Attack/competition implies separation and requires time and space to happen, but according to O-Sensei, there is neither time nor space in aikido.

In an aikido move there is no separation. In fact, it could be said that the purpose of Aikido is to end the illusion of separation. Entering spiritually as well as physically, the tori actually enters to a place where, and even before, the thought to attack takes form (saki-no-saki-no-saki). Thus the move is entirely initiated by the tori.  The move takes place in a state of no mind (mu-shin) and no self (mu-ga). There is no other.

What then follows is an aiki relationship where the uke is  joined with and led by the tori in an open reality defined by love and truth, where attack cannot exist. As an aikido move is meant to integrate the three spiritual dimensions; genkai, yukai, and shinkai, it resonates far beyond the simple relationship tori/uke, actually functioning to bring into peaceful harmony (wa-go) the three dimensions of the universe.

Thus we see that as the incredible power of aikido manifests through us, we extend/give it out to others and, actually, to work for the completion of the universe itself. We are not taking something for ourselves to build our own separate power against others in a false darwinian competition-survival model.

Or, we could say, we let the universe work through us for its own completion. As R. Buckminster Fuller shows, life is part of the syntropic functioning of the universe , balancing entropy. Tension, (the feminine), cohering compression, (the masculine).

Success is the success of the universe itself and its eternally functioning, inter-relating principles.

Peter Shapiro