Josh Gold
“Aikido is the practice of mastering ACTIVE MEDITATION with the primary of life, BREATH as its basis. On this basis is a tantric art. – Put simply, Tantra is Meditation in Action. Reclaiming our original, natural state!”
To the untaught, mention the word, ” tantra” and they fearfully start imagining frightful orgies involving that dreaded three letter word, “sex.” The real perversion is the national obsession of, “Let’s pretend it doesn’t exist and that nobody will notice my condition.”
Usually these individuals forget that they are here because of it because they have a difficulty time imagining that their parents actually did it. (Sorry, there is no other way to procreate. The cabbage patch and the stork are myths.)
These same individuals can blissfully watch war movies where killing and mindless destruction seems an ordinary part of life. When a human being becomes emotionally stunted and spiritually crippled, cruelty seems normal whereas any expression of warmth, compassion, friendship or close relations of intimacy scare the living daylights. They live in an ape minded world of a domination hierarchy where fear rules and the only form of touch is painful. Perhaps it reflects abusive upbringing if you are unable to hug, shake hands or put your arm around a friend. Or have healthy sex with a lover.
Letting go, taking a risk, “embracing the attack” and openness is alien to such people. Their opinions case hardened and calcified, imagine they have the final answers to everything but it’s all based in fear reactivity. We’ve all met such individuals but of course we’ll never admit to having suffered any of these symptoms.
What does the word Tantra really mean? When we think with assumptions we make an ass of ourselves. It is easier to ridicule and guess than to investigate but not as profitable. The facts are most usually different to the gossip. Knowing heals the mind.
Buddhist monks actively practice thousands of tantras all the time and as a result can be celibate in a healthy way unlike those pathological predators we read about almost daily in the news for having destroyed the lives of children whilst purporting to represents some “god.”
Let’s try to set the record straight once and for all.
This will be a cursory rendition of a vast subject which essence is natural simplicity. You may intuit it better than any explanation but if you try to unravel it intellectually you will fail to understand much at all. Clarity comes from direct experience. Fear tends to focus on personal pathologies and expand these out of proportion. The technique is to look beyond strictures into the expansive universal consciousness albeit for a while embodied.
Whilst analysis by the various cults has many variables and divisions these are not the practice which see all life and expression as ceremonial, the universe and nature being the temple that contain, embody and allow the various environments of expression and energy exchange.
The earliest documented use of the word Tantra is in the Hindu text, the Rigveda (X.71.9) from the Kāmikā-tantra which elaborates (tan) copious and profound matters relating to the principles of reality…
“Existence is as it is and can be no other way,” states the Sattipatha Bramana.
Ki no musubi refers to connectedness that is innate in all things and living beings. It is the kinesthetic connection that precedes touch.
Connectedness follows the recognition of boundaries. Connection enables communication.
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar describes the tantric as:“A person who, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, aspires for spiritual expansion and does something concrete, is a Tantric. Tantra in itself is neither a religion nor an ‘ism’. Tantra is a fundamental spiritual science.”
The Tantric dimension of each South Asian religion had its own name:
• Tantric Shaivism was known to its practitioners as the Mantramārga,
• Tantric Buddhism has the indigenous name of the Vajrayana,
• Tantric Vaishnavism was known as the Pañcarātra.
Rather than a single coherent system, Tantra is an accumulation of practices and ideas. Because of the wide range of communities covered by the term tantra, it is challenging and problematic to describe tantric practices definitively.
The goal of Tantra seeks to connect the supra-mundane through the mundane, identifying the microcosm with the macrocosm. The Tantric aim is to sublimate rather than to negate relative reality.
Have anyone heard of the, “Heaven and Earth connection”? Not merely as an idea held only in the mind but as embodied functionality. There are many names. Some refer to this sublime condition as “The sunyatta/samsara nexus..,” others as, “enlightenment,” and so on.
There are a veritable minestrone of cults, rituals and practices a seeker could get lost in, each striving and grasping for attainment of this simple, natural state.
Existence is much simpler than the inordinate complexity we have made of it.
Here are some extracts from Chuang Tzu: “The pure men of old acted without calculation, not seeking to secure results. They laid no plans. Therefore, failing, they had no cause for regret; succeeding, no cause for congratulation. And thus they could scale heights without fear; enter water without becoming wet; fire, without feeling hot. So far had their wisdom advanced towards Tao..
