XX:  You have said, " In our training then, we should not seek to become impersonators.  We should seek to become self-reliant in our study of the Way.  Our legitimacy must come first and foremost from ourselves - from ourselves in light of our own potential."

In one of your recent replies to a question on one of your Exchanges (i.e. "Old Man Ueshiba"), you answered the question, "What does it mean 'If we see Buddah, we should kill him'?”  Just for clarification, I wondered if the theory of "Shu Ha Ri" should be used as a "filter" (for lack of a better word) when reading your response. 

[In other words,] in the beginning of ones training (Shu), isn't it essential for a student to be an impersonator?  However, as one's practice progresses, [then we can say,] "We should seek to become self-reliant in our study of the Way.  Our legitimacy must come first and foremost from ourselves"

[Is it a matter of the student putting] aside the "impersonation" or "form" […] to express what has become the student's personal embodiment of the Art?

 

Senshin Center: I believe the issue here is the contrast you are wishing to draw between the form and/or Shu training (which are not the same things), on the one hand, and personal embodiment of the Art, on the other hand.  We must realize that no expression of Ri is itself a contradiction of Shu or of Kihon Waza.  Shu and Ri are not antithetical to each other.  Hence, the contrast, or the notion of contrasting one with the other, is often impotent of insight  - meaning, we can learn little from it. 

In other words, it is not the case that once we are experiencing levels of Ri, our practice becomes, or should become, void of form.  The process of Shu-Ha-Ri therefore cannot be equated with a process of moving from form to moving beyond form or moving outside of form.  It is not a matter of traveling from Ikkyo, to non-Ikkyo, para-Ikkyo, or meta-Ikkyo.  Understandably, statements and descriptions have been uttered throughout history that do describe the Shu-Ha-Ri process with this kind of language, but such statements at best only hint at what we are trying to achieve.  More often, they are simply misleading. 

What transforms or is being affected via the Shu-Ha-Ri process is how we relate to the form.  We are not after a non-Ikkyo, a para-Ikkyo, or a meta-Ikkyo.  Rather, we are cultivating reconciliation with our subjective experience of Ikkyo.  That is to say that we are trying to cultivate reconciliation between the form and ourselves.  This reconciliation takes place via a greater reconciliation that addresses the subject/object dichotomy.  This second reconciliation takes place via a cultivation of non-attachment, which is produced by and applied to our own sense of self and our own sense of the form – both which come into contact with each other in very precise ways through the process of applying the Shu-Ha-Ri model to our training. 

In this way, Ri training, or the experience of Ri, is not understood as a rejection of model, or of form, or of tradition, or of instruction, etc.  It is fully understood, most accurately, within Nargarjuna’s tetralema.  When a practitioner reaches Ri or embodies Ri, he/she is performing tactics that are form, that are not form, that are both form and not form, and that are neither form nor not form.  What allows for all of these things to be said regarding form is that we are dealing with a practitioner’s experience of form within a reconciliation of the subject/object dichotomy.  So while such a practitioner may very well execute a technique outside of a tradition’s basic curriculum – something made up right there and then on the spot – such a practitioner may also very well do Ikkyo within a combative situation.  One may see many types of tactical architectures.  However, what one will not see is the practitioner’s attachment to whatever tactical architecture he/she applies (even if it is Ikkyo).  It is this absence of attachment which marks Ri most, not the absence of form per se. 

Merely doing one’s own thing does not mark Ri.  Ri is not marked by a personal style.  “Style,” in fact, is something that is part of a lack of reconciliation between subject and object.  Different from applying a “style,” which may include things like favorite tactics, favorite techniques, tendencies to apply one’s side of the body over the other, reliance upon a given weapon, etc., a practitioner that has embodied Ri simply utilizes whatever is deemed Right by the given Space-Time of a combative situation/moment.  What is “favorite,” “tendency,” “reliance,” etc., and hence personal, is part of stopping mind or a fettered mind that has not moved beyond attachment in one’s training.  Seeking after or training toward an embodiment of something that could be labeled “personal” has to be seen as part of lacking in the cultivation of non-attachment. 

