. You can come to the Dojo the first day; I'll show you how to do unbendable arm. I'll show you how to have unraisable body, so I can't lift you off the floor. I'll show you how to keep One-point, and relax completely. So that when I push, you don't move. You can have this experience the very first day. This is a wonderful thing! Tohei Sensei really invented this way of showing, through our body, what state our mind is truly in. And like I said, it has never been done before, and it has tremendous extension possible in all sorts of educational procedures. Did you know that Richard Riley, the Secretary of education for USA, is very much a believer in Tohei Sensei's principles of Mind Body Unification? He learned about this Ki testing, and was so impressed that right now he has a bill before US Congress to provide for grant money to have Mind Body Unification training in all the elementary schools in the United States of America, so that we can begin to get this into our educational system. This way young children can see how mind and body is unified. Currently, we spend a lot of time in school teaching kids how to train their bodies, and we spent a lot of time teaching how to train their minds, but these things are generally done separately. If they are done somewhat together, like for instance in sports where you might have to learn how to extend your mind a bit when you are running track, or when you are playing in some sort of game. But it only goes as far as the actual sporting event. As soon as it is over this is often lost. So it isn't being taught as a Principle. In addition, at the same time that sports are being taught, the coaches often are injecting a sense of aggressive attainment, or personal achievement there. And Ki testing doesn't indicate, or encourage, any kind of personal achievement beyond what you are already. We say, "I am already fine!" Mind and body is already unified, only we forget! We forget because we have accepted a sense of lacking, and we have accepted the reality that our senses are reporting to us. You think that something has to change and that you have to improve your self. You think that somehow you have to gain something to fill this longing that you have. But that is not true. There is no gain to be made. All gain takes us away from here, in space and time. The longing is an error; a mistaken notion! It takes us away from reality, what we truly are. So all of us must face what we truly are, transform ourselves into what we always were, but forgot. So this is what the Ki Test is about, this is the meaning of Ki testing, and how it is useful for every human being, to learn about who they really are.

There is a cultural flavor to Aikido. It is very much based on Japanese values and culture, so how do you see the future development of Aikido?

Well you know, I have to say when I was just a beginning Aikido student, many years ago, I was at a party in Honolulu with Tohei Sensei, and somehow I was lucky enough to be sitting next to him. And I asked him about Aikido, and he told me a few stories about the meaning of Aikido. And in the end of our conversation, the last thing he said to me was, " Young man, the future of Aikido is in the west!" I thought that was very interesting that he said that, and I never forgot it. In those days I didn't know what he meant by that. I think that he didn't mean to the exclusion of Japan, but he had a strong feeling that, western culture needs to have a method of tying together, some transition between, eastern spiritual traditions and western scientific tradition, and that Aikido could provide that. Ok, that doesn't mean there haven't been spiritual traditions in the west. And it doesn't mean that there is no scientific tradition in the east. But primarily in the West, Europe and America, man has given himself over to the pursuit of scientific and technological expertise. And we see where that has gotten us! Because of irresponsibility, we are in danger of destroying our whole environment. This is not, in any way, to descry the wonderful improvements to daily life that this technology provides. I wouldn't give up modern dentistry for anything. I wouldn't want to have rotten teeth! I am very grateful for the vast good state of health in the western world today. Personally, western doctors once saved my life. I would have died if it had not been for modern technology. I would not be even here to say this. So I am grateful for that. And I am grateful to be able to fly here to Europe, in a short period of time. And meet all you wonderful people, and teach Aikido, and share Aikido with you. So these things are all wonderful. But, in themselves, as I was saying, they don't ultimately satisfy a thing. And if we don't use them properly, as I said, we are seeing now that we might destroy the very environment that we are existing in.
So, I think the future of Aikido in the west means that Aikido has a very significant role to play. This role can be in showing this simple mind body connection, this simple connection between the inner world and the outer world, in an observable, western way. Tohei Sensei describes it like an iceberg. He says," We look at ourselves like we look at an iceberg. We see the tip of the iceberg sticking out of the water. And we basically think that's the iceberg". But the truth of the matter is, the part exposed above the water, is the very smallest tip of the iceberg. The iceberg in fact contains a huge globe of ice that hangs beneath the surface of the ocean. So we know that about an iceberg. And if you look at the human condition, the tip of the iceberg can be seen as our ego oriented self, that part of us which identifies only with the world of the senses. The inner world though, that which is hidden, can be compared to the part of the iceberg beneath the surface. Except that in the human being the inner world is not just larger than this small tip of the iceberg, but it is infinite in size. Because this inner world is the direct experience of Original Mind, Universal Mind, or the Universal Reality.
You know, this is a somewhat difficult thing to be interviewed about, and talk about. It's true that I can talk about it practically forever, but I can never say exactly what it is. You know Lao Tzu said, "He who says doesn't know. And he who knows doesn't say!" and then he proceeded to write tons of books about it!! So we can talk about it endlessly. It is just that if you ever stop and say, "This is it" If you try to define it, to pin it down, if I try to tell you exactly what you are asking me, "What is mind?", and if I try exactly to tell you "What is universal?" and definitely say this is it, then it is self defeating. Then no no, that is not it then. You can not step on it. It is like trying to step on a bar of soap in the shower, it evades you, it is not it! If you think you've got it, you don't have it! It is a constant process of going deeper and deeper and deeper. In a very humble and sincere, and devoted and committed way. Going deeper, it is like exploring in a very intimate and personal way; a very deep exploration that takes us beyond, through and beyond our fears. And coming out of that, back and forth, back and forth. Going in deeper and deeper, we carry with us this fearlessness, we carry with us the courage that we discovered, by looking at our own nature and seeing the shortcomings that we have, the mistaken notions that we have. The way that we have misused people to try to gather love from them. The sort of gatherings we go around and take from everybody. I want this from you, this from you, this from you. But true life lies in the opposite direction; giving, always giving to everyone. Everyone we meet we should give Kiatsu. Kiatsu means pressing with Ki. Sometimes we give Kiatsu, pressing with our thumb or fingers on some part of an injured or weakened person to put Ki into their body, and help them get healed. But beyond that, I think of life as Kiatsu. When I am using my voice, meeting people, the way I orient my body towards them, my chest, my heart area. The way my eyes go to another person. The feeling I have for them, the thought I have for them; this is also a kind of Kiatsu. Even if they are not in my presence. My wife is back home on Maui. When I think of my wife, I think of her in this way; that I am giving her Kiatsu. I am extending my Ki, my love, my appreciation and my gratitude to her. Then the next time I see her, this is manifesting to me. How we treat somebody in our thoughts, or in person, how we look at someone, how we feel towards them. How we use our voice towards them, our eyes, the gentleness of our face and our body in relationship to people. This is giving, giving, giving all the time. There is no end to it. And if you do this, you will never become tired, you will never become tired of it. Taking, and you become exhausted. You think it would be the opposite, but it is not. This is the paradox.

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