The pure men of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety. They ate without discrimination, breathing deep breaths. For pure men draw breath from their uttermost depths..
They did not rejoice in birth, nor strive to put off dissolution. Quickly come, and quickly go; no more. They did not forget whence it was they had sprung, neither did they seek to hasten their return thither. Cheerfully they played their allotted parts, waiting patiently for the end..
Such men are in mind absolutely free; in demeanour, grave; in expression, cheerful. If it is freezing cold, it seems to them like autumn; if blazing hot, like spring. Their passions occur like the four seasons. They are in harmony with all creation, and none know the limit thereof. And so it is that a perfect man can destroy a kingdom and yet not lose the hearts of the people, while the benefits he hands down to ten thousand generations..
He who is not conversant with both good and evil is not a superior man. He who disregards his reputation is not what a man should be. He who is not absolutely oblivious of his own existence can never be a ruler of men…”
When Buddha propounded, “Live simply, fully conscious and present in the moment..” as with all the wise ones avatars, enlightened teachers and messengers he was pointing to the body-mind connection as the key to waking up out of the thrall of the Matrix. Simple as that. Notice everything in this moment and don’t live in denial of anything in or around you at any time.
Opinions about Aikido, are not Aikido. As with all things. Reading about it cannot enable. Only doing can. Practice. The Tantra and Tao practices when distilled down and stripped of details simple alludes to the reconciliation of opposite energies and forces.
Reduced to simplicity, Tantra mean experiential meditation. In other words being fully present and mindful in action. Sitting is called “practice,” because that’s all it is. Eventually we have to start living it. Skill in action, Yoga, Tantra.. give it whatever label you want to.
Riding a horse, firing arrows, flying an airplane, skydiving, playing football or driving on the roads, is or can be just as tantric or meditative as anything else when you are fully present and awake in each moment.
The bulk of tantras have nothing to do with sex per se. However all attributes being inclusive, sexuality is definitely not left out since it comprises the very engine that drives life. But breath is more primary in the driving of our life form than sex and yet we have forgotten how to breathe naturally as well. Why?.
F. Scott Fitzgerald stated: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
It goes deeper than that. The opposites are designed and intended to unite, reconcile and augment. As we all know, no-one wins in the battle of the sexes. The alternative should be obvious. This is the essence of the universal and natural Aikido, Kanagarra no michi. Or using different word Tao, Tantra and a host of other labels. Labels are not important other than as signposts. The innate blueprint of the universe continues to operate with or without our labels.
When reconciliation fails we get war. Everybody know that war is a greatly enjoyable thing, especially when you are at the receiving end of immense destruction, loss and suffering. You should try it sometime. People are just lining up for the experience. I’ll let you into a secret and I’m not the first to state it since history itself confirms it. Everyone gets a turn at receiving what they dish out in this great natural dojo calle Planet Earth.
On truth, Truth is that which cannot be modified by opinion, but which may modify opinion, in other words Law, that pivotal universal law which is immutable. It may or may not be able to be approximated in words but words cannot convey it, experience does.
Factual truth can be discovered, but it not made to behave in any way by any lesser existence, such as that which effects opinion or delusion. There can be no such thing as, “my truth” and “your truth.” Such ersatz “truths” are erroneous, and not in any way truths, but mere opinions. What we cannot reach but reaches everything rules the universe. Align with that and you are truly human.
“Things are they are and can be no way,” states the Satipattha Bramana and rightly so. Among others, there are three quotations which have struck me as describing the very essence of that pinnacle we seek, whether it be through Aikido, Budo or any Path.
Here are the brief versions:
“There is an inmost centre in us all
Where truth abides in fullness;
and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour
may escape…”
Robert Browning
“When you bring forth that which is within you, it will save you,
If you do not bring forth that which is within you, you will be destroyed…”
Jesus- Gospel of Thomas
“Kami no hikari ni hiraku kono michi” (This Path that opens toward the light of God reveals the Way) Morihei Ueshiba
Basically, these say the same thing in different words and I feel that they were all trying to point the reader in the direction of a NATURAL FUNCTION and NOTICING CLEARLY inherent in all of us. Albeit clouded and muddied by entrenched ideas.
By default, core truth is universal and discoverable, but cannot be altered.
