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Kagami Biraki means ‘breaking the mirror’ in Japanese. It is a traditional Aikido ceremony held at the beginning of each year when training resumes in the dojo.
The following explanation of Kagami Biraki comes from Christophe, a lone Frenchman who lived for many years in a Zen monastery - as recorded by @roberttwigger in his brilliant book Angry White Pyjamas, tracing the year he spent training with the Tokyo Riot Police.
“The mirror, he said, contains the old image, for we look with old eyes on its necessary similarity to remembered images if ourselves. Our mind forces us to connect the picture we see with past pictures, creating a false continuity. But we are new every moment. Every moment we have the possibility of breaking the old pattern, which is just a mental construct, and creating something new. Every cell in your body, said Christophe, is different from the cells you had six months ago. This is an analogy. In reality we are trapped by wanting to be the same as our false self, the self we use for living, what we call ‘me’. But this is false. Do you know who you are? Break the mirror and find out. Detach from the past, continuous self and feel the eternal present.”
