ニールです。僕はマンツーマン英会話 IHCWAYで英会話を教え始めて、もうすぐ1年になります。
IHCWAYで英語を教えるのは、とてもやりがいのある仕事です。
僕は、日本語の日常会話もできるので、初心者の人でも対応でき、丁寧に教える自身があります。
年齢も、若い人から年配の人まで、いつも楽しくレッスンしています。
IHCWAYは生徒が1時間レッスンごとに2000円を、直接先生に払うスタイルなので、僕たちのような外国人先生にとっても、安心です。
カフェで教えられるのも、教室内のように窮屈でなくて、リラックスできます。
あと、IHCWAYの事務所で、紹介の前に面接をしてくれるので、ちゃんと面接を通ってきた生徒さんたちは、とてもいい人たちばかりですし、
マンツーマンなので生徒さんの上達も早いみたいです。
IHCWAYはまじめな学校なので、先生もスケジュールやレポートの提出もあって、ちょっと大変ですが、これからも頑張って教えていきたいです。
This all started with an attempt for right action. However martial arts oppressed me. I wanted to give them up. In giving martial arts I gave up discipline and order and etc. this is a re accruing event. It led to the events in Prague. So I always come crawling back to discipline and order, out of fear for my life. This time I wanted to make an attempt at health and progress and strength without the oppression of the order. I only had vague images and ideals of Siddhartha and Walt Whitman to go off of. After navigating my indecision, I established some makeshift order and identity, as I have done thousands of times. However after I night of drinking and self abuse I realized how extreme I have been becoming. And how detrimental my ideology was to my survival. My philosophy had to sober up. Without some sort of balance I could not stop abusing myself. I was aware of this danger. I saw how my philosophy had slighted me, had made hurt me, had cut me. If I did not change something I would go on hurting myself. SO I developed a reverence for balance. I fell in love with moderation, and small steps. Almost immediately a system came into place. As long as I had some goal, no matter how present how far away, how close, how remote, if only I did not compromise one goal, than whatever I do is trial and error, and then I don’t have to hate myself for failure, therefore no more binge drinking or stress, or binge eating. With this sobriety, I recognized the absurdity of right action. I laughed at progress, and scoffed at morality. I wanted to find the truly appropriate way to spend the time in our lives. I realized there is no right way, no prescription, so any action at all, as significant or insignificant as another. Therefore absurdity, nothingness, meaninglessness, anti right action, chaos became my central object. I cut all strings, all laws, all standa4ds, all expectations, all advice, all truths. And I stood for the first time with all faith fully on a platform of lawlessness. Within the chaos, I relaxed. I stopped abusing myself with expectations. But many motivations came within the chaos, such as the motivation for right action. And because chaos has no law than all that comes is justified. So in my irrational love for right action, developed a desire for the checkpoints of imagery, a self justified desire for right action. (no development from this yet) At the same time I have become aware that the cure will be in dropping all feelings of seriousness for life. If I could laugh at the consequences of failure or success, then sureley I could return the the profound living I did as a child. The full living. The sucking up of all moments, and the complete investment/ erelishing of life. (I have grown to revere and idealize unconveluted vision, a full experiencing of life and moemtns un clouded uncompromised by distinctions brought about by meaning, judgement, logic, morality, expectations.) I realized that maybe this could never happen until I trashed my goals (that were previously in place for my own security). This is dangerous, it is riding without training wheels. It is me trying to keep health strength and progress without order, and judgements. However killing these goals really means killing all concepts and ideas of progress. To truly give up, to truly give up, to give up, like a student drops out of college, like a marriage divorces. (no development from this yet) I reflect on my childhood, when my mother struggled to instill balance, and sobriety into me. However I have been violently determined to follow my own whims since birth. I vehemently insist on being a vigilante, a homeless man, an outcast, a rebel, or I insist on being the son of God, the just, the prodigy, the one. I lapse between these two extremes. I have a complete inability; I have displayed complete failure when it comes to taking advice. I spit on advice. And advice givers offend me. My mother struggled to instill some order into me. Although it may have not been her intention to turn me into one, I reviled the normal simple mild boy, who did his homework when he got home, what a waste of birth! This mildness, this mild discipline, to do homework when the sun is shining, almost made me want to vomit (literally) the discipline to stay inside, and not go outside and get in trouble, that small mild discipline. I could never master any such discipline without the call of God behind it. Discipline for me can only be large judgmental, like lighting, with wrath, and force, and trembling, and fear, and destruction. How can those kids sit at home with their quiet mild little discipline doing their quit little homework in the shade in the dark, with the dust floating about in the stuffy room, when the SUN IS OUT SHINIGN GODDAMIT! Side notes— Martial arts gives me order with its intention to survive, Zen lets me progress. And I know these hobbies are meaningless and irrelevant. Their practice enables me somehow to let everything be light and meaningless. However I frequently quit Martial arts due to various reasons. Most recently it was because I became confused by the imagery of MMA fighters and the goal of martial arts. Nor did I have a good place to practice. So I quit. And without this order I cannot bring myself to practice Zen. I don’t know why. But hypothetically if I go back to them I can solve the problem, and long as I am making a product out of my health and body. I don’t know why. And I don’t know why its not the same for everybody. And this vexes me. I despise this order, I revile it. It s all that works for me, and I don’t know why. Because ei don’t understand it I reject it, I can’t just accept it. Sometimes i can —————————– Well, I think you pretty much understood what I have written. What I had originally wrote was a document to establish some order, or map, of how I could understand things. But it became much more uncontained and spontaneous as I was writing. It was