Wholeness

If you are a student of DZR, which most of this audience is, you have encountered the sometimes odd relationship between the study of martial arts and healing arts. Perhaps you've grappled with the notion that the two are somehow interconnected? For the moment simply consider this...

Seifukujitsu translates (according to my sources) as "methods to return to normal."

Ho'o pono translates (according to my sources) as "to set right that that is wrong."

When considering the reasons for participating in a physically violent encounter (fighting), the motivation is to stop someone from hurting you, hurting someone else or even hurting themselves. We utilize our DZR techniques to neutralize the threat. Meaning we don't wish to do more harm then the situation calls for. We are using methods to return the situation back to "normal."

The reasons for helping someone in pain are similar. We utilize our DZR techniques to neutralize the imbalance and help the individual move closer to their natural state. A state that is pain free, healthy and whole.

In order to set a situation that is wrong back to right, we have to understand what "right" is. Right is not what we think it ought to be... My opinion of Right is just that, an opinion. Perhaps the better way to work the problem is to rephrase it to "set that which is false back to truth." Ahhh, so what is truth?

Wholeness.

The roots of the words Healing and Wholeness are the same. To heal something is to return it to wholeness. Wholeness represents the truth that underlies all else. The essence of a thing that is natural and complete.

We as humans are on a path to wholeness. We move thru our lives in quest of something mysteriously difficult to describe: Happiness, love, success, power etc.. the terms we use suffice from time to time but not indefinitely. Our health, which is clearly tied to our stress, is difficult to maintain. Ultimately, for some, the realization is made that the condition we have been ever seeking is the return to wholeness that has always existed within us. Ever elusive, it was in the last place we looked.

Just as with our individual health, our collective health comes and goes. We have periods of harmony and periods of imbalance. When our individual minds are stressed, our bodies experience pain and weakness. When our collective mind is stressed, our group experiences pain and weakness.

We all have experienced stress due to exams, deadlines, bills, breakups, zits... and so on. The stress you experience is the connection between past hurt and possible futures. Our body is interpreting our memories and projections as real threats to our survival and is creating a stress response that weakens our body (eventually). But the truth is that all of it is a product of our mind. It is a behavior we have learned and can unlearn. Stress is resistance to possible change. The behavior DZR teaches us just the opposite... acceptance.

Likewise, our group-mind is stressing because we have perceived an attack and are choosing to defend. Our differences in defining our purpose have reached crisis proportion and some of us feel it necessary to attack. Because of this strong, yet false sense of identity, we as a group are moving towards separation. The pain we feel will not subside until we re-learn what is true and what is false.

What is true about DZR? Healing.

 What is false about DZR? Empowering the ego. What is healing? A return to wholeness.

What is wholeness? Remembering that aspect of ourselves that supersedes all self-identity, self-importance & self-aggrandizement.

As a group, DZR is on a path to wholeness. We each have taken it upon ourselves to learn and explore the tenants and principles taught and codified by Professor Okazaki. We have held up those principles to the light of truth to see where they are transparent and where they are opaque. Each of us has decided what the arts mean to us and therefore why they are worth preserving and sharing. This focused effort, although seemingly separate, is collectively a movement towards eventual wholeness.

 To make our group pono again is simple. Everyone peel away the feelings of resentment, guilt, anger and remorse. Notice the need to attack disperse. Notice the need to defend dissolve. Find forgiveness in our mutual belief in the truth.

And share again the fruits of wholeness.

 DZR is Selflessness. This is the mystery, the secret and the solution.