A minute ago he’d felt fine, or thought he felt fine, but now the possibility of failure had entered his mind, and the difference between possible failure and inevitable failure felt razor slight.C...

The potential for forging a valuable relationship between two transpersonal systems, Aikido, a Japanese martial art and spiritual tradition, and Kabbalah, a Jewish spiritual tradition, is explored. Aikido is not simply a martial art, rather it is also a way to achieve a sense of the spiritual. However, especially for Westerners, many of its spiritual tenets are elusive, based on abstruse Japanese cultural roots, whereas Kabbalah, as a spiritual tradition more fully explicated for Western audiences, can provide an accessible framework (...) for grasping some of Aikido’s deeper meanings. A blend of these traditions, called Sefirot Aikido, uses Kabbalah to understand, as well as to augment the practice of, Aikido. (shrink)