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Westward from the
Orient have come many tales of strange forms of power - of strength like
that of "massed wind or water" sweeping everything away before
it. This power has been called by many names, but the one that appears most
often in these accounts, especially in Japan, is Ki and the seat of that
power is said to be the HARA or CENTRE.
Almost all of the
Martial Arts at some point in their development mention this power and the
various means by which it may be developed. It is held to be
"Intrinsic Energy" or "Inner Energy" and possessed by
everyone although developed consciously by only a few.
The seat of this energy, the HARA, or CENTRE, is a point approximately two
inches below the navel. This corresponds roughly to the physical balance
point of a man's anatomy which the Western World calls it man's center of
gravity.
An
excerpt from "Book of Ki: Co-ordinating Mind and Body in Daily
Life" by Master Koichi Tohei
Look into the sky. The
sun is burning. In what state was it before it began burning? If we ask
this of everything in the universe, in a never ending spiral of questions,
we approach the concept of something which is almost nothing, yet still
exists.
What were you before
your birth? A fetus in your mother's womb. Before that? A union of the
father's sperm and the mother's egg, of course. But what about before that?
Your parents possessed no sperm, no egg before they reached puberty. Where
did you fit in then?
Man, like any other
creature or object, emerges from "nearly nothing", from the
undivisible substance of which the universe is made. This is Ki. Christians
call it "God," Buddhists call it "Buddha," Soka Gakkai
members call it the "Gohonzon." These are all names given by different
languages and cultures to the same thing, just as what we call
"te" in Japanese is called the "hand" in English.
The absolute universe
was originally one. Two opposing forces appeared and the relative world was
born. We tend to think that the relative world, which we see and hear all around
us, is the only one, forgetting the absolute world behind it. The absolute
quantity of Ki in the universe is constant and ever-flowing. In Buddhism it
is said, "One is not born, one is not annihilated. One is not tainted,
one is not immaculate. One does not increase, one does not decrease."
In 1974 I conducted a
six-week course seminar during the summer session at Fullerton College in
California. The school established a new course entitled "Ki
Development." "Ki Development" is a bridge between psychology,
which concern itself excusively with the mind, and physical education,
which deals only with the body. Ultimately, mind and body are one - no
borders exist between them. The mind is refined body, the body unrefined
mind. It is foolish to consider them two separate things.
[about 12 lines
skipped]
I conducted Ki
development and aikido classes inthe large school gymnasium and every day
during lunch hour, held a question and answer session, although I had never
intended to lecture university professors. One day, Dr. Melvin asked,
"sound and light can be expressed mathematically. Is it possible to do
the same with Ki? Has anybody done so?"
[a few lines
skipped until the mathematical explanation Tohei gave Dr. Melvin]
"The universe is
one. A man is one. A pebble is one. They can all be represented by the
number one." I held up my finger. "Here is one. If I reduce it to
half, what remains is one. If I reduce it by half infinitely, will it ever
become zero?" "No," said the Professor, "it
won't." "It does not become zero. If there is one, half of it
always exists. Ki is the infinite gathering of infinitely small
particles."
[2 lines skipped]
This is the subject
of a very difficult passage in an ancient Buddhist text, the Hanya Shingyo.
Expressed in words, the idea is very hard to grasp, but in this
mathematical way, even a child can understand it.
Compiled
by Webmastwer, Jonathan Anthony Neo
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