certainly a stream of consciousness writing process, but originally I was undoubtedly calculating in trying to reach a picture of what I had gone through/am going through. It was not at all an engagement. You could say crisis induced. But more so than any crisis it was induced by any ernest attempt of mine to find some appropriate way to live.. I am really curious, about your finding joy in each moment. Did it work for you? Could you let yourself have any given moment on your own terms? This is something I have aimed towards without giving a real effort. I don’t know why First of all I feel like its a leap of faith. I always need a purpose to back up my action, so that I have a framework with which I can put my enjoyment into context.My words are becoming so vague, I don’t even know what Im talking about now. But I feel that this sort of letting go requires a special kind of discipline. Maybe even a leap of non faith. Its like you have no god, but you’ll still jump anyway. Just for the moments sake. This I think is my fundamental fear/challenge/problem. I lapse between a realm of absolute order/discipline/expectations to a realm of absurdity/disorder/undiscipline. I can’t survive without purpose. But with purpose I can’t live freely. On the other hand, without purpose, the pieces fall apart, I cannot help myself, I’d probably fail out of college, and do do a lot of drugs (this side of the problem is especially dangerous because of my philosophical trials my concepts of morality have been significantly eroded or turned upside down/inside out). I really think the two vehicles you mentioned relate to my situation very well. I feel like I want to find the appropriate work, that any “progress” calls for. I’m too scared, or by nature so in need of discipline, that I cannot handle the waiting for the thunderbolt. All of this makes me reflect on my younger ages. I understand my skateboarding was so good for me. It was absolutely meaningless, but the aesthetic goal of tricks, forced me into discipline. And yet there is no practical application for tricks, so it was impossible to trick me into thinking that my life was anything more than serious. Before skateboarding I dwelt completely in irrationality and impulsiveness, but I sure did enjoy and relish life. And then after I was struck by my absolute faith in the samurai and all Japanese’s which led to increasing levels of meaning/philosophy/virtue I have ended up where I am now. As My mom has always suggested I need to learn some moderation. But I am incapable. I have always been disgusted with work or discipline without god to back it up. More than anything I think I am cursed by seriousness. As child I would laugh at this mess. I have never been a person who valued or respected those who take themselves seriously. How ironic that I am engulfed/drowning in seriousness and even self pitty. If only I could laugh at myself. In order to reach that nonseriousness, I recently realized I will even have to give up my goals of enrichment and respect. Again my coordinate system is lost and I fear that nothing will come of my life. Must something come of my life? and what will happen when I am inspired I wish to become something better, more pure, more skilled than I am? I have been slighted by my self doubts. I gave up on skateboarding, and recently Judo. (and this is one of the largest paradox’s for me: my dependance on martial arts to offer me morality.) In a Herman Hesse book, there is a guy who is scared of forgetting some events, so in order to save them he writes them down, however after writing them and establishing order in the events, he loses the originally meaning or essence of what he wished to preserve. I have written a lot, but I hope I haven’t digressed to much. I’m sorry if I have become confused in my writing. Its more than likely. But write me back, and tell me what you think when you can! I’m sure spring in Virginia is wonderful. I recall how impressed I was with the countryside of virginia. I always assumed that America was urban sprawl all the way to california. But Virginia really resembled Japan or Germany to me. Anyway talk to you later Uncle Ben
Humans act because of their deficits. If we don’t have food, we act in order to obtain it. Lack is our motivation. But when we have a full stomach, and a cozy house, warm clothing, a loving family, work the next morning, and an hour to kill before we go to bed, there is no nothing to do. What do we do with that moment? Is this our break, are these sparse particles of life our only chance to recognize that we live?
The universe is everything. The concept of everything or all suggests that nothing lacks. If in fact “all” is possible, then nothing lacks. And then there is no purpose and no reason, and no motivation for action; ultimately no God. At that point we witness life in utter petrification. “What is this we are presented with!? what is in front of us? this life? What is there to be done?” your stomach turns because you know the answer is absolutely nothing. We cannot handle meaninglessness because of our egos. We need our definitions and identities in order to act and ultimately survive. When these are challenged insecurity manifests. The more we define ourselves the more vulnerable we are. Our egos want to exist, because if we had no meaning, then our coordinate system of action and reason fall apart and we would sit in a chair and wait to die. We could go shoot ourselves, enlighten ourselves, eat a cake, fuck a bear, see our family, none of it makes a difference. This stare into the ultimate void petrifies our humanness.
Instead of seeing the void, we look away out of fear. We spend most of our time gaining more identity. We are up to our necks in it. The more identity we have, the more action necessary to prove identity. The more action the more fulfillment, and physical survival. We are problem creators and problem solvers. There is always something for us to fix. We dwell our days away, considering, weighing, comparing, prioritizing, organizing. There are so many problems in this world. We have so much work to do…. We are constantly inclined to create a scaffolding of identity, and image of self, and compare consequences relative to “I”, where we can punish and reward, and define ourselves by producing more purpose by the means of perceiving more lack.
