Lately I’m thinking a lot about the
aims we have in front of us, our physical or mental eye. Before I left Japan,
my first Kyudo sensei, Tsuzui-sensei, from Tokoyama Dojo gave me a couple of advices. One was,
that I shouldn’t mind whether I hit the target or not. I should only
concentrate on the technique, on what I’m doing and if this is right, I will
hit the target anyway. In other words, I should mind the way, not the target.
As it is with words sometimes, you
forget them and you remember them. Some other time. Besides the times, when I
was back in Dresden, I heard the words of my German teacher first and
remembered finally the words of the old teacher from Japan. I think they came
back to me, because I was missing a teacher for Kyudo in Australia and my mind
was trying to educate itself by remembering things it once had learned.
It’s a strange thing with the aim. I
keep records of my hits and misses, which doesn’t make it easier for me. Even
though I try not to think about the aim I will count hits and misses in my
head: one hit, one hit one miss, one hit two misses – I have to hit now – and there
it is again. The thinking about the aim and the forgetting about the way. It’s
with so many things in life: we forget to remember other things on our way to
our goal, our personal targets, things we want to achieve. Since we don’t care
the way we walk, we miss a big opportunity: every single path we step on is a trail,
is time, we can use to complete our self; master our self. The aim is nothing.
You can not even fix it in time. It is not before you have not released the
arrow and it is gone as soon as it has hit the target. A tiny moment, gone and
you have to go on. Next arrow, and forget about the last one. Sometimes you can’t
forget it and you live in the past, forgetting the present. If you only mind
the aim, you will only walk from tiny moments to tiny moments, but if you
concentrate on your way, our aim becomes every moment, and every moment you
might become better in it. Mistakes will help you a lot. And the time might
come, that I don’t need to think about the aim any more, that I will just go
the right way, always hitting.
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| remembering: Tokuyama Dojo. Photo taken by Charlie Chayatan. |
