You are very wise. Your blog and my response to it, have been in my Being all day, and your words sum up my sense of it all. I so appreciate that you are alive. Wopila Lila Tanka. Wanbli WiWohpe, Lakota Elk Dreamer.

We all have different philosophies and through our experiences we choose what we feel is best. I think Chiba sensei was trying to emphasize humility and the non-violent aspect of his martial artform (aikido); and to only use those particularly powerful techniques only for self defense. And of course he was speaking from within the “in group” of the Aikido culture. If some drunk redneck were to come into that circle of aikidoists and disrupt things, I don’t think he would be meek at all!

Sadly enough, I think meekness in society was a natural, peaceful way for many indigenous societies all over the world and that may have contributed to their susceptibility to be overpowered and oppressed by the European colonists; I understand that when your culture is under the threat of extinction, then meekness is not a wise thing to embody. The Japanese certainly were not meek in their reaction to European colonization of Asia; nor were the Southern Filipinos from the Japanese colonization of the Philippines, and many other others who way of life was threatened.

Mata yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

Truly, I have found through Sacrifice and Suffering that Humility often calls for us to defeat meekness within ourselves.

Toksa Ake’.