Kendo’s Healing Message for January

As 2017 begins, Kendo would remind us that positive collaboration is the ideal approach to life, yet maintaining such an aspiration in these times of endless information can be immensely difficult.

As he wrote last month, Kendo points out that there is so much visible conflict around us, and news – even ‘fake news’ – is ever-more available to us, so with such an ocean of events, opinions, and pressures around us, he asks, ‘How are we to find and maintain a path that really matters?’

The answer, he says, requires diligence, and a determination to do the right thing without allowing ourselves to be side-tracked. If this sounds familiar, it is – it’s the central principal of Zen and Kyu Shin Do.

So, when you hear of political machinations, the unbelievable findings of various countries’ intelligence services, and highly questionable agendas on all levels – Kendo says, think twice before you take a position on what you may hear or see.

It has been said often that Kendo is eclectic – he employs multiple symbolisms to help us gain objectivity and view the world around us with a necessary degree of detachment, and in this vein, he will use the example of karma. Kendo’s actual position on karma is that it’s not worth dwelling upon, because it suggests a hypothetical source of our challenges (which we should meet with benevolence, courage, and optimism whatever their source), but in the sense of keeping our heads above the modern tide of information, Kendo says that karma is a useful way of reminding ourselves that everyone – even countries – have karma, and they must rise to their own challenges in order to grow. Taking an opinion on someone else’s evolution may not be the best use of our own energies.

Kendo would take this idea further; he would argue that our challenge amidst so much information is discrimination – this very problem may well be ‘karmic’ for our generation, but it’s up to us to make the wisest choice on how we use our energies.

Opinions can be the silliest of mental traps – the conscious mind is expert at playing with ideas for their own sake, but they can distract us from the responsibilities we should be meeting, and some of them, in our immediate sphere, can be quite subtle – we should not allow ourselves to be pointlessly distracted, says Kendo, even if it seems as if everyone else is taking a position…

The foregoing makes it ever-clearer that the peace achieved in Zen meditation and the objectivity gained with Kyu Shin Do are becoming ever-more important in our lives; as a brief thought-experiment, see how detached you can be after reading just one word: ‘Trump’. Now try to stop thinking about it! Kendo points out that in and around that one person are countless energies (some of them arguably karmic!) and their out-working in the media seem like a compelling new kind of lurid theatre, but we should still try to remain detached. Doing this will allow us to fully attend to our own lives, and to allow unqualified energies of nature to have whatever positive influence they can, and we can help those energies by seeing beyond all the noise and nonsense, to the best possible outcomes for all concerned.

Kendo wishes for us all to maintain balanced, positive, and – above all – benevolently detached approaches to life throughout 2017, however complex, strange, and compelling it may seem to become!

Remember – Zen through Kyu Shin Do.

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