To Whom is Ready
November 2024
“ I’m ready to give everything to whoever is ready to make the effort to follow me!” said Michio Hikistuchi Sensei, 10th dan Aïkikaï Tokyo.
Hikitsuchi Sensei was a student of Morihei Ueshiba O Sensei for the last forty years of the latter’s life. He accompanied him on numerous trips, temple demonstrations and long, intense purification practices in the mountains of Kumano and by the ocean. He claimed to be the only person to have received O Sensei’s spiritual teaching. As a result, he became an immense well of treasures, of know-how, of knowledge of the profound workings of life and of the subtle articulations between all the constituent elements of the great natural world.
What did Hikitsuchi Sensei mean when he said: “Whoever is ready to make the effort to follow me, I’m ready to give everything”? What does it mean to be ready to follow me? What does it mean to “give everything”?
Just as the gardener can’t plant or sow anything in dry, arid soil, the Sensei can’t bring anything to an arid, closed being. He simply turns away and goes his own way.
When the soil is moist and loose, it can be worked and seeded. The same applies to the practitioner, the student.
Following the Sensei is not just a matter of listening to his explanations and corrections during practice. It means putting yourself in a state of total openness to allow the seeds to be sown. Allowing one’s entire being to be nourished, soaked and impregnated. Not only on the cognitive and psychomotor levels, but also in our consciousness, in our ability to see, to feel, to relate to everything around us, in our heart and in our soul. Only a state of total emptiness, openness and awakening enables this enrichment. All forms of resistance are like stones in fertile soil: inert and sterile.
Making the effort to follow Sensei means surpassing oneself, going into the unknown, often into discomfort, sometimes forcing oneself, getting out of the confines of one’s habits and certainties, tirelessly, again and again, during practice and throughout the interval between one practice and the next. It’s keeping the right tension in your heart and mind, a permanent link with your Sensei, an openness and availability at all times. For example, it means saying yes to every opportunity to meet or accompany the Sensei, even if we have to give up activities or commitments already planned. It also means staying permanently connected to your Sensei, with heart and mind, to sense the state your Sensei is in, the direction he is taking and the actions he is going to undertake. It also means anticipating the Sensei’s needs and making yourself useful, putting yourself at his service even before he asks for it, even when you’re far away, at any time of the day or night. It’s a training of the heart and mind, a state of mind to adopt. The task is important, considerable even. It seems impossible, unattainable. The effort of following Sensei seems far too great. That’s why so many people have failed to follow, understand or integrate Hikitsuchi Sensei’s masterly teaching.
To the person, however, who was prepared to make this effort to follow Sensei, Sensei was ready to give everything. When he sensed in his student this thirst, this availability, this open-mindedness, this sincerity and determination, then he would devote much time and energy to sharing his experience, to pouring into his student’s heart and mind the nectar he himself had joyfully received from O Sensei. The demands were high, in proportion to his benevolence. The channel for this transmission was always I Shin Den Shin, from heart to heart or mind to mind. Its nature could take any imaginable and unexpected form. As for its form, it could equally well address the intellect, the body, the mind, the heart or the soul. This is how Hikitsuchi Sensei gave everything: everything he had received from O Sensei, everything O Sensei had achieved and become. He had integrated the teaching and embodied it. In this way, too, O Sensei’s profound teaching continues to be passed on from those who have made the effort to follow his Sensei to those who are ready to make the effort to follow him, those who are truly ready to receive.
May this teaching live on through the ages and continue to seed the human heart!