In doing this we are doing ourselves a great injustice. We are giving our lives up. We miss the real god, all the while fighting for God. The greatest problem in life is that there is no such thing as a problem. This is a true challenge and an infinitely difficult debacle for us. A hurtle that only gods can jump. However we should recognize that all discontent is a misperception of the nature of the universe. It comes from delusion about what life trully is. Can we define life by our capacity to live? can we call ourselves “selves.” Is that what it means to experience the universe through the host of human perception?
By the means of concerns and worries we earn something for our selves. But what self are we earning for? The future self? To produce self? To secure a self? There is no self in the future. Outside of this moment there are no concerns, nor priorities because we don’t exist outside of the moment..no you and no life to live. Besides our nowness, there is no way to identify our own life. You may say that we were us when we were babies. I say that is true, but no more true than we were a tree not long ago. We are stardust. We are a phase of matter. The molecules composing are bodies are routinely exchanged, and do not come from our past but rather are exchanged right here and now with other matter. Our cells are completely rotated every 7 years. So physically we cannot claim consistency. You may say mentally or emotionally there is consistency. But have you not observed the various changes that your mind has taken over a life time? Not only just in a life time, have you not also experienced how your every belief, every standard may be completely flipped by a small change or skew in your perception of life? Can you define your self by such second hand information as “I am American, I am white, I am rich, I am christian?” By what standard are these titles real or relevant? An alteration of knowledge can erase and recreate your “self” or your”mind” in an instant.
But these examples are nothing compared to what I have learned through Zen. In Zen we observe the activity of our mind. You may think that your thoughts and emotions are profound and identify the self. But I claim that they are comfort, and a refuge from meaninglessness, and an impulsive habit in order to create action. Behind the compulsion of thinking lies a blank mirror. If you truly investigate and observe the activity of your mind, you will see, there is absolutley nothing concrete or consistent about the cognitive capacities. The you are just reverberation off of what happens to be happening around you.
But even more, morally speaking, should we give up what we have for a perception of something else? That is: should we give up the present for an image of the future? And if in fact we are simply a phase of matter and completely impermanent, what do we have beyond the now? The emotion that I have at any given moment will never come twice.. every change of every moment I die, and a new human being is born. Again I die as I sleep tonight. Someone else with a different heart wakes up in this bed everyday. It is disrespect to “self” if I give up the now, because the “self” is the now. Not for any fear, or insecurity, or image, or morals, or logic, or security should we pass up the opportunity to live. Before I know it I will be a tree, a noise, a smell, a reverberation, always some other form of energy. I would say your life is for you, but in actuality you have no life. There is no I and no life to live, You cannot say I am me, because there is no me. I is only the ability to perceive a moment or to be a moment. That is I = now.
If all we have is the moment then we should live for our moment, and aspire to the moment, aspire to the skillful living of a given moment. We may also aspire to morality, or strength, or wisdom, even politics, or fame, or science, but the deepest we can go; the farthest down the rabbit whole; the most advanced realm is in giving your moment to yourself (this is zen meditation.)
Every moment is a presentation of the Universe. Perception is a gift from god. In this all allness we are meaningless. We don’t know what to do. There is no prescription for our existence. And yet we are here. Is it not amazingly profound? Every second, non stop the universe presents us with this existence. Even if you have been in the same location hundreds of times, it is never the same, and always utterly shocking that something is in front of your eyes again. One day I was walking down Clinton street in Philadelphia. It is a very beautiful colonial street of completely brick houses and brick road. The trees cast the street into relative darkness. The bricks were muddy and damp from rain the previous night. I didn’t notice at first but I realized there were damp bright yellow leaves pasted to the bricks everywhere. They were so beautiful. It was amazing. I didn’t notice at first but I realized I was on a beautiful colonial street again for the 100th time in my life. It was amazing! I didn’t notice at first but I realized that again I was living my life over and over being presented with presentations from the universe. Being cast into another moment.
Again and again it turned out that again I was living life all over again. Again it is amazing that I am still doing this! And again it would be amazing if I weren’t. It is absolutely amazing that anything at all happens. Again the next moment I will be dead, again an entirely new life will come. Again continuity continues. The variety, the ingenuity, the reliability, the resources, of god to constantly produce perceivability, that is absolutely shocking. That fact that existence happens, the fact that it could just as well not happen. The existence and the non existence, somethingness always from nothingness, yet nothingness evermore. If you stare into the ultimate void and face that fear, life will be constantly new, as new as Jesus’ birth every second, as new as your birth every second, as new as Buddha’s enlightenment every second, as new as orgasm every second, as new as heroine or cocaine every second, as new as Kanye West’s new album every second.
In our highest capacity the simple act of exiting a train can be ecstasy. Quite literally, every breath, every flinch, every step is an alteration of the composition, and a new god. With every step you take you are a new human. As your foot makes contact with the floor life is beamed into you, and you have entered and exited existence again. You transcend nothingness, you transcend dimensions, you go in and out of truth. You yourself become the all seeing, the all feeling and perceiving god. This is what we could have if we give up our identities and our meanings, and our purposes, and sit, quietly, and wait, and wait,… quietly… observing life……..