That which is, as it is, simply is. The balance of opposites, all opposites, leads to harmony, imbalance to conflict. Harmony augments all-gain creative possibilities, conflict manufacture all-lose attrition states. This balancing act requires maintenance in the human sphere if suffering is to be minimized.
For a human being Tantra simply refers to not living in denial of anything that happens in heaven or earth rather conjoining the body and mind as one. Noticing what actually is without opinion. In all its parts leaving nothing out. The sick and perverted religious dominators that sought to pathologize and demonize natural respectful sexuality were and still are the worst offenders for the damage wrought using the violence of sexual assaults on minors while their evil mouths preach sweetness and light. This is transparently obvious by now. Their global domination agenda is destined to fail. Manufactured “gods” can hold no sway over the Supreme Origin that regulates the great infinite vastness and all it contains, of which our earth is but one among infinite specs of dust. The Supreme requires no interpretation and certainly no middlemen. Ta Shuunka Witco, an enlightened Native American, (who in his case was no crucified but stabbed in the back) stated, “There is no-one between the Source and myself. I do what I know to be right.” This is the fundamental precept of pure enlightenment.
Sex has been allowed to become a disproportionate obsession and fear a mind crippling assault on the human psyche. Sex is that fearsome universal power that gave us all our life in the meeting of opposites that is as old as the great universe itself. It’s about time it was treated with respect as due. The hippies came close in their rendition, “When you make love you don’t feel like making war.” (The original was, “Make love not war.”)
But enough of sex, lets talk of Tantra instead. Of course existence cannot be anything other than all inclusive. Nothing is excluded by the Creator, the Universe. Sexuality forms but a part, but since for a few thousand years now that has been made into a stunted, damaged and misused part of us, it is only natural that some researchers are focusing on healing the sorry obsessions about it, be these of denial or excess, and allowing humans to face the naturalness of it when expressed responsibly.
And judging from the population explosion, despite the pretenses, everybody must be into sex. So let’s stop pretending.
Moving on.
To fully and wholly experience life leads to awakening. The tantras simply practice noticing everything not just the gaps, ideas and opinions, rather being totally conscious and present in the moment savoring existence instead of fearing any part of it.
Meditation is not something “that you do,” in-between living. Meditation, the heaven and earth connection is our natural state, one foot in each world, and one we’ve somehow lost. It’s not “lost” but sleeping. So when you are having intimate relations meditation does not stop. Apparently it does in some because “the devil” “controls some parts of their life,” and if you believe this you relegate yourself into very unhealthy states of totally unnecessary suffering, manufactured by predatorial parasites who intended to unplug your wiring so you could become a slave, not the natural state of a Hito Jinja, or truly free and responsible, Living Temple of the Universe.
The key to so called Tantra, or EXPERIENTIAL LIFE is this:
The Mind fearfully asks what if?
The Breath KNOWINGLY EXPERIENCES WHAT IS!
That’s it! That’s the basis for experiential and active meditation otherwise referred to in the Sanskrit as “Tantra.”
Knowing is being in tune with the universe in this now, moment, each instant, not a collection of intellectual opinion clutter about things, but rater at-one-with!
As a species, in our present evolution, we have arrived at a sorry state that we have segregated, even demonized some aspects of ourselves. Many are at war with themselves with unfounded guilt, shame, self loathing and self hate. Why this mental illness? Why this self attacking violence against ourselves? Who contaminated our minds?
Nothing that exists is un-natural per se. But we as a species fear what we do not understand. We have forgotten to understand the natural. As a result we tend to misuse nature and all the abundant gifts of the Great Universe. Why? To understand anything you must make your experience of it. For example the dojo is an ersatz war zone where we may capture some of the nuances of more intense survival.
This is Tantra. Aikido is a tantric practice. Once we discern and understanding boundaries, ki no musubi, connectedness can then be danced with. Meeting respectfully at the boundary!
People fear nuclear waste but the dust that composes our physical bodies is spent nuclear waste from continuous universes being made and destroyed. We are not that new to experience.
If you fear experience you fight existence and you begin a slow lingering death. When you embrace all of existence by living in all its attributes with respect and harmony foremost, you can navigate. Every moment is your meditation.
Riding a horse is one such vivid form of active meditation practice. If you cease to be intensely conscious and fully present for even a second you place yourself at risk. Being in the ocean, either in a small boat or in the water is another meditation. There is no activity that cannot be meditation.