The process of Shu-Ha-Ri is not an architectural process.  It is an epistemological process.  Thus, we can say, the element of self-reliance in Budo is not at all akin to “doing one’s own thing.”  Whether one is advanced or just beginning, there is no stage in one’s practice that is completely identical to the purely subjective stance of “doing one’s own thing.”  Legitimating oneself in light of one’s own potential is also not akin to “doing one’s own thing.”  In Budo, one’s own potential is defined by one’s own capacity to embody one’s own Awakening (which is ultimately greater than the person having the experience) and to embody (and thus to understand) a given school of thought on how that Awakening is achieved.  It is because potential is understood in this way that we can say that self-reliance and self-legitimation is not about “doing one’s own thing” in Budo.  Potential is understood within Budo to mean how close one comes to embodying the tenets and the ideals of the art in question. 

In other words, within Budo, fulfilling one’s own potential can only be understood as a measure of how much one comes to adopt a tradition’s given position.  Self-reliance and self-legitimation is a matter of how much one can make a given tradition’s position one’s own position.  It is not a matter of how one can make one’s own position part of a given tradition.  Self-reliance then is not understood as the following of one’s own whims and fancies, or even following one’s own well-grounded personal opinions.  Self-reliance is understood as the personal motivation, personal dedication, and personal discipline necessary to reach one's own potential in adopting one's adopted tradition for oneself, as oneself.  Hence, being an impersonator is understood not as someone that is seeking Awakening according to a given tradition, but rather as someone that is without personal motivation, personal dedication, and personal discipline and thus unable to reach their potential (as I have defined it above) in light of a given tradition.  Allow me to explain.

An impersonator is someone for whom a given tradition’s position remains outside of them – remains Other to them.   There is always this “external,” or this “otherness,” to the impersonator and it is this “external” or this “otherness,” which defines, him/her as such.  For example, when Rich Little used to do George Burns, it is the “doing” which creates the gap between Little and Burns and which thereby keeps the two separate from each other.  We would never say that Rich Little was “being” George Burns.  “Doing” is quite different from “being.”  There is a deep epistemological difference between being someone and impersonating (i.e. doing) someone.  For Budo, this difference is marked by those elements of self-reliance and self-legitimation. 

Continuing to use this analogy, folks who do martial arts are to some degree all impersonators.  Folks who are being martial artists are not impersonators.  The difference between “being” and “doing” is not at all marked by how many folks look or do not look the same.  The difference between “being” and “doing” is marked by how great the intimacy is between our practice and ourselves. 

In the “being” of something, we provide our own legitimacy – very much in the same way that Descarte legitimated his position in his meditations with the argument, “I think, therefore I am.”  For Rich Little, what makes his “George Burns” right is what George Buns does.  For George Burns, what makes his “George Burns” right is what he is (or is being).  For an impersonator of Osensei, what makes Ikkyo right is that Osensei did it like “x.”  For a true aikidoka, what makes Ikkyo right is that “x” has been deemed correct by a given tradition (which should include elements of science, logic, and reason, etc.) and that that Ikkyo has been experienced firsthand – such that its architectural soundness and its tactical validity has also been experienced firsthand.  For the impersonator, it is enough to say, it is everything to say, "Osensei did Ikkyo like 'x,' and I do it like 'x.'"  For the true aikidoka it is almost meaningless and/or without any value to point out that Osensei did Ikkyo like “x.”

Hence, while it may be historically interesting to understand how Osensei did “x,” a true aikidoka will never legitimate his own experience of Ikkyo by the experience of another – in this case Osensei.  A true aikidoka will ground his experience of Ikkyo in his/her potential to fully manifest it according to his/her own given tradition and to experience it then accordingly.  A true aikidoka can and will fulfill the requirement of self-reliance in addressing and adopting a given Ikkyo as his/her own.  An impersonator will simply adopt the “style” of someone else – set to forever experience it as someone else’s – set to forever have Ikkyo remain Other, remain Osensei’s Ikkyo.

It is in this light that we can and should read the following exchange:

Deshi:  What is the role of the Founder in our training?

Sensei:  The ancients said that if we were ever to come face to face with the Buddha, we were to kill him.  How much more so then old man Ueshiba?!