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
I just wrote a little something about America and how it’s freshness is advantageous for itself. But what is even more important is this dynamic and how it exists at the individual level. In fact I have struggled with this for a long time. I have labeled myself and tried to identify what I must do as a human being. If you make your own god, then you give yourself a purpose for action and are comforted by this. You search out actions to define yourself by this identity. However its not long before this routine becomes redundant fake hollow, petrified. You can never live up to these meanings and images. And not only can you never live up to them they make your fear that which contrasts with your own identity. Therefor you become narrow minded, hateful, desperate, old and dependent on the fittings of your given image.
But that is not the worst consequence. The worst consequence is that you will begin to fear your own life constantly. I have argued that we fear Meaninglessness. It is true we do so. However just as much as the true meaninglessness, we fear the meaning we create. How can we live up to imaginary requirements? We obligate ourselves to checkpoints for our goodness; pleasing our parents, getting good grades, working hard, praying 5 times a day, eating right, avoiding indulgence, cursing your desires, cursing yourself for mistakes. However in reality these checkpoints do not exists, and clarify nothing. In worshiping these images of security, we slip a noose around our necks and slowly tighten it. Our lives become stale, and the meaninglessness becomes unbearable. The harder we fight for our meaning the more meaningless life becomes. The quiet of the living room after dinner petrifies us.
But if we realize that that there is no obligation, there is no prescription for life; if we realize we don’t owe anything to any person or any god, then those unbearable meaningless intimidating moments are no more, and are replaced by vast possibility, and a sense that anything you could ever imagine can happen at any moment. You wildest dreams could lay out in front of you completely, your world could be turned upside down. Anything at all is possible, and we are free to do anything at all with the life that was given to us. This fresh perception of the world is freedom. It is invincibility. It is the potential of a baby.
However the more we accumulate conditioned perceptions and ideas of the years, the more they pile up and block the view of our true perception. We have to escape knowledge, because the more we define the world and tell ourselves that we know it, the less we can see. We must know nothing, that way we can take in all the glory of God, and not block it out with our insecurity. Knowledge is ignorance. It is clutter in the attic. We must clean the attic and let the light from the windows spread into every corner and every crevice of the room, the light beams throughout, reflecting off the blank walls bouncing all around the room, illuminating the dust particles playing about the room, the windows twist the light, the whole room glows, accepting completely the light of god. The value of the space is its absence, just as the cup is valuable for the absence where water fills.
The best thing we can do is be no one, and know nothing. This is to meet the full potential of life, and to meet life fully, and enable yourself to fully appreciate every moment. Therefore a ride on the train to work is never the same and always new, and always a moment of potential. The glaze will come off of our eyes and we will live in constant newness. It is those who are full of images and identity that suffer from monotony. But those who don’t name themselves, those who don’t assume, cannot perceive monotony. We can hold on to no definition. Life is never the same. We are constantly dieing and constantly being born with the change of every moment. If only we could open our eyes.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
Europe is beautiful, and Japan is nice, but America is certainly the hot shit. Nobody else can do it like us. We are the flavour, we are the newness. We a flavour factory constantly producing. We have originality oozing out of our asses; Kanye, Andre 3000, Common, and that’s just what I downloaded today. I mean Europe produces some nice stuff; Justice, Yelle, chemical brothers, daft punk, aphex twin. You know I can get down with all that, but simply flavor as far as live ass folks go, America is ground zero. All those Europeans cant escape their history. Justice for example as bad ass as they’d like to be are still engulfed in Frenchness, and they are drowning in it. That is why justice gets really stale really fast. Now daft punk, is always fresh, that’s why their album is called discovery. But even still why are the American clubs the places where dancing is most genuine? C’mon, I’ve been to the clubs in TOkyo, I’ve been to the clubs is Munich, in Prague, in London, in Amsterdam, they want to be like us. In Japan and Europe they are always trying to live up to our American standard of freshness. They love us because we are not bound by history and culture. Can I simply say that speeding down kelly drive in Philly blasting Kanye exudes originality and freshness and youth, more than anything that Paris London or Tokyo could ever offer? America has no kings no tradition! That’s what we got in America that’s all we got; our lack of culture, our lack of identity, that never bounds us therefore we are able to constantly reproduce youth.
Just look at the rest of the world. As I said they a drowning in their own identity, it chokes them up. Their seriousness, their gods, their meaning that has accumulated over centuries, it kills their culture. (Just as I would argue that meaning suffocates the individual soul.) America is truly the land of the free; the culturally free, the meaninglessly free, free of god. However our freedom is challenged by the word freedom. Since our freedom has been so greatly appreciated it has become our dogma, and has turned into our identity, therefor our perception of our freedom is beginning to suffocate our freedom. That is way the country side is not flavor and fresh like we are in the cities. They want security, they want to grab onto their meaning through history, so they do revolutionary and civil war reenactments, so they can see themselves standing tall next to the images of Europe. However those images mean nothing, so we don’t need them. We need to escape identity, escape definition. It will limit us in the end, and all the air will be squeezed out of America until we will drop dead and limp. We must escape images!!!!!
(Actually I think this is the same argument that Bruce lee has offered for the evolution of martial arts.)
