{"id":2838,"date":"2010-11-03T11:58:18","date_gmt":"2010-11-03T16:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/?p=2838"},"modified":"2010-11-03T11:58:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-03T16:58:20","slug":"death-and-dying-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/death-and-dying-in-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Death and Dying in Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lawrence Bienemann<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Lawrence<\/a>Japanese warrior folklore says that samurais were warriors who woke each morning saying, \u201cToday is a good day to die.\u201d\u00a0 While they meant it literally, the rest of us might benefit from some sort of reminder to stay in our day.\u00a0 But in this culture, the recognition that any day could be our last is considered kind of a downer.\u00a0 We certainly don\u2019t want to wake up thinking that this would be a good day to die.\u00a0 We seem to prefer things like, \u2018Where\u2019s the coffee?\u2019 or \u2018What do I need to do today\u201d or \u2018Maybe I should call in sick?\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nI recently read about aikidoist\u00a0Mary Stein choosing to finalize her \u201cAdvanced Healthcare Directive\u201d and her decision to have it witness by two of her fellow aikido practitioners.\u00a0 You probably already know that this type of document is a fairly straightforward, common sense legal summary so that family or caregivers understand our wishes and instructions under certain medical circumstances.\u00a0 What I found intriguing was her ability to carry her practice into this important part of her life.
\n\u00a0
\nI began thinking about similar connections to what we do in the dojo, during meditation, and while writing.\u00a0 In Zen meditation practice is we sit on a mat, and meditate.\u00a0 We strip away and discard thoughts that are not true for us, returning to breath and \u2018no thought.\u2019\u00a0 Each moment leads us toward our truth.\u00a0 Each moment also leads closer to death.
\n\u00a0
\nIn the dojo, each move is executed with the idea that we have to completely give ourselves to it, let go of our fear of \u201cdoing it right\u2019 and eliminate the fear of injury.\u00a0 In that way, each martial arts move is a form of death to the practitioner.\u00a0 We give up the illusion of control and give ourselves over to the inevitable.
\n\u00a0
\nThe Buddha said\u2014paraphrased\u2014\u201clife is suffering and then we die.\u201d\u00a0 I replicate that statement every time I go to the dojo or meditate.\u00a0 I \u2018suffer\u2019 then I \u2018die.\u2019 The positive implication is that, as a result of these practices, I move closer and closer the truth about who and what I am\u2026 and am more able to accept those findings.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: You can read more of Lawrence’s thoughts at Senior Samurai<\/a>. All of us at the dojo are looking forward to your return in December!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lawrence Bienemann Japanese warrior folklore says that samurais were warriors who woke each morning saying, \u201cToday is a good day to die.\u201d\u00a0 While they meant it literally, the rest of us might benefit from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawrence","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2860,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/2860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}