The question was made and hung there, in the air. We drew our breath in, and waited. Was it possible to ask Bear sensei such things? What would she possibly answer, if at all?
Weeks after, and also weeks before, father Snow Monkey encouraged yet another group of beginners to ask, to ask and learn. We smiled, lightly. We knew that indeed beginners will and should ask, we know that we need to answer kindly. Yet we also know that questioning might not be the expedite way ahead. A question is, also, an invitation to analyze and to reason. Those that ask have to be answered, yet we all need to discover how to answer our own questions, we need to learn to hear what is left unsaid. For many of us, animals of scale, fur and feather, from different continents and cultures and languages, this is the hardest question of all. Which question is unneeded, which question is worth?
So the question of brother Fox still hanged in the air, and we still kept our breath in. Would not be this one be the too far question? Could we pry in the private life of Bear sensei? For what else could she truly answer when asked what has shinkage ryu brought to her life?
Once upon a time, many years ago, I meet another fox. We didn’t really talk, not really. I was with my wife and my young son eating a lunch at the side of a trail, when a fox spotted us from far away, and walked towards us. At first we were delighted, then uneasy. Foxes are things of the wild, things that should fear you and run away when you spotted them. Yet we learned differently that day. The fox walked on, stopping few meters away. It’s eyes looked straight into ours. I feel the need of chasing it away, I feel fear, and I feel the begin of anger. Yet all this fall away by the straight eyes of the fox. I said that we didn’t talk, yet I believe that we recognize each other, and I would like to believe that I learned to respect wild things better that day.
Brother fox, years later, told me that in one or another ancient language the word respect is connected to the idea of seeing. We respect what we see and we see when we respect, I guess. So Bear sensei answered, and indeed she let us into her own private life, and she told us that the motto of shinkage ryu had helped her through many difficult moments in her life. The mere idea of becoming tomorrow a better self than today helped her to become who she is. And so we breathed again, and we all smiled, and some of us look into each other’s, knowing that something happened, something different again.
Brother fox smiled, having his question answered for the good of us all.