But anyway we are still doing pretty good, we still utterly lack identity, those men in the country side really are kidding themselves, at this very moment in their backyard Starbucks’ are being built and staffed completely by Viets and Indians. Yeah it sounds threatening, but really its a gift! America is the best chance for Buddhism, the best chance for philosophy, the best chance for creativity, originality, and possibility, the best chance at the real god who does not dwell in churches but is constantly dieing and constantly being born.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
What violence does for us is it lets us be an image of life. violence gives us respect for our lives, and all life. it tells us that we are alive, by putting death in our face, and forces us to understand that life is a gift. That is why the martial artist constantly treasures life. That is why Bushido exists, that is who Bruce Lee is. That is why the man who faces violence bravely learns to love his own life and all life around him. He becomes a spiritual being the more his life is defined by death. And the more he faces death the more he acknowledges death too as a phase of our existence, and the line crossed between life and death, existence and non-existence is something we must be very reverent towards. Every second must be appreciated, ever chirp by every bird, and view of a horizon or night sky, every smell, every conversation, must be cherished relished and appreciated to he utmost, because it is extremely temporary. That is Bushido. That is why violence is good, and a gift and a necessary part of life. Make no mistake about it, there will be no peace. Just as there is none in the animal kingdom, there is always predator and prey. There are times where total wart is in order, and at times you must kill fellow human beings.
We must protect ourselves. Defense is our dignity.To defend yourself is to respect yourself, and value your life, and again at the same time it is to acknowledge the value of all life, and be considerate of other humans. This way we create real men. That is why to be a warrior satisfies us, because in insuring our survival we satisfy the criteria of our humanness. Without preparation for violence we are pitiful. Ever since we stopped hunting and gathering, and stayed in one place, authority beyond our fathers came in the name of the state. They put a monopoly on violence and said that we would not have to protect ourselves, because they would do it for us. At that very moment man lost his dignity. By giving up protection by your own means you are no longer an animal but are now a mere human. This is a corruption of what we naturally are. This is why the modern man is chubby, and slow and undisciplined, and needy, and rarely self reliant. The man of the state who has given up his right to distribute his own violence is not a man. This is why martial arts dignifies us, because we are autonomous. this is why men love weapons… This is why martial arts are good.
But what are martial arts, what is protection? Is attacking the bear head of another man with a peace of metal so profound, so beautiful?
Why are all my role models supporters of non violence? What can be said of that? and if violence is the apex of human action why arent those who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima the wisest people in the world? it seems more so that violence is something that no one who has experienced wants. How can we reach peace in reverence for violence? What could be more dangerous than a culture of violence aspiring to violence? Are the men of these violent societies not going to search out violence in order to define their violent identities, and prove their selves as men? Does an identity not seek to clarify itself by such images? Surely it does…..
What can we call protection? a fist is always more dangerous then a palm, a gun always more protection than a fist, and two guns are much more dangerous than one. And what follows this? armies… bombs…. hydrogen bombs, the stock piling of warheads. If we follow the road to protection we only find ourselves in more danger. What is true protection? I can argue that I was never so safe as naked as I was the day I was born. I say that martin Luther King, Gandhi, Steven Biko, Nelson Mandela, would all agree with me that defense and protection is self love, and respect for life. . This alone satisfies the criteria of our humanness. Is not the greatest protection to spread love, and be sincere, and acknowledge the brotherhood of all humans? Is it not more dangerous to face a gun when you have a gun, than when you hold open hands and welcome those who would kill you? It is not true strength to turn the cheek? This is not only self love, this is love for all humanity. This is true manhood and true strength.
Really it is not violence that gives us love for life, it is pain. So we must acknowledge the pain in life and discipline ourselves accordingly. We must face the beauty of life, and value every moment, in contrast with the pain. Our discipline is gratitude for the gift of life. It is gratitude for our bodies. Our discipline is appreciation. When we lack discipline and reserve and overindulge in desires we disrespect our ourselves and the rivers and the mountains and the air and the birds, and bring ourselves closer to death. When we show reserve and face pain we are closer to life. We need to respect our bodies, and discipline them. Make them strong, fast, and healthy. And know that destruction is inevitable. That is enough. We do not need to search out that violence, the destruction.
So I tell you, I will not invest my time in studying the techniques of killing other men or the stock piling of warheads. With out self respct these practices are worthless. The only criteria for my manhood or my humanness is simply to respect myself and value my life, and acknowledge that death will come, and I cannot stop it, and the best thing I can do is to spread love, and ensure that my family, my people, my earth grow together. My respect for the sanctity of life is the most powerful weapon on earth. It is the true way of all warriors.
The most dangerous mistake is to call myself a warrior. Violence must be a part of life, but it must not be life. The issue is that we must not think of ourselves in terms of violence. The problem with the warrior identity is you live for the sake of protection. You say “I will fuck you up for my life’s sake”, so then you go looking for fights, in order to define your life as protected. However there is no threat from your brothers. Sometimes they must kill you and you must kill them, however even if you are threatened bravado does not make you any safer. The only thing that makes you safer is the ability to face death sincerely. Can I say there is no reason for guns? Can I say there will never be a time when someone is trying to kill me? Or when I will try to kill someone? no I cannot. But violence never makes us more than human. Violence will never give our lives meaning. That is the illusion; that we are enhanced by our violence. But violence is exactly what it is; it is physics interfering the the operation of organic mechanical functions. It is nothing grand at all. We are all men and can only ever be men. Therefore we must be wary of the worship of violence. It must not be our guide.
