Breaking Down Duality

It is easy to see the world as a series of dualities.  They appear all around us: male/female, day/night, etc.  It is also easy to see the dojo this way: uke/nage, sensei/student, left/right.  We are constantly told, "Remember to use both hands," and reminded of our lateral symmetry.  We aim for the third leg to take uke off balance, because humans only actually have two to balance on.

However, when these dualities are examined more closely, they tend to break down.  Looking outside at dawn or dusk reveals something neither day nor night.  Biology and psychology both suggest that neither sex nor gender is always dualistic.  The same holds true in the dojo.  Uke and nage constantly switch roles, and both learn from the other.  I'm lucky to be part of a huge dojo, so the black belt in the role of "sensei" one day may well be simply another student the next day.  While we have two hands and two feet, our symmetry is united by a constant awareness of one point at the center.

Because aikido is an art of self-improvement, we do not have competitions or enemies.  This allows us to have an open-minded perspective on the world.  We are encouraged to learn the mediated response - this too breaks dualism.  We have the option of responding differently when we're grabbed by a friend in a bar, or a stranger in an alley.  We can then also decide if that stranger is grabbing us because they're hurt and need attention, are drunk and belligerent, or are actually a danger and perhaps have a weapon.  This means there is a lot more nuance than "friend" and "enemy".

There has been a lot of hatred in the media lately.  There are reports of acts of hatred, from Boko Haram's unprecedented massacre, to the murders at Charlie Hebdo.  There are also responses of hatred, with people blaming all Muslims, blaming all satirists, erasing all women from photos, and wanting to bomb X people out of existence.  You'll note that my examples are drawn from both "sides" of these conflicts - it seems as though the one thing everyone agrees on is that WE are right, and THEY are wrong.

Wars are a lot easier to fight when the enemy is faceless and manic.  In aikido, however, our goal is deescalation and peace.  For this, we must do our best to see people as people, as individuals.  If we considered every attacker as identical, we'd hurt beginners by throwing them like blackbelts.  We'd pound friends' faces into the ground because muscle memory interprets a playful grab as a hostile act.

Instead, in aikido, we walk chudo - the middle path.  This means we can look to both sides with awareness, both in the physical world and mentally.  We learn to see the extremes of excess force and flight and decide what action between those extremes is merited.  We see extremists, and avoid their polarized view of life.  Something I feel like I can do in this world is to spread this perspective of observation and moderate response.  It is hard to feel like I'm making a difference because the world is so big, but if I can remind those around me to react with consideration rather than hatred, that is something.