Blog

Robert Angotti, Chief Instructor, North Wind Aikikai

I am compelled to make a request to my members, the aikido community generally, and our broader social community. My request comes in the face of our global pandemic, its subsequent economic challenges, and the growing civil unrest. My request is that we all begin to engage more deeply in the process of cultivating a shared sense of purpose. O’Sensei, the founder of Aikido, has provided some insight and motivation on this. Aikido is born from the samurai culture and the code of budo (martial way) which has served to orient the physical, mental and spiritual practice of martial disciplines in Japan.

“A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.”

~ O’Sensei

“In true budo there is no enemy or opponent. True budo is to become one with the universe, not train to become powerful or to throw down some opponent. Rather we train in hopes of being of some use, however small our role may be, in the task of bringing peace to mankind around the world.”

~ O’Sensei

Bearing Witness

It’s my observation that America has come to a dangerous crossroads. While many have already died from this pandemic (and many more will die) there are some among us who have not embraced a sense of shared responsibility, a sense of “being of some use”. Simultaneously, the flames that divide us, are being fanned from multiple angles. As a nation, we have lacked a shared purpose for decades. Moreover, we have begun to make even greater enemies of our neighbors. This alone is a recipe for disaster. However, in the midst of a viral pandemic, economic disparity, coffins of mis-information, countless fragmenting conspiracy theories, and centuries of tensions and grievances, we find ourselves sitting together in a toxic soup which is beginning to boil over. Without leadership (which is in great scarcity) we will find no threads of commonality to bind us. Instead, I believe we are likely to rip at the old wounds of our enemies, and find more cause to blame others for our pain.

“Shall we (the people of the United States) expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never!…”

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.”

~Abraham Lincoln

We are better than this

This virus, this unrest is not our “finisher”, we alone get to determine what we can become together. Fundamentally, we are better than this. We are better than how we are handling this shared pain, and we are missing an opportunity to awaken to that. We are missing a chance to see that when one of us suffers we all suffer. Instead of seeing that many workers in our economy are essential, some are seeing those workers as expendable. Instead of seeing the elders and compromised of our population as vulnerable, many are seeing their deaths as inevitable. Instead of recognizing that with freedom comes responsibility, many are seeing freedom is an entitlement regardless of the costs that may come to others in order to get it. What have we become? Has the culture of consumerism, materialism, lethargy and privilege rotted out our core human capacity for selfless empathy and shared sacrifice? How much will some amongst us need to suffer before all of us begin to accept the suffering, the injustice, and the loss around us as our own?

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. The true neighbor will risk his position, his prestige, and even his life for the welfare of others.”

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

~Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Accepting adversity

These words of wisdom, these calls to action, aren’t new. They are just difficult! I for one find it easier to be contentious than peaceable much of the time. I keep forgetting my neighbors names, and I have no idea of their problems. Meanwhile, the tribal brain we have inherited seems to take comfort in having some “other”, some “enemy” to blame our despise. By having some opponent, we somehow feel we have fortified who we are. But this virus, this social unrest could care less about those distinctions. The virus is coming for whatever cell it can find, and in the process it will expose all of our weakness. It will expose the weaknesses in our immune systems, in our health care systems, in our economic systems, in our ideologies, and in our own hearts. In fact, I believe it is only one in a series of oncoming events that will tear at the foundation of our society.

This may feel far away. This may feel like a problem for other people, but the longer we deny a shared purpose in this, the longer the pain will go on. Meanwhile, all the unresolved issues of our society will surface. Racial disparities, economic disparities, and political ideologies will continue to fracture us into groups. We will continue to feel like we have less in common with others. These instincts must be countered by a call for shared purpose. We must request from each other some fundamental agreement to pursue the best outcome for everyone. This is the wisdom I hear in what Dr. King is saying. In the face of a pandemic, protecting ourselves is the way of protecting others. In the face of economic hardship, seeking liberty for everyone is the path to preserving our own individual liberty. In the face of surfacing social tensions, pursuing justice for all our citizens is the means of preserving justice for ourselves. 

Without a shared purpose, there will be more pain

It is clear to me that the pain is coming for everyone. In the same way that we have inherited a brain inclined for tribal distinctions of “us” versus “them”, we have inherited a brain that often only takes action in the face of escalating pain. If our leaders continue failing to unify us, and if our patriotism fails to unify us, then the pain will spread until will all share it. Without the pain, without the firsthand experience of loss, of suffering, of fear and of dislocation, too many will remain numb, unaware and insensitive. Without knowing directly the truth of the pain spreading across the country, many will continue to deny it, and thereby worsen it.

Embracing a shared purpose will require some sacrifice. The rights, privileges and blessings of our lives are the “comfort and convenience” Dr. King is referring to. The path of the warrior which O’Sensei describes is full of arduousness, service and a willingness to give your body and your life in order save others. Meanwhile, as a nation we spend wasted words over masks, which at the very least may be “of some use”.

Unfortunately, I predict that the divisions, the echo chambers of misinformation, the conspiracies of blame and dislocation, and the greed of profits over lives will continue to prolong the pain. I predict my own family elders, who have been home alone for months concerned this virus might bring their death, will need to wait longer. They will suffer more isolation, they will grow more weary from the separation and the distance, and the isolation from the fulfilling life they had been living. 

Without shared purpose the doctor I know working in a nearby hospital, whose husband is a diabetic, will continue to put on her PPE shield every day as more cases arrive. Her family will spend more months tying to manage the threat. Each day will be as painfully unpredictable for our medical professionals as the next while the virus lingers in the haze of opportunity created by our lack of shared purpose.

It pains me to have these words bouncing around in my head. I shutter at not knowing if they can serve us. But I shutter more at the evidence around me. Can we share a voice that speaks to and for us as a collective people? Can we agree that what we do for the least, and most vulnerable amongst us, we do for the benefit of us all? And finally, like so many of our ancestors before us, can we rise to the tragedy of our time and define ourselves anew through great purpose, or we will watch our world burn?

Some useful resources:

Development of communication skills that help eliminate conflict such as the methods of non-violent communication.

Recommendations for “use of force” policies that are proven to reduce killings by police.

Universal masking research