Newsletter
"The Source"
Power
of the New Year -
Year of the Tiger
by Shihan Richard J. Van Donk
I am determined to state that "98 is Great". I
will one day look back on 1998 as a banner year. Will you?
Are you willing to have the life you deserve? Are you willing
to do whatever it takes without excuses? Life is continually
unfolding the greatness of the divine for the individual
who is willing to live their life as an exploration, to
be bold enough to pioneer new territory even if it is only
within their own thoughts. What if Einstein, Tesla, Da Vinci,
Plato, Christ, or Buddha kept their thoughts only to themselves?
You may have more to offer the world than you know. I encourage
you to expand your limits and go to the outer edges of your
possibilities and see what you are able to do. Take off
the limits in 1998 and commit to doing at least one thing
extraordinarily well- beyond your wildest expectations-
just to let yourself know what is possible for you. I ask
you personally, what are you willing to explore and expand
in the vast areas of your life? Are you willing to go deeper,
to deepen your knowing, your feelings and your understandings?
How about more Intimacy, Strength? Resolve? Internal Power?
Abundance? Is there music and art in your life? You probably
know what you need. If you want wealth study wealth. If
you want health study health. Not just talk but walking
the walk, feeling the feelings to their depth. Socrates
said "Know thyself" and I say to you, You have
got to know for yourself.
Let me ask you this, What do you want from today? What do
you want from your life? What do you want from Ninjutsu?
What do you want to learn today? What is your life teaching
you? Answer these questions now. I know you may be tempted
to go on but spend some time getting clear on the answers
to these questions. Our view of the outside world (whether
we blame it or have gratitude for it) is only a reflection
of what is going on inside us. For many years I have contended
that it must get right in the inside of us before it gets
right on the outside of us. There really isn't a separation
but a reflection. One of the greatest lessons that I have
learned is to respond to things instead of reacting to them.
With responding comes choice and proper use of one's personal
power. We can then learn to determine the meaning and outcome
of a situation so that everyone wins. A fighting encounter
is many times a different thing. If forced, you must do
what you can with your best effort to protect yourself and
loved ones. Being a protector of freedom is responding whereas
fighting for ego or revenge is reactionary. I tell my martial
arts students to always work on responding to the intent
of the situation. Remember that the most powerful weapon
you have is your mind. Not just your body but your mind.
Actually, a unified being is the most powerful asset you
can have. This is when you are integrated and aligned in
body, mind, spirit with a unified direction of concentrated
focus towards a chosen result with conscious awareness in
the choices of the matter.
If challenged in any fighting encounter, you have to know
when to act, you have to know how much action to take, you
have to know what to do in an instant. Those actions will
be filtered by your own internal conflicts and awareness
level of the situation. Also, most important to me is the
level of intent by the attacker. If a person is just drunk
and wants to pick a fight, I'm not going to want to hurt
this person. As a martial artist I have a higher code of
ethics- I am a protector of freedom not a destroyer. Those
days are long past. Learn to measure the situation, understand
the needs of the attacker. You say you don't have time?
Well, until you are trained you may just have to do the
best you can during the encounter This is what martial arts
training in and out of the dojo is for. To be prepared.
Remember the old Scout motto? Be prepared. I say go into
the world with both eyes open. Know the difference between
proper distancing so you can control the outcome verses
destroying this person. Because in doing that destruction,
it still comes back to you, whatever you're doing on the
outside is going to reflect what's going on on the inside
because you need to deal with that too. The more anger you
hold the more you get to see what anger really is through
its effect in your life. Anger is your feeling that you
are not in control, that you don't have the ability to control
a situation at that particular time, that you have given
up power or are powerless in that situation. And it can
generalize to being powerless to anything at all. The fear
makes one become attached to getting control back to at
any cost. Remember, Buddha said that anything that you are
attached to will control you. Anger usually violates everything
in its path- you included.
Then there's often guilt. When people think that they have
violated someone they usually find some way to cause themselves
pain or punishment so that they can relinquish the guilt
they feel. Some people manifest disease in their body from
the constant anger they run in their bodies or receive from
others and later don't feel worthy. They don't think that
they should have a full life. It's very difficult for people
sometime to say "Yes!, life is wonderful, it should
be full of happiness and joy. And, "Yes, I can have
it all and I can keep a renewed connection to God / Spirit.
So we have to learn to let go of that anger. Learn not to
manifest it at all.
Let us share our courageous acts and not our fears.
Takamatsu
Sensei, my teacher's teacher, was a great martial artist
who fought many battles, but he was also a great spiritual
teacher. In fact in his later years of life he gave up
most of his martial arts except for teaching my teacher,
Masaaki Hatsumi. He became a priest and lived his life
in the devotion of life. He spent many moments in the
mountains and in attunement with nature, with life and
studied how things naturally interacted. The most profound
message he shared on the spiritual side of things was
his conquest to give up anger. That was his personal quest
for himself and he felt it was one of the most transforming
actions that he ever took. According to my teacher Grandmaster
Hatsumi, he did this very well. The times when he thought
that Takamatsu Sensei would be extremely angry, he wasn't.
Grandmaster Hatsumi has worked with this issue also and
says at times it is a very difficult lesson to learn.
I'm still working on it myself. The more actions one takes
in the world the bigger the tests (mirror) become. The
thought occurs to me that if I'm angry at someone else
without action, whose body suffers? Mine. Wait a minute
here- they violated me, I get angry, and MY body hurts?
Something is wrong here. Shouldn't it be the other way
around? The world would certainly be different if, when
someone violated someone else, it was their own body which
started hurting until they stopped violating! Instant
Karma.
But it isn't this way because we are meant to be self
accountable. If I get an itch, I need to scratch it. We
all need to take care of things for ourselves in life.
But it's the response that you choose to give to an action
that's going to make a difference. That's just the way
it is. You have to know that things are the way that they
are and just being upset that they are the way that they
are is not going to help the way that they are. Do you
understand this? It's a very powerful understanding. Things
are already the way that they are, so be willing to do
what you have to do, but do it at the level of intent
that is necessary.
What does all this mean in regards to you having a great
98 and being willing to expand your possibilities? If
you don't know and understand what makes you powerless
in a given situation or how you or others have moved past
their fears you may never get the opportunity to fulfill
your destiny of having a greater life. I encourage you
to go for it and become a great martial artist in the
process, for yourself.
Commit
to excellence in 1998!
By Shihan Richard J. Van Donk
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