In quitting the practice of techniques for killing, you may say I am putting myself in danger, or maybe even that I am less of a man. But I would say I am safer, and respect myself even more than the warrior does himself. You may ask “won’t those who have been practicing killing techniques and creating new technology be able to kill you?” And I will say, definitely, but… that is their mistake, and their vulnerability. injustices directed towards me do not limit my freedom. My freedom is my own to conduct. The way of death is the right of all humans; strong or weak. In this I can worship all bodies, the death of all forms, the passing over the line of life and death, is always dignified. I must know that there is always someone stronger who can kill me. What I can do is value my life and never let anyone compromise the way I live it, otherwise I will and resign myself to death. This is true value for life. This is the best thing we can do.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
If there is no image, then there is no role to play, no rules to follow, no guidelines for life. This is what is hard for me. Because I function best on fascist dogmatic instructions. What am I supposed to do if I realize there are no guidelines for life? If life is in fact meaningless, then how and why should we act? What is most threatening to us is meaninglessness. When life becomes meaningless, there is no more coordinate system, and no motivation.
We want obligation so that we know what to do. We do not want to make choices. It is always easier not to. That is why we have identity and morality, dogma. Even more we fear taking responsibility for our choices, and being responsible for defining our own terms for life. This fear is everywhere, and constant. It is so hard to recognize what it is, and it takes years of deep deep speculation, and observation to even identify this. But we live in constant fear of meaninglessness. It is the feeling you get when you are faced with utter silence, so you turn on the TV. It is the distress that comes from the monotony of our daily life. We are not exhausted by are jobs, but confused about why we do them. It is the feeling you have when you break up with your girlfriend, and you can no longer define your life in terms of your relationship with her. It is the feeling you have when you are a kid and dinner is over and you realize that the day is over, and there will be no more stimulation and you know that you have to wake up the next day and do it again but you don’t know why. It is the feeling you get when you fail, because you cannot give yourself meaning by success. Everything we do is to give us meaning, everything that takes away meaning upsets us. I know it sounds over thought, obscure, presumptuous, and I am cocky for telling you about your own emotions, but I promise you, I guarantee you, if you study your emotions, your motivations, your pleasure, your happiness and sadness, I promise to god, I swear on my life, you will find that I am completely without a doubt correct.
But the truth is, meaningless liberates us. It makes us truly live our lives. Meaningless is freedom. There is no prescription, no script, no criteria, and no obligation. And yet we are here. We must act and we must live, we cannot and will not give up our life and die. My teacher who taught me will tell you “we act because of our deficiencies”. And he is 100% correct. Nothing but our needs make us act, and our needs give us goals. That is, there will come a time when we lack food, therefore we will attempt to obtain it. Our only true need, is to maintain our humanness. There for I obtain my goals which create purpose or need out of my deficiencies. I was created out of nothingness, as all was created out of nothingness. And the form I took was that of human. So in the time being that I occupy human form, my only priority is to maintain my humanness.
I act because of my deficiencies. What are my priorities? Firstly healthy body and healthy mind. This means exercise, use of the body. This means swimming, talking, making love, defending, basking, floating, making money, weight lifitng, feeling, being felt, biking, etc. And of course healthy eating, and relaxation. This means education, learning, expanding your vision. Gaining context for your perception, making sure you don’t gain knowledge, but rather lose ignorance, to reach as much clarity as possible, to keep your mind from muddiness. This means studying your emotions, and identifying when insecurity has gripped you, and to recognize when you are letting yourself be more free than you have ever been in your life. This means Zen which is something that only a person who does Zen could ever understand. But this too I promise you is something that will yield far far more than you could ever imagine or thought possible. But there is more to health.
Health means taking your time, health is a good conversation with you r parents, health is looking at birds in the sky, it is desire, and management of desire, it is friendship, and love. No man is an island, not emotionally, not in his ability to survive, not in his individuality, not in any capacity can we stand alone. We are our relationships. Therefore health is doing your best to uplift everyone around you, obviously your family and friends; but also the insecure who fear themselves and their lives, and would curse you as you offer them love.
And again no man is an island, not even physically, for the molecules composing our body, are exchanged regularly with those in tree’s in the water, in your eyeball, in this keyboard, in paper, noise and light waves, in the electric charges that send thoughts through our heads, in guns, in sexual fluids, in telescopes, and in the smell of your grandma’s apple pie at thanksgiving. Therefore lets enrich the matter of the universe with health, and if there are positive consequences somehow in the spectrum of physics for what we aim for as goodness, then somehow we may make the universe a better place. Who knows maybe molecules exposed to “goodness” are inclined to more “goodness.”
And again no man is an island. I am not only me, but I am also you. As Walt Whitman said “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” But I am not only you but I am the stars. I am not just the stars I am utterly variable because I, you, we, the earth, the gravity, the quarks, the misconceptions, the sneezes, other way, the foreign currency, ins and outs, the cornerstones, the haze, the alternatives, the hobbies, the big bangs, the black holes, the stary nights, the silhouettes of black trees in the sky, the cold against your skin, none of it can be divided from your totality. Therefore we most bring ourselves closer to that god. In every capacity we must facilitate the circumstances that allow us to be here well.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
So tonight I was talking to one of my students Yusuke. I am currently helping him write an essay to get into Berkley music school. He was asked by Berkley to comment on what formal training in music is, and what it had done for him. He felt that formal music training is basic and practical. It is the tool; the enabler to reach his real goal of expressing himself through music. He was reluctant to answer such a basic and uninspiring prompt. He could not find enough words to fill an essay. I sympathize with him. I told him to tell the truth, just as if I had asked the question, just as if it was a friendly conversation. And he told me formal training is boring and tedious.
