SPACE AND TIME

The taoist wise man Chand Tzu wrote:



"Fishing baskets for catching fishes, but once you get the fish, the man forgets the baskets. Traps are used to hunt hares, but once they have the hares they forget the traps. words are used to express ideas, but once they transmit the ideas, they forget words".



Human being tendency is to forget what it´s not of interest for him to remember, it´s a curious quality. Unfortunately there are people who get mentally sick and they forget without wishing it, this is really a drama.



Hatsumi Sensei, in an absolute afirmative tone, told:"The Bujinkan of now isn´t the Bujinkan of yesterday" . This sentence it seems very interesting and illustrative to me about life itself.

What was then it isn´t now, but we stick too much in defending ideas that have no sense once time passes by. At the dojo in Nodashi and Kashiwa 25 years ago sometimes we were 3 people, sometimes with luck 10; today Bujinkan has become in a worldwide phenomena; there are thousands of people practising around the world. For example, twenty years ago I remember giving seminars for 15 people and these last years sometimes we have joined almost 300people, bute ven so still there are seminars with 25-30 people. I remember that Canary Taikai 1991 and 1992 leaded by Hatsumi Sensei maybe we didn´t reach 200 people and on that time was an important amount of people, years later, in 1997 at Barcelona Taikai, we joines more than 650 people. I also remember at one Daikomyosai that we were no more tan 30 people training in a dojo in Kashiwa, and this last year (2010) we were more than 300 participants.



In the book “The Tao of Physics” there is a very interesting comment and follows like this:

           “The eastern mystics relate the notions of space and time with particular states of consciousness. Being able to go beyond the ordinary state of consciousness through meditation, they noticed that conventional concepts of space and time are not the absolute truth. The refined conceptions of space and time resulting from their mystical experiences seem at amny aspects similar to modern physics, as it´s cearly demonstrated with the relativity theory“.



It seems that the esential idea of both theories(the space relativity and the general one) is that two watchers that relatively move one aside the other with different speed (if the difference is much less tan the light speed, itdoesn´t result perceptible), they will often get different measures of time (time intervals) and space (distances) to describe the same event series.



Eagerly but relaxed and naturally Hatsumi Sensei tries that all the persons that are close to him stay happy and smiling, but of course al lis relative, therefore when two people, vibrating in a different way (I mean that in their position of balance tensions and deformations are produced) perceive his teachings, they will get different time and space measures, maybe this is the reason why Hatsumi Sensei asks for each one of his uke to explain their feelings, for the vibrations that produced with the interpretation, becoming this vibrations creators of a real field progression and openness.



Openness being cautious I think it´s a very interesting attitude. Absolute secrecy could have a kind of consequences in our budo, sometimes, unpredictable; for example, the lack of contact with other realities.



Evidently and without no doubt, the most important thing is training, and I think is necessary to do it with Hatsumi Sensei beyond the rank you have. This experience will create solid bases in your life. The only fact of seeing my master, seeing him healthy, energetic and happy, makes me very happy and of course I try to do things that, also, make him happy, for example being a viaduct to my students and buyu to reach him and experimenting an exploring his teachings in a straight way.



Let´s see a simple case and easy to understand. When a course organizar or a teacher who gives this course goes to the place of the coursei, normally he´s happy just by the fact of being able to share and give the opportunity to other people to verify their budo; however happiness is an inner state and shouldn´t be altered by external conditions, but being honest, I would prefer 30 people in his classes than 2 if it´s possible. The number would not change the teaching neither the feeling about the training, but it would help, in harmony with cosmos, to get the necessary help at a material level (kinjutsu) to travel and train more, to get a place with better conditions, etc.…



In short, MY REASON for travelling to Japan is, only, training with MY MASTER, Hatsumi Sensei, and I never ask who is going to be at the dojo and how many people comes from one country or from other either, I just go and adapt myself(one of the biggest teachings from Hatsumi Sensei), I open up my senses all that is possible and listen to my Master and when I listen to him all the rest doesn´t exist, no space neither time, and we are alone both together. When he finishes I interpret, trying to adapt it to my life  and I search the way to share it with others. And I say, when Hatsumi Sensei speaks about the person to person relationship, refering to the master-student reelation, soke-student is essential and important, he´s not refering to when you are alone with him when he is teaching, because physically is very complicated being one to one with the number of students that exist.



As Tanizaki writes: “In the West the most powerful ally of beauty has always been light. Whereas the Japanesetraditional astheticthe essential part is to grasp the enigam of shadow“.



A big hug.

Pedro Fleitas González, unryu

(translated by Shihan Richard Atik)