Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world. Depending on the circumstance, you should be: hard as a diamond, flexible as a willow, smooth-flowing like water, or as empty as space.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of adaptability in various situations.
Morihei Ueshiba highlights the necessity of adopting different qualities depending on the circumstances we encounter in life. Just as tough as a diamond, flexible as a willow, fluid like water, or empty like space, each of these characteristics represents a strategic response to life's challenges, encouraging us to be versatile and open to change.
In practice
In a motivational speech about handling stress and adversity.
PRACTICE OF THE Art of Peace is an act of faith, a belief in the ultimate power of nonviolence. It is faith in the power of purification and faith in the power of life itself. It is not a type of rigid discipline or empty asceticism. It is a path that follows natural principles, principles, that must be applied to daily living. The Art of Peace should be practiced from the time you rise to greet the morning to the time you retire at night.
Study the teachings of the pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom. The pine is evergreen, firmly rooted, and venerable. The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable. The plum blossom is hardy, fragrant, and elegant.
EACH DAY OF HUMAN life contains joy and anger, pain and pleasure, darkness and light, growth and decay. Each moment is etched with nature’s grand design-do not try to deny or oppose the cosmic order of things.
Foster and polish the warrior spirit while serving in the world; illuminate the path according to your inner light.
THE BODY SHOULD be triangular, the mind circular. The triangle represents the generation of energy and is the most stable physical posture. The circle symbolizes serenity and perfection, the source of unlimited techniques. The square stands for solidity, the basis of applied control.
Aikido is the spirit of loving protection for all beings.
Communication across the revolutionary divide is inevitably partial.
Evil thenceforth became my good.
Lord, catch me off guard today. Surprise me with some moment of beauty or pain so that at least for the moment, I may be startled into seeing that you are here in all your splendor, always and everywhere, barely hidden, beneath, beyond, within this life I breathe.
We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.
I should very much like to remain in the darkness of not having been analyzed.
Things that happen every day are, frankly, what we in the news business aren't good at covering because there is no one day in which they are news.
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