Refinement or Misogi

Misogi is a Way of Honor. It is the epitome of self-discipline and living for the welfare of others: Total Prosperity. Misogi is refinement, cleansing, purification, and this is applicable to mind, body, and spirit, as well as place, community, and environment. It is a concept of constantly living Rightly, of Principle, and refining our lives in order to live consistently within the parameters of Natural Law. Natural Law, the foundation of all existence, all society, includes the processes or systems of Nature that function holistically to ensure the health and stability of our world, therefore, for our people. Living outside of Natural Law, within the fabricated world of Man’s principles that are focused more toward profit, self-attention, and materialism, means that we compromise the welfare of our world and severely inhibit the welfare of future generations.

Refinement does not mean to accumulate wealth, possession, or knowledge. It means to pare down excess and sharpen or hone our “edges” to be in a keen state of awareness and living purely. This is accomplished through many physical forms of hardship or trials, which can include dumping buckets of frigid water over one’s head in the early winter mornings, ringing bells and chanting, swinging incense, or self-flagellation with cattails, depending upon the belief system. In Nature, refinement means seeking an ascetic lifestyle, freeing oneself of luxuries, possessions, and attachments to contrived ideas of comforts and needs. It is about losing attachments to extravagance and excess in order to reach a pinnacle of awareness and existence within and as part of the fabric of Nature. Our culture teaches us to move outside of that awareness, to treat Nature as a separate source to exploit in spite of ourselves.

Satori means to be in a state of no separation between the self and Truth of Nature. It means to be indistinguishable from the Whole, that there is no inner or outer dimension, only the reality of being an inexorable and integral part of the Universal cycles infinitely outward and infinitesimally inward. It is a state of existence in which we do not separate ourselves as physical, autonomous beings that exist within Nature, but that we recognize that we are indeed Nature, and we are the part of the Universe that acknowledges itself. There is no subjective thought of principles, no human design based upon a relative world, but only the action of living the Principles of Nature. This means that we must be of a clear mind, only functioning as a vessel within a synergy of universal actions and natural cycles. Still aware of our soul, our inherent place and purpose, we are not driven by the trappings, desires, fears, or attachments of Ego, but instead live within the infinite span of each moment allowing all of Creation to flow through our senses unrestricted. So what this means is that our minds must be clear, we must achieve a Way of existing of Mushin or “no-mind” so that we are not compromised by selfish indulgence or distractions that create obstacles to apprehending the Truth of all things happening around us.

This is not easy to understand, and it is not easy to describe, because using language to put parameters around this is similar to trying to grasp air or water. But the point of this is Refinement, anyway, not Satori.

Refinement is an unending process of striving to reach the perfection of the Creator even knowing that there is no end point to reach. It’s not about getting to the end, but rather about the experience of the journey. It is an adoption of a Way of living to constantly shed attachments and become as pure as possible in order to realize our true connection to the Whole. It is a Way of living perfectly, seeking perfection, and being perfectly imperfect. There is always room to grow and opportunity to change. Our guideline of the Principle of living Rightly is to follow Natural Law, which means to live in a manner that preserves natural systems and cycles, habitats and species. In other words, it is living to be a healer or caretaker that nurtures the world, while living as a warrior of Peace who protects the world. It is seeking Compassion, Harmony, Justice, and Peace in their truest forms, not in the shallow manner that society has defined them.

So we seek to reach this purification by refining our actions. We seek to understand Nature, our place of origin that sustains us, by refining ourselves in order to be closer. We seek to temper our Ego just as a sword-maker tempers a blade, a blade which, when wielded, can either cut us or help us.

Part of this process is to begin to strip away attachments we have to contrived needs. Our culture believes that we need many things to live, but we have gone far above and beyond needs and deeply into wants and exorbitant comforts. Our world is now rife with artificial items and technologies that give us a much easier life, that distract us from the reality of our impacts upon the environment, the world, and our own spirits. Easier does not mean better. We have developed a dependency on the artificial world, and we are evolving relative to this fantasy-land rather than relative to the natural world from which we cloister ourselves. Refinement means to shed all of the extra stuff, the luxuries, the distractions, the definitions, and the fears that keep us attached to this tangible dream-world. Refinement is finding the purest fundamental form and function of our being and existence. This can be accomplished by learning the skills of the Original Instructions. These are the skills of our ancestors who lived without dependency on technology, money, and power. The skills of our ancestors, the physical skills, all have deep spiritual aspects, and as we learn these skills and hone them, we also refine our spirits.

As we practice our skills, whether practicing how to build shelter or find wild plants for food, making fire with sticks, or in the techniques of Aikido, we are shaking off the excess, losing the rough edges, smoothing things out, sharpening connections with the natural world or other beings, sweating out impurities, trimming the fat, learning to clear our minds. We are always finding new ways to become more efficient, more precise, more effective. Acknowledging the spiritual aspect means making a deeper connection to the elements beyond the physical, appreciating our feelings (not emotions) during our purification and perfection of the skills, during the processes of gathering, creating, and doing. We are acknowledging something beyond our personal interests and working not for ourselves but for something beyond. Ideally, we become adept at our skills to the point that immersion into Nature is inevitable, we travel with nothing at all, no tools, no knife, no money, no fear or desire, but only in absolute freedom from all attachments. We travel as an extension of Nature.

Etiquette is something that also has a significant impact upon our refinement, particularly socially. Etiquette, or manners and respect, is crucial for mollifying Ego. Etiquette is not a mere matter of following rules of protocol. It is about establishing social parameters so as not to step upon others’ toes, so to speak. But more than that, it’s a tool used to temper oneself, to keep the Ego in check.

Etiquette takes discipline, and this builds integrity, because as the Ego is tempered, our minds are able to open, our awareness expands, and then we are not distracted by thoughts, fears, and desires. When our minds open, and our senses expand, we are living in a state of Presence or Awareness that allows us to be connected to all things around us, whether the environment or another person, including an attacker. So etiquette keeps us humble and respectful, and it means overcoming some things that are uncomfortable or awkward, and it helps us to build our fortitude to be able to push ourselves harder in our training, harder in our drives to perfect our skills, our techniques, and to take new challenges. It also creates a more cordial social atmosphere in which rules of engagement are established so as to preclude entirely awkward or even humiliating situations. When we show respect and follow a protocol socially, whether in public, at a gathering, or in the dojo, then we maintain a smoother flow to the event, which avoids having to stop to address disruption and avoids complacency or negligence that can easily arise, otherwise.

Children need parameters and rules. Without them, they are free to cross boundaries of etiquette, of which they may not even be aware, and have no structured guidance in their development, socially. With those guidelines established, though they may not like them, rules and etiquette make the child feel loved and cared-for. They rebel, because that is the nature of establishing independence, to test the waters and see how much they can handle while under some structure before going off blindly on their own. Imagine being fledged into the world with no firm foothold on any kind of foundation. Rebelling is fine, but outright insolence breeds contempt, disrespect, and worse. Further, if parents do not enforce rules, but treat them with indifference or lack of discipline, then the child will also see that this is how to treat responsibility, that it’s okay to be complacent, and they will expect things to be “let go” when they are faced with accountability for their actions.

It may not be important to enforce rules with an iron fist, or by whacking someone with a switch, but it is certainly useful to establish and live guidelines that foster a respectful social environment, which will also nurture one’s self-discipline and refinement.