Balance, imbalance and rebalance.
We are often looking for balance, for harmony and for peace.
If we look more closely at how to achieve balance then it is the dynamic process of rebalancing the imbalance that creates ‘balance’, it is the dynamic process of re-ordering the chaos that creates harmony, or it is the dynamic process of ‘settling’ the war that creates peace.
But in any case peace requires war, harmony requires disorder and balance requires imbalance – or they don’t work. All opposites have a ‘simultaneous disproportion’.
Nothing is absolute, nothing is 100% perfect or pure, there is no perfect peace, perfect harmony or perfect balance.
Life is a constant process of creation, recreation and destruction, there is nothing we can do about it!
Now what about a strategic leverage?
A surfer on the Atlantic ocean in a swell would be broken to pieces by the thundering waves if he did not have and apply his lever, his surf board.
Each wave is his challenge, his difficulty, his personal turbulence and inexorably, inevitably and infallibly these are the gifts that life gives us perpetually, continually and permanently.
Call it trouble ! It’s coming your way!
How can we surf the waves of life’s vicissitudes? Where are our levers?
A classic example is to use the leverage of necessity over desire. Being opposites they both exist at the same time, so they must have a proportion.
If the smaller part of the lever is desire, and the larger part is necessity, then hey presto! For a MINIMUM effort on the necessity side you get a MAXIMUM result on the desire side.
It’s like ‘you save the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’.
In this case ‘you pay attention to your NEEDS and your DESIRES will come to you easily. So in a sense you will be ‘balanced’ through dynamic imbalance ! By using the gift of simultaneity to achieve strategic leverage.
In this example necessity is the principal (larger) part and desire is the complementary ( smaller )part.
What very often happens is that we invert this relationship, we turn it upside down and constantly chase what we want rather than paying attention to what we need.
In this case life can become too difficult and we break down or suffer a ‘careless self-collapse’; but don’t worry life is paradoxical – a minumum darkness for a maximum illumination! We can use the 'break down' as a lever initself, as a transformational tool.
There are many ‘classic inversions’ in societies that are generally more unhappy, dissatisfied and misanthropic. Here follows a little list, try and work out the most evolutive disproportion between these opposites. Which is more usefully principal and which is more usefully complementary? Which are commonly inverted?
interior and exterior,
micro and macro,
acid and alkali,
dependence and independence,
male function and female function,
technology and tradition,
money and words,
title and personality.
SURVIVAL - continuous education, crisis and evolution.
TOMIO KIKUCHI,
Tomio Kikuchi, educator, philosopher and strategist came from Sao Paulo, Brazil to give conferences, seminars and have informal meetings is Lisbon, Paris, London and Cambridge, in April and May 2009.
After years of studying in Japan,indeed with George Ohsawa, Herman Aihara and Michio Kushi, ( see a short history of Permanent Education) he emigrated to Brasil with his wife Bernadette in 1955, since then, and especially with the help of JMBorba, small family style centres have been set up in every South American country.
With a sprightly mind, sharp wit and clear perception Tomio Kikuchi brings a breath of fresh air to activities and clearly sees optimistic outcomes for pessimistic situations. He sees 2009 as an auspicious time in history and is aware of the precarious condition of humanity and the impossibility of a potent individuality without a competent community.
Since arriving in Brazil Tomio Kikuchi has worked continuously for over 50 years and at the age of 83 shows little sign of slowing down. He travels a lot in South America giving lectures and seminars and sharing food, stories and community; with an enthusiasm for everything that happens he loves to talk, to listen and to nurture.
He is interested in the daily crises that life provides, not in a negative way but in a transformable and positive way, as a point of learning, transformation, indeed evolution; he has observed that people who obsessively seek easiness often are shocked and incapacitated when the opposite happens. Whereas people who embrace little difficulties continuously find ‘easiness’ comes for a minimum effort.( see Living Key)
INTERNAL EDUCATION
Our principal ‘force’ comes from the inside, indeed I’ve heard Kikuchi say the environmental crisis is but a reflection of our internal environment; and if you consider the phenomenal rise of ‘Western’ diseases he might well be right! His pragmatic ‘education’ is rooted in the simultaneous attributes of intellect, feeling and will; whilst maintaining self-control of mental and physical nutrition, breathing and movement.
Tomio Kikuchi is a very supportive, lively, inventive, humorous, affectionate and diplomatic person, he has a big heart and clear intellect. His past includes horrific and life changing war experiences.
His firm commitment to reality as it is, rather than how it ‘might be’ has left him vulnerable to isolation and misrepresentation; simultaneously he has enjoyed deeply satisfying solidarity the quality of which most people can only dream of. He is supported and stimulated by his wife Bernadette, and they have five children.
PAST PRESENT and FUTURE
Most people are familiar with the idea of Yin and Yang, which are opposites; the tension between them produces leverage, which Kikuchi sees as a life force. Through a lifetime of searching, experimenting and recognising Kikuchi presents a fascinating evolution of Yin and Yang to the inventive and tri-dimensional
Yin Yang and Rang –
(Considering Bio-strategic survival we could postulate
YIN -the perennial evolution, YANG -the perennial crisis and
RANG - the perennial education; all with interchangeable relative
proportion and variously leveraged outcomes.)
A message from JMBorba ( translator ).
Tomio Kikuchi founded Musso School more than thirty years ago and soon started a number of tours around different places of the globe to establish exchanges with different groups in South America, Asia and Europe and also to attest to the paths of Humanity along the History of Language and Civilisation.
This year’s tour of Europe, starts in Lisbon in late March and ends in the beginning of May at the University of Cambridge which celebrates its 800th Anniversary. Also, Charles Darwin’s bi-centenary will form the UK backdrop to Kikichi’s themes, in which the survival of the fittest can be very modernly complemented by the survival of the most flexible and 'strategic' individuals within integrated communities.
Such simple wisdom as proposed, includes self-responsibility for one’s mental framework, one’s physical survival and a view of the world that owes its clarity to the efficient prevalence of tri-dimensionality over the mediocre duality between good and bad, liberality and authority, religion and science, technology and nature.
In our education which we are calling bio-strategic education, knowing how to establish solid nourishment and health management principles and practices is the obvious (albeit universally neglected) number-one lesson. Nowadays, the industry and the market – which includes modern nutrition science - pose as the all-knowing advisors as to what one should use as raw materials for our physical welfare. Many families have long given up all expectation of being able to morally conduct their young ones. Schools and Universities frequently train young people to be irresponsible gears of society. The world and its individuals are hosts to the pendulous whims of progress and destruction.
High-time for vital and clear views on effective perennial Education, and Tomio Kikuchi effectively delivers that, through a Biological and Strategic approach. JMBorba – Brasilia
DARWIN
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin, Tomio Kikuchi gave inspirational talks in London and Cambridge, entitled
BIO-STRATEGIC SURVIVAL
perennial education, evolution and crisis
For information contact
Ritchie Tennant
( 1 Park Road, Bury St Edmunds, IP33 3QW ) info@permanenteducation.co.uk
TEL 01284 705967,
With many thanks for collaboration and support from Prof. Tomio Kikuchi, JMBorba, Hermes Colli, Elio Pithon, Jose Prado and Jorges Rebello.
More information
‘The International centre for Permanent Self Education’. See blog for current activities and ( for more info ICPSE.)