Sensei's Notebook

Crazy Like a Fox

 

John Graham

In 1913, Nils Bohr put forward an orbital conception of the atom that provided a foundation for modern understandings. An explorer of the maddeningly anti-intuitive field of quantum mechanics, he is quoted by Heisenberg as having said:

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.

Some people make the claim that statistical uncertainties of quantum mechanics prove that anything goes, but that has nothing to do with physics, and is certainly not what Bohr was saying. Rather, sometimes contrasting but equally supportable truths challenge our abilities to reconcile them. For instance, experiments in which the behavior of light can only be reasonably explained as action of a particle and in others can only be reasonably explained as a wave.

The practice of Aikido appears to harbor some of these apparent contradictions. Sometimes called “The Way of Peace,” it is historically rooted in deadly arts of war. Aikido practitioners throw their partners to the ground, clash and parry with wooden swords, and yes, may sometimes use Aikido to defeat a real-life attack. Yet it is by finesse rather than force that Aikido operates, bringing to mind how a lightning rod leads the devastating power of a thunderbolt along a non-destructive path. This is guidance rather than resistance. Try resisting a lightning bolt; and yet the outcome can be dramatically altered.

At first glance some of Ueshiba Morihei‘s instructions for Aikido may seem like cryptic riddles:

Opponents confront us continually, but actually there is no opponent there.

Aikido is invincible because it contends with nothing.

Victory over oneself is the primary goal of our training.

Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.

The techniques of Aikido are neither fast nor slow, nor are they inside or outside.

Life is within death, death is within life; you must exist right here, right now! Face a single foe as if you are facing 10,000 enemies; Face 10,000 enemies as if you are facing a single foe.

The Great Path is really No Path.

The secrets are on the surface.

If secrets are on the surface, how could they be difficult to see? Perhaps our prejudice obscures that which is plainly in sight. The pressure of hunger leads many unwary animals straight into a trap, but the alert fox often evades them. As in the game of chess, the obvious move is often not the best. The expression “crazy like a fox” acknowledges unobvious or unexpected wisdom.

Dry leaves are hostage to the whims of the wind, but a sailor who is beating to windward applies the power of the wind to progress against it. Seeming to sail in a wrong direction, the boat nevertheless progresses toward its goal. Even when blowing in opposition, the wind becomes effectively a friend. No wind-powered craft can oppose the wind directly, but by zigzag maneuvers the sailor can ride a zone of harmony between the wind’s force and his or her intentions.

Another example of this kind of harmony may be evident in the work of Greg Mortenson, the subject of the popular book, Three Cups of Tea. Having contributed to the education of 58,000 children in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mortenson enabled the establishment of numerous multi-classroom schools for about $12,000 apiece. The political, cultural, logistical, and other complications of his task were truly a daunting, yet Mortenson has embraced the ki of village culture to produce astonishing outcomes.

With their own ambitions enabled, villagers built life-changing schools that reflect their own culture and goals, thus deflecting most of the expectable resistance to a Western-built edifice. Yet these schools, in contrast to ideologically-driven madrassas, also serve a wider purpose. Schools born of friendship can be seen to exert a disproportionately positive effect on the prospects for world peace, and peace is surely rooted in profound truth.