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Old 07-17-2006, 08:33 PM   #228
Dojo: Finger Lakes Aikido
Location: Cortland, NY
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 973
Re: Brawling with a friend

Don Magee wrote:

There are a couple of more points to remember that I learned in anthropology classes. One is that spirituality and religion are not the same thing. Spirtuality is inside you; religion is outside, the belief system, texts, places of worship, etc. You can be a very spiritual person and never go to church; you can know the Bible backwards and forwards and be a dirtbag without a hint of spirituality about him.

The other point is that preindustrial societies didn't distinguish religion/spirituality from other parts of their daily life. In the west, we industrialized a long time ago so we put all that stuff in church on Sundays and that's where it stays. But Asian countries like China and Japan only did it within the last 150 years or so (anyone want to correct me on this, please do!), so they haven't "warehoused" spirituality yet. Guro Dan Inosanto says that when (older?) Filipinos see a talented person, they credit not that person but "the Creator," because that's who put the talent in you.

So from these perspective, a spiritual martial art is not necessarily an oxymoron; O Sensei certainly didn't think so (there's the system rearing it's ugly head again). We in the industrialized West may have a problem with a concept, but that doesn't mean it's not a valid one.
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