I was never talented in mathematics. In fact I am not good with the numbers. So whatever follows is subjective.. as always. It’s true though that somehow I feel better to sense than to count. I mean it works to me when I sense a situation than to put down and count the positive and the negative aspects.
As some Japanese masters say.. “so much thinking, that you block your own self”.
What about reality? Do the maths really count in real life or they matter only in scientific research? I remember one paediatrician wh! om I was asking how much adrenaline I should inject if a child of x weight and y age comes under allergic shock. His answer was “Are you going to calculate while the child is dying? At that moment you don’t need a number. You need enough adrenaline. So just shoot, until you bring him back!” Can life be measured, weighed, estimated, calculated or anything else which contains numbers? I know that in science numbers rule, but in life, I think that they just assist.
By the way, how much money, cars, mobile phones, clothes etc are defining who we are? Who we really are?
I think that the history of mathematics, at least in a first scientific way, started in ancient Mesopotamia. Then ancient Greeks used them with a philosophical way also. Egypt and Roman empire didn’t go further than just calculating and measuring. So the numbers became the spinal cord of all sciences and without numbers we cannot study or search anything in any kind o! f scientific field. So numbers and mathematics are about provi! ng. Ther e is no science without research and proving.
From one moment and then, human history is ruled by science. We are trying to prove everything in scientific terms. Everything... “Prove me that you love me. Prove me that God Exists etc”. Many times, truth is out there ‘n we just need to sense it, but no, we need proofs. So most of us cease to try to perceive and we are waiting somebody else or we are trying on our own to prove something in order to accept it. It seems that we have forgotten how to believe. It seems that we don’t trust our selves anymore, meaning that we don’t give much attention to what our inner world “tells” us.
Sometimes we think in a mathematical way. Our thoughts are becoming a mathematical activity. We call it logic. We put thoughts one next to the other and finally we conclude. In the mid time we don’t perceive and we are just calculating who loves us, who cares about us, whom we reall! y love etc. In fact we are trying to calculate spirituality, forgetting that in life there are things that are not composed of material and so they cannot be calculated. The result is that we count wrongly the reality and the numbers are betraying us. Then we are trying to find out what did we calculate wrong. Well, maybe the mistake was from the beginning the action of calculation itself.
Logic counts like this: “We become husband or wife of somebody beautiful, successful and rich. We have money and social status, but we are not happy. Why? Because we don’t have love.” In a real calculation, we cannot count love, because love is not material and it cannot be counted. In other words, some things in life cannot be predicted or counted from before. “Then we are starting to cheat our husband/wife with someone who we really love. And then.. we are in a great mesh and we ask our self, our friends or our God why?”. The problem was not that! we didn’t count something well. The problem is that we ! counted and we didn’t “feel”.
Can “1” be equal and maybe more than infinity? Think of your child, your lover, your mother. Can it be that “1” is equal or more than 4? In science no way, but what about real life? Can you think that in life it can be proven? No? No way? Think of randori (multiple attackers). Martial arts rooted many ages ago and they have been created for real life. So we may explain the techniques according to physic, but do you think that these techniques were created because of it? Do you think that the Shaolin monks or the Japanese samurai were aware of physic and calculations? And if they were, did they care so much to put their own life or honour on the numbers? What about these 300 of Greek Spartans against the thousands of Persians? They didn’t know Maths? They were crazy? Or numbers couldn’t count the value of their own cause?
I believe that those people were just meditating, traini! ng, surviving or dying. In other words, the were seeking deep inside themselves- spiritually and physically- and based on this total self-knowledge, they were following the nature and life. Physics is just the part of nature that humanity has understood plus speculate, and I say speculate ‘cos some theories are failing during time.
The most obvious example is Ki and Chi. Many theories have been developed the recent years concerning them. Inevitably, these theories end up in psychology and in psychiatry or religion. Well this is not entirely true since many great psychotherapists have used the theories of Ki or Chi masters. It’s my thesis, that trying to explain first in order to understand and then to do it better, is a way with limitations. In this way we are getting only up to the point that we understand and the scientific idea of “understanding” as a procedure attached to proof, creates a narrow mind. Do you think that Ueshiba Morihei,! Takeuchi Hisayoshi, Yagyu Munenori, Tsukahara Bokuden, Nobuts! una Kami zumi, Itto Kagehisha or Ieano Chosai etc did care to explain or prove the things that were coming out of them? It was just that “Tengu-Demon or the spirit of some God” that showed them the correct way and that’s it, “end of story... let’s try it and here you are done”.
Today, we are trying to prove scientifically that what we do is correct and we are trying to explain and teach our techniques in a such manner. We wish to prove a truth first and then to try it. This procedure seems to block our way for something more and unfortunately for us, the truth is proven after we have tried something. Our minds stop to the point that science and proofs stop, but reality goes on. It seems that in martial arts, we need released minds and no calculations and I think that this is so in real life too. In other words in mathematics, zero is nothing. On the contrary, in life nothing is still something. That’s why in Aikido we say “! ;Do Nothing”. Or if you want, in maths 1+1=2, but in life 1+1=11.
In self defense, there is this saying: “The best defense is the attack”. This is clearly excellent strategic maths, 1(Defence)=1(Attack) => 1-1=0, and zero means that someone is gonna die. And then humanity defends its self against zero (death) with the religion, preaching about some kind of after life existence. But again the question is what we do in this life. What is zero during this life?
Sometimes the number zero seems to me the most interesting number. It’s symbolizes something which is defined as “something which doesn’t exist”. But then it is something. It reminds me the concept of Mushin (the empty mind) of Japanese budo. Such concepts cannot be proven and they cannot be described. In other words we cannot use numbers and science in order to approach them with our brain. I suspect, that the only way is to perceive them with our body.! And it’ s true that many things in life cannot be count! ed. The only think that we can do is to live them. And numbers themselves are telling us this truth...”we, the numbers, cannot be counted, because we are innumerable and because we never say all the truth”.
words with numbers in them
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