Ask yourself: Why do I segregate and compartmentalize my life more than is really necessary? Why does fear drive me? Why do I live in denial?
Sitting and focussing on belly button fluff may have some merits, but they call it “practice,” because it is for beginners in the process of reclaiming themselves. One day you will have to get off your sitting parts and PUT IT INTO PRACTICE!
When is the best time to start living? Right now!
Aikido is the practice of mastering ACTIVE MEDITATION with the primary of life, BREATH as its basis. On this basis is a tantric art. We do not know what Morihei got up to most of the time. He did not have a scribe following every second to interpret his every slip, slide and drop into a puddle of mud as, “divine teachings.” Thank goodness for that. Hearsay is not worth very much if anything at all. Morihei was into living life to the full and exploring possibilities to discover, to find out, to learn, to uncover and to awaken thereby. He got around. He did not hide from life. The real man was an activist. He lived dangerously. He risked attack. He was not a coward. This much we do know however, his favourite tantric (or experiential meditation) practice of them all was the AikiBudo he continually researched in the dojo.
If you truly have revived your natural state of meditation in action, driving your car should be an easy meditation. This makes for improved, safer driving as you will not be distracted with extraneous thoughts, rather fully present and intensely conscious of driving skillfully, noticing and harmonising. For all those who have been misguided into believing that “mediation” is some form of escape, checking out, daydreaming, time out fantasizing or sleeping, then YOU HAVE BEEN LED ASTRAY. None of these other practices constitute meditation as such.
Meditation is not an escape but a finding, being and doing. Skill in action. Awakened time in your body-mind fully. Whilst mind-juggling practices may be fun, or even somewhat beneficial they are not meditation because meditation is not escape but finding, being fully present and intensely conscious in the moment with what is and then navigating life with skill AS IT IS!
Put simply, Tantra is Meditation in Action. Reclaiming our original, natural state!
Only skill in action discovers “The Zone.” Athletes know The Zone. On this basis they have found meditation in action. The Zone is the true and pure original meditative state. If you are prepared to put the work in, this is in anyone’s reach. Then with O’ Sensei you can truly state, “The sun stars moon are my home…” and life will be the joyful journey it was intended to be instead of the misery so many make it for themselves. Stop chasing after externals to “solve your problems.” The kingdom of heaven in within and also all around you, here and now while alive on earth. Start dancing CONSCIOUSLY.
“Life is as it is and can be no other way..” Opinions cannot change anything. But, you can ride the waves of actuality by capturing the ki flows and navigating. This is probably why people get addicted to surfing, aikido, horse riding, touch football and most other things requiring skill in action that captures possibilities that change. Because they represent the universal flow.
The practice of Aikido is tantric since it serves to disentangle the mind of excrescences over time.
The label “Tantra” simply alludes to the natural condition of making all of life the meditation. Mediating the dream which is and not some other dream which is not. Living fully present in the moment with that which is, uninterpreted by opinion, bias, prejudice or chatter. Life not stultified. You are entitled to exist. You are entitled to reclaim yourself and realign with the UNIVERSAL FEELING PRINCIPLE WHICH IS THE TRUE AND REAL KI WHICH FEEDS ALL THE LESSER KI’s. You won’t find it in your groin. You will find it in you heart, Universal Love, but only when all your parts are hale and secure in the integrity of Universal communion, our natural original state.
Reclaim it! Reclaim yourself! Own yourself fully!
For example when driving, meditating the dream, instead of daydreaming about other things being fully present in each moment letting the dream of the road and circumstances unfold before you, but this is the real dream, not a distraction in your mind. In any circumstance, art each moment of the day or night, actually being there, fully present with mind and body connected. Meditation is our natural state which should be a constant, not some escape into picturesque daydreaming. Now is now!
And so with everything in life.
And yes, for the sex obsessed that includes sex and being honest with yourself about yourself and your sexuality. The universe excludes nothing.
O’Sensei lived life fully present in the moment. “When I notice myself losing my centre I capture it again. I lose it too, but I notice it sooner and recapture it immediately.”
Tantra is nothing more than life lived fully and consciously. When The Universe reciprocates our existence with living circumstances, instead of folding acrimoniously, rather, with a spirit of gratitude, we deal with what is, no matter what it is, by being present with it with a smile and WE BREATHE THE DANCE OF LIFE! This is Aikido.
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