Shoheijuku Newsletter October 2025

Oita Aikidokai

The 55th anniversary embukai for Oita Aikidokai concluded successfully.

The 55th anniversary embukai was held in Iichiko Spring of Sound Hall at Iichiko General Cultural Center on September 14th. Centered around the Chairman, Mr. Kenji Shuto and the Executive Committee Chair, Mr. Mikio Higashi, it was an embukai brimming with enthusiasm and energy.


For the cover of the pamphlet for that day, I wrote the word “而今”. In Zen, I hear this is read as “nikon.”


I came to Kyushu in 1970 (27 years old at the time). Though dispatched from headquarters, I was completely lost in this unfamiliar land, literally in a state of being lost in the fog. While searching for a guiding light to survive, I happened to meet my Zen master, Shinryu Umeda Zenji, at a zazen session and heard the word “nikon” for the first time.



“The present moment is everything.” Your life is all about the present. You don’t know what the next moment will bring. Yet you’re thinking about the next moment right now, aren’t you? You’re just making a promise about the next moment as if it were the future. True life doesn’t make promises like that – you don’t know if it will come or not.

Quoted from “Jinsei Temae Mochi (Life is in Your Own Hands)”



The Aikidokai has been nurtured by our seniors, each one cherishing every single day. Please continue to cherish and nurture it from now on.

Congratulations on the 55th anniversary!