"No Resistance"

I was mulling over life’s challenges at 1am this morning – our usual bedtime - feeling an inner unsettledness about many of our life situations at the moment. I know many of you can relate. :) As I lay there I brought my attention to the inner awareness underneath it all – the awareness of Awareness. I felt the pulse and flow of this alive, inner Presence running through my body. Some call it “resting in awareness.” But as always – this “other” awareness of where life is going, or not going, kept arising – and the resulting inner conflict because of the thoughts *about* that.

My husband and I discussed what little we know of Aikido in relation to our life circumstances. It’s actually a martial arts practice that can be applied to any conflict situation. It dawned on both of us that practicing the principles of Aikido – presence and fluidity - doesn’t have to be about a particular conflict with a particular person or situation, but can be applied to life in general.

As I settled in for the night the words “No Resistance” arose in me, like a clear, clean breeze. I could feel my body immediately relax its tension and I took in a deep breath. It was as if the phrase deeply resonated in my body – and had a physical impact - particularly the ‘No.” “O” is a very open letter – it allows and embraces all that is contained within it – which seemed like a good metaphor for life last night at 1:30am. I understand the concepts of “radical acceptance”, “resting in awareness”, and living “life as it is”, but there is no inner *resonance* with these words. They are nice mental concepts to me - *ideas* of how I *should* be doing things. But for some reason I had a felt experience of “letting go” with the words “No Resistance.” So this is my current mantra, my practice. Today when I started to feel inner mental and emotional conflicts about life, I brought my awareness to “No Resistance” - and something relaxed in me and I moved on. I also began to see just how resistant I am! I was actually pleasantly surprised by this today, as I sensed a shift beginning in my orientation towards life…

“Noooooooo”, which we normally think of as being negative, is really such an open word, I surprisingly discovered. When you say it internally, like a whisper, and prolong the oooooo sound – it opens something up. It’s not really a resistance word. Same thing with conflict. We are so conditioned to believe that conflict is negative, that there shouldn’t be any conflict in our lives, externally or internally, and we resist and fight it to regain a sense of peace and equanimity. And yet, conflict just is. It is just energy, patterns of energy that can be met just like anything else – with awareness. I see that if I’m just *aware* of what comes to me, and my reactions to it, without *seeing* it *as* “conflict” – as opposition, as preventing me from living the life “I” want :), as interruption, as something to resist, this changes how I meet it. I can *see* it as just an energy flowing through. The conflict *and* resistance to it are just energies… Seeing this changes my relationship with life. This is a principle of Aikido.

Aikido teaches the philosophy of acceptance, of embracing rather than trying to get rid of conflict. It is a blending *with*, a dance *with* the energy of conflict, which creates a new form of energy. By dancing with the energy of conflict with “no resistance” a flexibility arises which allows a response, rather than a reaction, to the new form that conflict takes. By going with the energy, struggle is avoided and the energy gets re-directed – seems almost magical. I’m a beginner in this area of “no resistance.” It seems I have tilted at the windmills of the challenges that have been presented to me my whole life, so changing this inner paradigm may take a while. :) I still feel a reactiveness underneath the surface. But by turning inward and acknowledging – “No Resistance” – it allows me to stay aware in the moment, and feels like a soothing elixir, relaxing the old, irritated, over-reactive neural pathways, and redirecting the signals to be in harmony with the way things are…

~*~