I said “formal training is boring and tedious and yet you want to go to Berkley, but you are prepared for it and want to continue this formal training, as boring as it is, you want to go through it so that you can ultimately express your heart through music….right?”
‘
“Yes” he said
I continued, “and just as formal training boring, so is this essay. But this essay is for the sake of you ultimately expressing your heart musically someday. Therefore you have to master this essay and learn the nature of writing this essay and contribute that to your music in this very essay. And further more, everything you do must be for music. You must exploit every experience you have, walking down the street, eating your food, meeting your friends, to further you along to your goal of expressing your heart musically. Your whole life becomes a beam focused on music, you will be music. And through music you will understand the world, and through the world you will understand music. You must be honest about that goal, and explain this to them in your essay, in all honesty that basic training; practical training is simply the disciplining; the bricks that make the building. By calculation you will become the greatest musician that your body can physically provide.”
I don’t know where all this lofty speech came from, sometimes I just talk a lot. But Yusuke and I are friends, so this preaching was acceptable. Anyway he ended up saying something that really meant something to me. He said “hahaha that’s bushido!” and then I was like “yeah I guess it is.” and we laughed.
But I am talking about this because that image of the man who is his goal and all that in the paragraph up there, is something I really lost touch with. I have not been reminded of this image in a while. But it is the Musashi image, and it is what propelled me here to where I am today. I have divided it so many times, analyzed it and called it a determined spirit, or a spiritual spirit, or and intellectual spirit. I don’t think its really as simple as any label. But that spirit was what I was shooting for surely when I was in 11th and 12th grade of high school. I think that spirit is the one thing I have always believed in, even when I forgot what it really is.
But to all those who were with me in the latter years of my high school life. All that confused talk and extremely severe judgmentalness, and all that fervor, and preaching, that was what I was going for. This also is what was responsible for my graduating high school, and going to college, and appreciating my family. That is a more precise recap than I ever offered as a young man. (just for your information, ….Mom, Dad, Pete, all my friends.)
Anyway, because this image, I am in Japan now. At least for me, this image came straight from Japan, this is why for so long I have had an inferiority complex regarding east and west for so long. Not at all because Japan is an amazing place, but simply because the identity I depend on I thought was exclusive to Japaneseness. I don’t know if we really have such a thing in the west. You could call the student similar. And of course we have a great value for education. Maybe if Christianity was more closely related to the acquiring of knowledge then you would have such a thing. But As I can see Christianity is often far from asking questions, and breaking down misconceptions. (While Buddhism is nothing more than challenging your predispositions.) Western learning is secular, it does not require your body and your soul. But this type of learning is different. It is the cleansing of your being. It demands that you as a human be involved, not simply observing subjects as if they do not relate to you. This type of learning makes you into the lesson. There is nothing in the west that has combined utter learning with utter discipline. There is nothing in the west that demands such self sacrifice. You are swearing yourself into a fascism of learning. That is why I turned first morally obsessed, then, physically obsessed, dietly obsessed, all types of obsession. The west didn’t offer that so I identified with Japan, (of course it would be a joke to say that the Japanese embody this image.)
For those of you that know me, you know I searched hard for parallels in the west. For example I saw that Walt Whitman was equally wise as any Japanese thinker easily, and maybe similar. But there is no evidence that Walt Whitman acquired his wisdom through shear discipline and hard work. Whitman’s wisdom may as well be from God. But this image I have, promises anyone infinite wisdom as long as they work for it, just like the American who will be rich if he works for it. I think I looked to Clint Eastwood in all of his Musashi like qualities. But those cowboy characters are not aimed at goodness, if anything they are destitute. They may be bad ass, and maybe even wise, but they don’t value life. I don’t know. I’ve given hundreds of white men a shot at this image. (Actually I can think of one; Vincent Freeman, from the movie Gattaca)
This image; the Goal human is completely what made me what I am today. This was my secret, my ace in the whole, my fuel and propulsion. This is what I have that many people do not, this image is what I can offer. Whenever I was threatened by the loss of it, my world fell apart. For example when I realized I could not become Japanese in 2005, when I realized life is meaningless in 2006, when I gave up martial arts in 2007, when I realized I could not become an image in 2008. But because it is an image, it can only take me so far. I will have to trancend it. It is not truth. The image is not what empowered me, it was the essence of the image which has nothing to do with Japan, and has nothing to do with Europeans, and nothing to do with anything. It is simply the capacity of the human to exist, to be a human, to have a body and a mind, and to understand it. I cannot conclude on a unique truth. Truth is truth everywhere, and it is not inclined to east or west. Gravity is gravity at all points on the earth. No matter what the spirit, no matter what the technique, if we look hard enough at life, we cannot find two gods. There is only one god. Even if the sun rises in the east, the Buddha has only one way.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
I am troubled by something. I have practiced martial arts, or fighting, or violence for maybe five years now. I don’t exactly know where the motivation for me to do so came from. There must have been several motivations.
In the past four months or so I have quit the practice of violence. I realized that one of my largest motivations in violence was to create an image out of myself, and to identify myself as any other image just like the ones in history and legends etc. Violence lets us compare ourselves with these images and stand with them, we can verify and justify our own selves by joining stories.
