This is the story that I witnessed when I rode the super express train from Tokyo to Utsunomiya. recently.
A father and a daughter were talking. They became a little bit emotional.
Daughter: "I am worried about your health, father."
Father: "You do not have to worry about me!"
Daughter: "But…"
Father: "I understand myself best!"
When I heard the conversation, I wonder if we understand ourselves best. People often say, "I understand myself best."
When our mind is calm, we can feel and see things as they are. Koichi Tohei sensei said this in the Ki sayings: "Like the calm, still surface of the water, that reflects the moon and a flying bird, true living calmness is the condition of our mind that reflects all things clearly." When our mind become calm, our mind reflects as it is like still surface of the water. However, once our mind is disturbed, itﾕs like a ruffled surface of the water, you will not see anything correctly.
If you want to understand yourself well, you need to calm your mind. When we become emotional, we do not realize that we are now emotional. Therefore, we cannot realize our own mistakes, and we believe that our own decision is the best. Then, we start to criticize others or we do not realize our words and behavior have become separated. The fundamental of communication is to understand yourself well at all the time.
So, how we can calm our mind?
One way is to do Ki breathing. By doing Ki breathing, we can change our thinking from minus to plus. When you get nervous, small things will affect you greatly. This leads to other nervousness. When we do Ki breathing, our breath becomes calm. If our breath becomes calm, we can feel things correctly as it is not exaggerated.
Another way is to change your way of thinking as I wrote in June 2nd article. We can perceive the same event in both a plus and minus way. It is difficult to control the event, however, we can control our own mind. It is important to not feel the event as stressful.
"I understand myself well" If you said this sentence, please be careful. I am always checking if I understand myself correctly.