The joke is that meditation is not what you think.
I came to Aikido through my study of meditation. My question had always been, what is meditation? After many years and hundreds of books on the subject, I understood that there still must be living masters of this art around and I began a search for a teacher. I met Swami Muktananda in Colorado in 1973 and became uchi-deshi to him. Muktananda was famous for his ability to transmit his own centered state to his students. Through grace, I was able to experience meditation with out sitting for thirty years.
In meditation we simply rest as the Witness of all that arises. As a technique, we were instructed in the art of breathing called pranayama. Prana is the vital force, ki in aikido. Muktananda taught using his ki and knock your socks off sutras.
Pranasamachare samadarshanam (Shivasutras 3/22) - evenness of prana brings equality consciousness:
Prana is the most important thing in the body; it keeps it alive. Without it even the individual self will have no force; it is the power of animation. All beings, sentient or insentient, owe their existence to prana. When the prana becomes uneven, the sense of duality arises. When the inner shakti awakens by grace, prana is purified and becomes even. Prana and apana (in-breath and out-breath) become equal and then consciousness and matter, subtle and gross, are seen to be one, even as one sees the different parts of his body as one. The awareness of the equality of all things dawns.
In meditation the world of illusory differences is dissolved in unity-consciousness where the truth of oneness alone ends our suffering. The universe is assimilated into the Witness in blissful union.
With the profound understanding of the unity of all things, Muktananda would ask us to meditate, “Look upon the unceasing flow of images that arise in the mind as nothing but the mind, and you will be free.” For Muktananda meditation was a matter of correct understanding. It was not concentration or any other technique, but rather the effortless awareness of being.
Of course stories of other Masters were a frequent topic in the ashram. I heard about O-Sensei’s experience with unity-consciousness and how he had created a physical art out of his spiritual experience with the ki. He called it Aikido, the Art of Peace.
My first opportunity to see Aikido came in the spring of 1981, when my teacher went back to India for the last time (he died in 1982). I had heard there was a dojo on 18th Street in New York City where a direct student of O-Sensei, Shihan Yoshimitsu Yamada Sensei, was teaching.
I remember the afternoon I came into the dojo accompanied by a beautiful Italian woman who was also interested in Aikido and we sat on the bench at the end of the mat to watch. Yamada Sensei was away. Butch was teaching and came by frequently to answer any question the young lady might have. I was amazed by the students’ relationship with the mat and by the senior students’ calm demeanor while under attack! I remember thinking “How elegant! What a beautiful flow of energy. Ki in action!” The young lady never did take up Aikido, but I signed up that day and with great eagerness began my meditation with the aiki movements.
We begin each class with the breath-watching technique and as we repeat the exercises in rhythm with the breath we begin to feel the subtle intoxication of pure awareness. Even without any understanding of meditation we have all seen this effect many times. Any activity that brings the mind to “one point” - listening to music, painting a picture, watching a movie, being in the presence of the one you love - allows the inherent joy of existence to arise naturally. Harmonizing with the energy (aiki) is revealed as calmness in action, coming from this one-pointed awareness.
The current doshu and grandson of O-Sensei, Moriteru Ueshiba, says in his new book Progressive Aikido the Essential Elements:
The Founder Morihei Ueshiba, who researched the concept of aiki (harmonization of ki) deeply, explained ki like this: ‘Ki is the vital energy of the universe, and the subtle functioning of ki enlivens the five senses. Employ that force, with unity of body and mind, and you can move freely as you will.’
How can we employ the subtle functioning of ki? First of all, we need to learn how to use our breath power (kokyu-ryoku). In Aikido, ki is actualized through breath power. The Indian philosophical term prana means ‘breath.’ It was an understanding of that eternal truth (the nature of universal breath) that led to the enlightenment of the Founder Morihei.
The Founder realized that it was necessary to unify mind, body, and ki. From that individual integration, one had to link oneself to the universe as a whole, and manifest the tremendous power of the life force. Ultimately, that harmonization (between ki, mind, and body) will result in true enlightenment. This is the purpose of Aikido.
Although we don’t talk much about the subject of breath or meditation, this is the foundation of our practice. O-Sensei left few writings on the subject, preferring to teach his students by direct example. To this day the master teachers put us in the right posture over and over again. This centering - an art, a science, a practice - changes everything in your life: the way you sleep, the way you wake, the way you sit, the way you stand, the way you walk, the way you move, the way you breath, the way you feel, the way you think, the way you create. It is a way of being in the world. In order to do the techniques properly we must rest in the still center. Aikido practice develops this strong still center from which we can deal with whatever arises.
One should meditate all the time.
See you on the mat!
Shidoin Michael McNally, Godan
Chief Instructor Hoboken Aikikai