Morihei Ueshiba – Dreamyoga

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No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Khalil Gibran

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I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

John Steinbeck

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A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Henry Adams

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The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth’.

Dan Rather

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It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge

Albert Einstein

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One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

Carl Jung

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Those who know how to think need no teachers.

Mahatma Gandhi

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Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything – even mountains, rivers, plants and trees – should be your teacher.

Morihei Ueshiba

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Excerpted from a prior blog called Karmic Pizza

I take the entire universe as my teacher, all created things as the product of bu. The practice of bu summons forth bu from within your own being. You must open your own path.

Morihei Ueshiba – The Secret Teachings of Aikido

budo – bodhi

Ueshiba goes to great length to enumerate what bu means, he says that this “energy”, this “force”, is in fact love. There is to it a sense of love-in-action even unconditional love in action. In the sense of bu-dō it is the way of the warrior, which must perforce at its pinnacle be loving. It is not about wanton destruction and victory over others, the victory is always over self. For there is something about the fierce which engenders the very gentle, something about the martial which brings healing. They are two sides of the same sword.

This warrior tradition spans many cultures and there is marked similarity of essence. The warrior’s journey must be first to the core of the Labyrinth of Self. This is the Grail legend where only the pure of heart can touch the Grail, the chalice. Without the misogi, the purification, it is not safe to touch.

Purification is the act of balancing and bringing together and under control, via discipline. It is not the mortification of the ascetic yet it has ardour and application to it, albeit less extreme. That application is of necessity persistent. To know self is to understand and thereby enable discernment in thought and in deed. Moreover it must be joined-up, a living, walking, breathing, expression of one’s own budō ; as it is expressed and manifested by a unique authentic essence , a single spark of the One Life, a human being.

He says that one ought stand on the floating rainbow bridge between Heaven and Earth and thereby be a conduit of union, living forever in the eternal now.

The warrior’s journey is not for the faint of heart or the feckless, yet many who start may indeed find the spirit to go on, a spirit hitherto hidden from them, yet ever nascent. To become a vehicle for the spirit is to walk the path of budō.

When the word and the way have become as one, then one is on the way. Where each path goes cannot be known beforehand, that would be too boring….too predictable

Tag: Morihei Ueshiba

Teaching Quotes

bu – bu-dō -misogi