What do you consider spiritual?

[Gyakuto]

I am a very proud Christian fundamentalist, so for me spirituality is something that has to be compatible with God, the Holy Spirit, and the teachings of the Bible. I realise however that sometimes, there are things within the realm of martial arts that clash with the teachings of God. For example, I have been struggling with the idea, that I as a human underneath God, am fundamentally weak to sin and I should pray and be thankful for his help and guidance with every endeavour; it sometimes feels like it robs me of my personal achievements. I remember at times I used to pray that he would not help me in my endeavours, as I wanted to know all my work is attributed to myself and that I had done it on my own. Sometimes I am still tempted to pray for this again, and I have not decided if I should or not; because at the end of the day, praying for it also signifies a deep arrogance and pride, in my opinion.

So, for me... Spirituality: Aligning your self and inner self, with God and Nature simultaneously, without prioritising any over God and His teachings.

I think that this definition is the best way for me to describe my emotions and thoughts on this, but I will come back and edit this if I can paint a clearer picture.

Help and guidance are completely different to being handed something on a silver platter. Your martial arts teacher helps and guides you in your training but are your achievements his? Of course not! They have told and shown you that by doing a block/punch/kick combination in a particular way and repeating it endlessly (!) you will be able to do it in manner required by your system and perhaps pass a grading examination. Similarly, your God ‘shows you the way’ but it is you that has to walk it and the merit is yours.

Also, you completely misunderstand the concept of prayer. The misguided believe prayer is a petition to a deity to temporarily suspend the laws of nature, coming from someone who is admittedly, unworthy! This is incorrect. A deity doesn’t give you things or favourable outcomes. If that were the case, by the sheer weight of the number of prayers, the fires in LA would snub themselves out, the house would rebuild themselves and all personal effects be restored instantly and the fatalities reverse themselves. Similarly, the USA would have a very different incoming president since the rest of the world was praying, very hard, for such an outcome. In the whole 4000 years or so the world has existed, this sort of thing has never happened beyond probability or some naturally occurring and explainable mechanism.

Prayer should be instilled with honouring and thankfulness to your deity and nothing more. I once asked a famous Christian theologian why God arrogantly demanded praise via prayer. He suggested God didn’t, but you offered praise to him like, as a child, you might save up your pocket money to buy your parents a little gift because you love them.

Put these silly thoughts out of your head, practise your art and train hard. I can assure you, any achievements you attain are entirely yours.

 

[Ivan]

Help and guidance are completely different to being handed something on a silver platter. Your martial arts teacher helps and guides you in your training but are your achievements his? Of course not! They have told and shown you that by doing a block/punch/kick combination in a particular way and repeating it endlessly (!) you will be able to do it in manner required by your system and perhaps pass a grading examination. Similarly, your God ‘shows you the way’ but it is you that has to walk it and the merit is yours.

Also, you completely misunderstand the concept of prayer. The misguided believe prayer is a petition to a deity to temporarily suspend the laws of nature, coming from someone who is admittedly, unworthy! This is incorrect. A deity doesn’t give you things or favourable outcomes. If that were the case, by the sheer weight of the number of prayers, the fires in LA would snub themselves out, the house would rebuild themselves and all personal effects be restored instantly and the fatalities reverse themselves. Similarly, the USA would have a very different incoming president since the rest of the world was praying, very hard, for such an outcome. In the whole 4000 years or so the world has existed, this sort of thing has never happened beyond probability or some naturally occurring and explainable mechanism.

Prayer should be instilled with honouring and thankfulness to your deity and nothing more. I once asked a famous Christian theologian why God arrogantly demanded praise via prayer. He suggested God didn’t, but you offered praise to him like, as a child, you might save up your pocket money to buy your parents a little gift because you love them.

Put these silly thoughts out of your head, practise your art and train hard. I can assure you, any achievements you attain are entirely yours.

Thanks, I like this perspective of prayer a lot more than mine.

 

[Old CJ]

Is this teaching in the dojo? This is what I’m asking; has your martial arts teacher introduced you to the art’s spiritual background?

We have talked about the spirit of Budo.

 

[Gyakuto]

By sheer coincidence, I was reading ‘Ki and the Way of the Martial Arts’ by Tokitsu Kenji over lunch. It talks about what Budo actually is and suggests that transplanting martial art to the West, it has virtually stripped away everything that makes them Budo and supplanted it with competition/fitness/stress relief etc. That has bounced back to Japan too.

It’s a very interesting book, worth getting hold of and, I hasten to add, I’ve only just started it so the message might change!