But I still cannot give up my body, and I have been given, by martial arts a keen sense of use of my body for practicality. And it seems disgusting to give up the practice of maintenance, and direct use of my body. But I don’t know why. It’s more than the aesthetics and its more than manliness, and I cannot simplify it.
Today I was walking out of Oimachi station and I saw 8 Yakuza manhandling another young man. They slapped him accross the face numerous times and he could do nothing. Eventually the police came and most of the Yakuza walked off without any bother from the frightened police. But of course it occurred to me however ridiculous the thought, to do something. But what can I do to change this mans position? No violence on top of their violence could mean anything to this young man.
I walked on home, on my way I could feel an impulse in my muscles to make the familiar action to punch. It was not an impulse out of anger, just routine from a practice that I gave up. My body is dying for discipline, and it deserves some. However to what degree and what for? What do we maintain ourselves for? What is it in me that wants to study techniques of self preservation? Why aggression? How does it serve me?
There is no man who can stop a bullet, and no man who can’t pick up a gun, and even without western technology there is no man who can stop 8 men. The Bruce Lee, Miyamoto Musashi image is absurd. You cannot rely on being invincible. And what good are the abilities of a UFC fighter beyond proving his superiority in a fight outside a bar or club. In real life under what rare circumstances would attacking another individual really help your survival? Most likely you will find yourself at gunpoint, or surrounded by many men.
And yet today reminded me, that someday I could have a gun not only directed at me but next to my face, and when I face that gun I will either have the ability to maybe save my child or wife with a technique I practiced, or I will not have that ability. And yet I am not interested in playing around with guns and knives all day. I have no care to defeat others. And yet what would I do in that young man’s position?
I struggle to respect the non-violent role model. Now that I realize that my body is not a weapon I must ask myself, why do I take such good care of my body? It couldn’t be for superiority. Is it simply for dignity? I am a human and my body is the totality of my humanness, so what else should I do besides manage and maintain this form, that is the only thing I have?
But even deeper I am reminded of YukioMishima. There is something about a chubby unhealthy body dieing that is just not nearly as meaningful as a beautiful cut body dieing. Could I be more of a man in front of those eight men if I maintain my health? Would I be less of man if I was unhealthy and flabby in the face of the eight men?
Or could it be that the maintenance of my self, is the intention to live well, and the intention to live is strength enough, before the eight men, regardless of what harm they could do to me, or I to them.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
My name is Neil Philip Schaaf. Currently I am teacher at the English school IHCWAY. I teach English to Japanese people. Of course, in Japan the ability to speak English is in high demand. It enables the Japanese to interact more efficiently with the rest of the world. (I am sure you already know that.) My role in Japan is in assisting the efficient interaction of Japan with the rest of the world. This for me, is a responsibility that I relish. I am delighted to interact and assist the people of Japan with their needs. They are gracious and truly kind. Helping them is often the highlight of my day. But they have helped me far more than I have helped them, because I have inherited much of my self from countless Japanese minds. The teachers of Japan have offered me so much. So I consider my job a privilege, and a blessing. It is an opportunity to pay back Japan.
I was born in Philadelphia PA. I have a brother, and a Father and mother. We are all very close, and it has always occurred to me that everyone’s parents loved them as much as my parents loved me and my brother. Its still hard for me to realize how lucky my brother and myself are. I also have many true friends. How many people can say that? So I am a lucky person.
I am also a student. I am a political science major at Temple University Japan campus. I will be graduating in approximately one year. My role models have often been monks, and ascetics, and introverts who write about humans and their souls and what it means to be a human. This desire to understand my humanness has been maybe the most consistent thing in my life. However my role models have also been hero’s. And what I mean by that is violence. And what I mean by that is power. So you could say the military, the samurai, the warriors, all have attracted me. (This is partly how I ended up in Japan.) I think they have attracted all young men. But they don’t exist. What exists are little boys doing their best, and they deserve our mercy, as I deserve your mercy, and you deserve mine. The ascetics have taught me that mercy and compassion are the most important things to live by. I am a political science major. I need to understand the workings of violence, and power, and hero’s, and their varying degree’s of mercy, or non mercy, and what circumstances facilitate events such as the bombing of Dresden or Hiroshima, or the slaughtering of school children in south Africa, etc.
I was not born with any prescriptions, and nor was anyone. What I mean by that is life is meaningless, and none of us are obligated to anything or anyone. I could go live on a mountain and pray and meditate all day. Or I could drink all day and spend my money on women, and die for stimulation. But what could be more invigorating than taking responsibility for my life; to take responsibility for my humanness. I want to see my friends and family live and, I want to perceive this universe and see what this is. I want to see humanity. I want to take responsibility for the condition of the world I see around me.
Today I see that there are people who take power. It is called nationalism and it is a curse. And now I’m jumping way ahead, but really what I’m talking about is how it hurts to see one man take advantage of another. Here on earth I have to do everything I can to improve our situation. But before I can help I have to do everything I can to understand what it means to improve. First comes education. My idea of improvement could be delusion. And even if my idea is good my technique may be ineffective. So at the moment I must educate myself, and understand what it means to help. That is why I am firstly a student.
マンツーマン英会話が1時間2000円! 格安 英会話レッスンはIHCWAYで決まり!
