GoodBye to Saluda

Now this room is empty. All the beautiful art work is gone from the walls. The training equipment, the makiwara, heavy bag, targets, chishi, weights and all the other things we have taken as parts of our dojo are gone. 

I thought it would be a nice way to end our training in this room by offering some incense. If we just burn the incense, then that’s nothing much. We just burned some incense. But if we have the thought in our mind as we make this gesture that we are appreciating all the people we have been training with all these years, who are standing here with us now, then the gesture has more meaning. If we feel in our heart as we offer the incense the feeling of gratitude for the use of this nice place we have had over these last seven years, then burning the incense means something more.  

This incense wasn’t always incense. There was some dirt, the ground. The water fell on it. There was a seed in the ground that germinated. The sun hit it at the right time in the right amount and the seen sprouted and grew into a tree. And someone with experience came by and they saw that there was a kind of tree that could be made into incense. So they cut the tree and chopped up the wood and packed it up and sold it, and now a little bit of that has come to us. It is just wood chips. Then we place it on the burning charcoal, and it goes up in smoke. The scent leaves a good pleasant impression on our senses. Our best wishes for the memories we have for this place and our best wishes for the well-being of the new people who will move in and use this place next leave a good impression on our hearts and minds as well. 

We don’t cling to the place. We appreciate it. And we look forward to our new dojo space too. The incense we burned isn’t there anymore. It turned to smoke and to scent and then is invisible to our senses. But it is not gone. It had an effect. It is changed. From something crude and physical to something refined, making an impression on our hearts and minds. All those classes we had here over the years. All the memories and insights and excitement and experience. Where are all those classes now?

They are not gone. They changed. They had an effect. The classes were what you all did, the actions we took. The spirit that drove us to strive on together. Those actions made an impression on your heart and mind and body. You changed as a result of what you did. Those classes, all that training is alive in you right now. Transformed from a crude form, in the physical bodies moving around, to the refined form of a sharper mind, a more integrated body, a more purposeful life, and a mind that is elevated and poised, as a result of the training we did here.  

In my book True Karate Do, the “Conclusion” comes in the middle. That is where conclusions come. Things don’t end. They appear and they disappear. They change, and they do not stop. To master the change is our objective. In kata. In life.

Robert Earl Keen noticed this in his song “The Road Goes on Forever”. The line that repeats as a refrain throughout the song, as the singer tells the talem is “the road goes on forever and the party never ends.” The second half of the line is ironic, and the song, like most art in one way or another, great or not, is about love, honor, impulsivity, intoxication, desire, violence, deception, consequences, cruelty, pain, sacrifice and redemption, as people go from knowing what its all about to wondering what its all about and back again.  

Tolkien noticed it. His song “The Roads Go Ever On” appears again and again: in The Hobbit, The Fellowship twice and in The Return of the King. This idea was his main idea, or one of them. The causes of the conditions in which we find oursleves right now extend back in time and space beyond imagination, and seem to have no end. And here we are. 

We will leave this place we have become accustomed to and we will go a new place. We will explore it, understand it, enjoy it, make use of it. Our road goes on. 

In stories there is a beginning: the lovers see each other across the crowded room. In that instant they just know… they face great obstacles to meeting, they overcome them, and in all the novels and movies and operas and plays throughout human history (before the 1970s) they pledge eternal love, and prepare to be married. Then the story ends. The dramatic tension is resloved: the author writes “And they lived happily every after.” Or type fills the screen, as fireworks fill the sky: “The End.” 

To which we might say, “for now.” It’s a conclusion that, as we know, comes in the middle. 

So, in moments of reflection, like now, it is good to note what brought us here, where we are, where we want to go, and what we need to do to get there. We are not done. It is good to watch the incense turn to smoke and disappear, turn into nothing but fragrance, then to a memory, shared, vanishing, settling deep in the back of our minds, a small contribution to the substance of our lives.  

I thank you for all your hard work. I congratulate you on the great results you have gotten from your training, over the last seven years, here.

I am glad for the chance to share this ceremony with you, offering incense and good wishes to one another, to the people who preceded us, to the people who will follow us, and to all the people with whom we share the road, for now.  

See you next class, at our new dojo.

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Post copyright © 2025 Jeffrey Brooks, MountainKarateNC.com, Yamabayashi Ryu, Mountain Karate, Saluda, NC
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read True Karate Dō by Jeffrey Brooks

“One of the best books I’ve read in years, inviting and compelling. Jeff Brooks moves effortlessly from martial arts to Buddhism to consciousness studies, self-transformation, and related fields in this wide-ranging and Illuminating study that has much to offer both novice explorers and veteran practitioners. A splendid achievement.”

— Philip Zaleski, Editor, The Best Spiritual Writing series