Meditations on God

Hope Is A Tool That Can Be Borrowed
Our capacity for love and joy is the same as our capacity for heartache and pain.

It is impossible to open our hearts to the possibility of loving and being loved by others without also opening our hearts to the possibility of being hurt as well. We cannot experience the fullness of the former without making ourselves vulnerable to the latter. In order to open our hearts to love and joy, we must also open our hearts to pain and loss.

If we are to experience everything life has to offer in terms of happiness, passion, and joy, we will also, eventually, experience everything life has to offer in terms of sorrow, heartbreak, and grief. It is a package deal and there is no way around it, but there is a way through it. The way to navigate through the peaks and the valleys of love and loss, joy and grief, of passion and pain, is with hope.

Hope may not be a strategy, but it is a tool. Even when all seems lost and there appears to be no way out of the pain, the hurt, and the heartbreak that we will inevitably experience if we live with our hearts open, as long as we can find some glimmer of hope, some flicker of optimism, or some spark of belief that things can improve, that this may eventually pass, and that there is even the possibility of a reason to go on, we will come out on the other side. The secret is that hope does not need to come from us in order for it to carry us through even our worst moments because hope is so powerful a tool that it can actually be borrowed from others and still be effective.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

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April 19, 2020

grief, healing, heartache, hope, hurt, joy, loss, love, optimism, pain, passion
Blame Is An Attitude Of Failure
If we want to lead purpose-filled lives of positive change, we must avoid the temptation of blame.

Blame is an excuse. It is a tool by which we allow ourselves to feel hopeless and helpless by pointing at external causes that are outside of our control as an explanation for us not living the lives we imagined or hoped for and for us not attaining the outcomes we have been working toward. Blame never leads to improvement, growth, or progress because blame puts our fates in the hands of people and conditions over which we have no power.

Blame is not the same as the rooting out of causation. If we want to right our course or not repeat past mistakes, we must understand the causes of our errors and failures so that we can amend our beliefs, strategies, and behaviors for the future. Understanding causation gives us power, but blame, much like fear, steals power away from us.

The opposite of blame is accountability. Accountability enables us to look at those things we can control, those things we can affect, those things we can improve, and to focus on these so that we are doing the most with what we have instead of excusing ourselves from taking action because of what we do not or can not have. In the end, our success or failure will never be contingent upon external factors that are outside of our control because success and failure are both begin and end with our mindset.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

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April 18, 2020

accountability, blame, control, failure, leadership, mindset, ownership, power, success
Curiosity Over Contempt Or Concession
The opposite of contempt is not concession, but curiosity.

When we disagree with someone, whether a family member, friend, or stranger, it is not necessary that we do so with negativity attached to it. It is quite possible to disagree with others, even passionately, while maintaining our own integrity and not allowing ourselves to slip into the mire of frustration, anger, or contempt. There is no use, after all, of becoming that which we do not like or do not agree with in the process of expressing our dislike or disagreement.

Of all human emotions, the one that is least desirable, just outside of pure hatred itself, is contempt. Once we have contempt for a person or an idea, we have shut ourselves off completely to the possibility of compassion or understanding. In order to remain open, effective, and useful, we must understand that contempt is a dead end path from which it is difficult to return to our own humanity.

We need not concede our position or our perspective in order to avoid the trap of contempt, however. Some ideas, and even some people, are not worth entertaining or interacting with, and they are certainly not worth agreeing with because, whether we like it or not, ignorance and evil exist in the world and they are close relatives. By remaining curious, by trying to understand how and why a person or an idea came to be the way that it is, and by using this knowledge and understanding to grow and become more effective at the positive change we want to create in the world, we are able to maintain our humanity and integrity even in the process of disagreement.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

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April 17, 2020

anger, arguments, change, concession, contempt, curiosity, effectiveness, empathy, frustration, helpfulness, understanding, usefulness
A Single Act Of Kindness
We never know when our small act of kindness will change someone else’s entire life for the better.

When I first started Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) in early 2013, I had already done many years of martial art training, specifically traditional Korean hapkido. I loved hapkido and still do for what it is. Not only was it a lot of fun learning all kinds of joint locks and throws, but the people I met through our small dojang (Korean training hall) were and are still some of the finest folks I have ever known.

Hapkido did not really prepare me for BJJ, however. I was a fish out of water on the ground and it was like learning a totally new language of body movement, distance management, and physical interaction with another person and with all new stresses. It was a steep learning curve and I struggled. In fact, I still struggle.

In my third BJJ class, we were practicing guard passes, a totally new skill for me, and, at some point, I cannot really remember how or why, a blue belt came up to me and introduced himself, saying, “My name is Dwayne, but everyone calls me Bowie.” Bowie proceeded to show me a guard pass, a stack pass to a bread-cutter (aka paper-cutter) choke, that he had had a lot of success and that he thought would work well for me. Four years later, Bowie, my brother Matt, and myself opened up our own martial art academy, Kogen Dojo, and seven years later, I still use the guard pass and choke that Bowie taught me.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Photo of Dwayne Bowie and Robert Van Valkenburgh at Kogen Dojo by Mike Oswald Photography

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April 16, 2020

bjj, brazilian jiu-jitsu, family, friendship, generosity, hapkido, kindness, kogen dojo, Martial Arts
Connection And Division
Ultimately, the choice we have is between connection and division.

In all decisions, we are either moving towards or away from our goals, our desires, and each other. We are either connecting deeper with who we are, who we want to be, and with the people in our lives or we are disconnecting and becoming more deeply separated from them. Often, the correct path between these two choices is not always clear and the line between them is blurry because we are always bound and restricted by limited information.

Even the idea that we should ‘follow our hearts’ falls short when we understand and accept the complexity of human desire, will, and motive. We are imperfect creatures with limited insight into what is good and true, especially when the choices in front of us appear relatively benign, even trivial and unimportant, on the surface. The truth of what is right for us and those around us is further obscured when we add fear and ego to the equation.

Even in our imperfection, there is hope if we maintain perspective and bearing, if we understand that, even with all of the complexity, with all of the known and unknown variables surrounding our decisions, we face a simple choice in every moment, and that choice is to either become more connected with or more divided from of ourselves, our fellows, and the truth. This choice between connection and division is not always ours alone to make, but it is always within our power to choose how we respond to the process because every moment is an opportunity to seek connection or division.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

All photos by Robert Van Valkenburgh unless otherwise noted.

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April 15, 2020

belief, community, connection, consonance, desires, dissonance, division, goals, harmony, honor, integrity, relationships, truth, unity

Hope Is A Tool That Can Be Borrowed

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Blame Is An Attitude Of Failure

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Curiosity Over Contempt Or Concession

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A Single Act Of Kindness

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Connection And Division

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