Walking the Path

[hungfistron]

Many of you who see this posting may not have had the benefit of understanding what a path is. It is one thing to know that ancient cultures produced way's and applications, to exist in a compatible manner with natures laws. they understood that it was an error to bend nature to fit the people, but instead more beneficial to bend their ways of living to exist within the dictates of nature. it is quite another thing to live in a manner which may be called a "way".


Nature treats us all like straw dogs ( a quote I read - the Tao Te ching) When it is going to rain, then it rains, it doesn't concern itself with the fact you just got your hair fixed, or you got on a Sunday-go-to-meeting-outfit. though we would like to make the sun shine all of the time, and there would be no hurricanes, volcanic eruptions etc. The truth of the matter is that we have to design ways of living which bring us in accord with nature.


The tools of god (nature) exist for the healing cycles of the earth .....

Rest article can be seen at http://classicalbudo.net/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=53&func=view&id=147&catid=2

 

[Tez3]

I live in the country, trust me, we've been living with nature for a very long time.
http://www.swaledale.net/index.asp

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Ah, the noble savage. Ancient people existed in harmony with nature not because their technology forced to do so, but because it was more natural, and above all, they wanted to be in tune with nature. We could all learn a thing or two from our ancient cousins, the indigenous people of the lands we now inhabit.

I'm sorry, but I disagree. The lives of those people were, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "... nasty, brutish, and short."

They lived in harmony with their environment to the extent they did because they could not bend their environment. However, even they could not survive it as animals did, because they lacked heavy coverings of fur, or the ability to be an apex predator without the use of tools and weapons. So they broke with nature, which would have had them freezing to death in inclement weather and dehydrating in deserts, and they made shelters, clothes, stored water, cooked food, and fashioned weapons with which to unnaturally kill game that rightfully and naturally should have been able to ignore or devour them.

I recognize that things in many ways have gone too far to be good for the average man today. Over dependence on our technology has opened a huge chink in our armor - it would not take much of a push to shove us into savagery, and very few of us are prepared to return to a state of subsistence farming or hunting. The foods we eat are over processed and not good for our health, they are designed and grown for the purpose of traveling well, looking and smelling good, not for being nutritious.

So balance is not a terrible idea. But I, for one, won't turn my back on modern technology or the advantages it brings. I like being able to wear bifocals and see correctly. I like that my crumbling teeth can be repaired. I like that there are places I can get to in my unnatural car and experience things I never would have if I had lived within 50 miles of my birth village all my life. I like that I'm 'middle-aged' at 48 and not a village elder, near death from one disease or another.

To me, being on the path is not about being in harmony with nature. I'm nature, deal with that. Being on the path is about being at peace with myself. Living my life intentionally, and trying to make the choices that allow me to be the person I want to be, the person I choose to be. If I can make a fire in the woods with a flint, great. If I can't, I don't mind using a Bic. Nature can take a flying jump at itself, I have cable TV.

 

[Tez3]

You said it Bill! And while I think about it what has this to do with Aikido?
The local mountain rescue team here is kept busy enough with people coming to commune with nature here, these same people also trample through the meadows without thinking they are ruining some farmers winter feed for his stock. They leave gates open allowing the sheep to run all over the roads, drop their litter all over the place to choke and suffocate the wildlife, have their picnics and start fires which devastate the moorland, trample through the grouse moors at breeding time killing off the birds. Yep we love people who want to be at one with nature.

 

[hungfistron]

Thankyou for the feedback, and thank you for taking the time to respond.

 

[Tez3]

Hungfistron, I think you would get a less, shall we say jaded, response if you posted things like this in the philosophy section?

Many, if not most, of us are aware of what paths are, we all follow our own however and perhaps it would make a good discussion. don't be discouraged by what you may think of as negative responses, many of us are also very practically minded and do martial arts for it's defensive/fighting and fitness qualities rather than for any spiritual reasons.

 

[seasoned]

In respect to levels of deep thoughts 1, 2, and 3, of anything, I believe, you are posting at a 3 but getting responses from 1s. Purely, only an observation, on my part of course.

 

[seasoned]

I live in the country, trust me, we've been living with nature for a very long time.
http://www.swaledale.net/index.asp

Very nice.

 

[Tez3]

Very nice.

Thanks! theres been human habitation here for thousands of years, more recently we've had Romans, Saxons and Vikings ( many names around here are in old Norse) we've had Scots, Picts, Celts and of course Normans invading. The country isn't industrialised, it's still very rural with hill farms and small villages. Living with nature here has been a way of life here for century upon century.
We have the largest garrison in Europe here, Catterick but even that is old, the Romans had a garrison here.
http://www.northeastengland.talktalk.net/Richmond.htm
If you look at photo of the postcard of Richmond it still looks much the same, the shop in front of the church is gone as is the shop with canopy beside it, the first row of shops behind church is also not there. The rest is still the same including the market stalls, they are just a little more modern now.
Time does stand still up here mostly. nature is not always regarded as a kind force and not just because it makes your hair wet, we have floods that destroy property, livestock and human lives, we have bad summers that ruin the harvests. We have tourists too that while bringing in much needed money can also be destructive. However we are very aware that nature is a force that must be lived with.