Comments on Raising Thought - The Baltimore Zen Center: Aikido, Zen, and the Clear Response

It's my pleasure, JRF. I often find that the discu...

2009-05-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

It's my pleasure, JRF. I often find that the discussions on other blogs contain some finer Zen content worth discussion, though possibly not there where they may not be appreciated. I'm thinking these cases might make for an interesting feature here, so, if you happen to spot any... ;-)

I'll stop this post here before I'm tempted to go too far into Zen and Etiquette---another topic so full of potential!

This case has continued to haunt my thoughts. Thi...

2009-05-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

This case has continued to haunt my thoughts. This makes it worthy of discussion.

Some of my random thoughts have echoed some of your points:

Is it necessarily an error to display ego? No, though in this case, I think the ego-centricism fails to recognize the larger picture.

Has the instructor's attitude changed in fact? Maybe, maybe not. As you state, we have no real proof. It might be the student's shame that causes him to think this. My earlier point was simply that I would not blame the teacher for changing his attitude towards the new student -- especially if he came to the school with a reputation as an advanced martial artist. the student's attitude marks him as an immature artist with advanced skills: a potentially dangerous combination.

The teacher displayed great respect and trust in permitting his mid-level student an opportunity to teach. Even if the new student felt he knew more than the mid-level student, he should've taken the opportunity to learn something about the personal strengths and weaknesses of the teacher and the mid-level student. It provided great insight into the nature of the school he was looking to join.

There is also the Sempai-Kohai relationship to consider. This, unfortunately, is often misunderstood in the West. However, by any estimation, the new student, the Kohai here, disrespected his his Sempai, the mid-level student. I think there's a lot of food for thought here for people interested in this etiquette.

This was an excellent case to bring to our attention, and I thank you for it.

It is an interesting case, and it has several red ...

2009-05-04T19:23:00.000-04:00

It is an interesting case, and it has several red herrings. For instance, the AikiWeb discussion thread tended first to focus first on the student's statement about money; people tended to project their own dojo's economic system onto the situation. There were also some who claimed it would be an honor to be selected by the instructor for such a duty; this misses the point that automatically giving the benefit of the doubt to the instructor creates the same situation as automatically assuming the instructor is taking advantage of you. There were assumptions that the instructor made no error, or had some larger lesson in mind; in fact, we do not know.

From a Zen-ish point of view, it is the student's assumptions and doubt that are perhaps most revealing. The student assumed he was being short-changed. Why did he feel this way? Had he been screwed over in the past and sees similar conditions? Is it the expectation that he deserves more? The thoughts and feelings arise naturally, for whatever their reasons, but there is no cause to be swept away by them. The student may in fact have been short-changed---with or without malice---but the response was rooted in the thought, not the situation as it was. The student was swept away into a spiral of compounding irritation that ended with a possibly not-so-well-considered response. Days later and still affected, he assumes that this is the cause of the instructor's changed attitude; in reality, we have no evidence of this.

Whether displaying ego is an error or not is a good topic for another thread :-)

the student's response may have been spontaneous a...

2009-05-04T08:02:00.000-04:00

the student's response may have been spontaneous and from the heart, but it was ego-centric and failed to connect with or comprehend the larger picture.

The student may well have been an experienced martial artist, but from the facts you gave, he was a beginner to Aikido and new to the class. From his own perspective, he needs to learn the basics of the art. If he can connect them to other lessons and incorporate the Aikido into his own practice faster than other beginners, that is a bonus. But he needs to accept that this is new, and Aikido basics may have their own lessons to teach him. Presumably he is taking the class because he believes there is something he is lacking from his other training -- even if that "lack" is just a new perspective.

From the teacher's perspective, the new student is an unknown commodity. He needs to be tested to see who he is at his heart. In the old days, this test had life or death consequences. Perhaps the new student has dangerous ulterior motives for training. The new student needs "to prove" he is worthy of more attention. In this regard, the student's answer was honest, and he "failed." The teacher had good reason to give the student the cold shoulder -- until he realizes his mistake and changes his attitude, he has proven that he is a beginner.

Just my two cents.