Articles of interest
By Peter Boylan Mugendo Budogu
I originally wrote the following in response to someone else’s musings about the differences between the goals of Aikido and the classical Japanese bugei (martial arts) All of the koryu bujutsu were relentlessly Confucian in their attitudes about people and loyalty. You trained for one purpose, to serve something greater than yourself. Your lord was expected to be a finer human being that you were. That this was frequently not the case wasn’t really relevant. If your lord had failings, it was your duty to help him correct those failings by serving as a positive example.
The Hagakure, while an interesting book, and having many, many failings (the biggest one is that, as Donald Keene points out, it’s more of a huge, 17th century, Emily Post for the samurai set, than anything else. The vast majority of it has never been translated into English because it’s a dull treatise dealing with the proper manners for every situation imaginable). That said, the second chapter, which is often translated something like “The way of the samurai, I have found, lies in death.” The whole point of the section is simply that you cannot truly serve your lord unless you have ALREADY given up your own life. You must treat yourself as already dead, so that your own desires will never have any opportunity to get in the way of doing your duty.
The koryu bujutsu were not designed to turn men into soulless killing machines. On the contrary, they were intended train servitors of the highest moral character, who could carry out their duties and responsibilities, regardless of the personal consequences. All of them assume that a student will be well-versed in the writings of Confucius, Lao Tsu, Mencius and perhaps a branch of Buddhism as well.
The idea that Aikido, or any of the modern “do” for that matter, represent some sort of monumental transformation of the goals of the classical ryu is almost entirely derived from the work of Donn Draeger, particularly his books “Classical Bujutsu” “Classical Budo” and “Modern Budo and Bujutsu.” In them he makes a strong distinction between the “jutsu” and “do.” In the decades since he attempted to analyze the Japanese martial arts using that device, it has been realized that he did a grave disservice to all of the Japanese arts by trying to divide them so simply.
The terms jutsu and do simply are not actually relevant to describing the goals of any of the martial arts, classical or modern. The classical arts never titled themselves x-jutsu or y-do. They were always Shin Kage RYU or Mugai RYU. “Ryu” means stream or flow, and carries with it an idea of a continuous river, from one generation to another. Appellations such as “jujutsu” or “kenjutsu” were nearly always added from outside the ryu, to describe what weapons the ryu focused on.
What is most unique about Aikido are its ideas of universal love and harmony. The techniques are certainly not unique. They are only so many ways to fight empty-handed, and I don’t think we’re likely to be discovering any new ones. Even the means of arriving at them is not unique (not with several thousand ryu having existed at one time or another in Japan alone!).
Most of the classical ryu (and all of the large ones), and all of the modern “do” emphasize developing the whole student, and see having to actually fight as a sign of immaturity. What is unique about Aikido is its emphasis on “universal love” and “universal harmony.” The koryu were generally less universal and more concerned with the world directly around them, anything beyond that was left to the kami.
So no, the classical ryu did not seek to train heartless psychopaths, anymore than Aikido does.
After I wrote the above, someone else asked for some clarification, and I wrote some more.
It’s not that the samurai obeyed their lord regardless of their own repugnance for the task, but that they obeyed their lord’s commands regardless of the consequences for themselves as individuals. Thus, if it meant dying a horrible death, you did it without flinching. If it meant living a long and horrible life, you did that without flinching as well. If the lord was so reprehensible that you morally could not countenance it, you remonstrated your lord, PRIVATELY. If he still wouldn’t act in a moral and upright fashion, you quietly and without fanfare, opened your belly and died in order to let your lord know the depth of your dissatisfaction with his actions (a not unheard of activity in Japanese history, Mishima being the last person to do it, though he was hardly quiet about it).
The samurai was expected to be the highest moral standard, and the various koryu trained their practitioners to meet that expectation. As for the morals they adhered to, as I said, they were relentlessly Confucian (actually neo-Confucian, but I don’t think there are many out there who really care about that degree of difference). However, it was a neo-Confucian outlook with a decidedly Japanese twist. The Japanese put the warrior on top of the heap, instead of the bottom, and made his duty the maintenance of the state, and the welfare of the nation. They were expected to strive to become sages (the Confucian and Taoist equivalent of an enlightened being). There were even debates among the great Buddhist thinkers of the times over the role and duty of a samurai, and over when it was a samurai’s moral duty and responsibility to kill (see Soho below). Again, not, I think, soulless killing machines, nor men who followed their lords’ orders without thought or consideration. It is simply that they were not to take consideration of their own welfare into account. Everyone else’s, yes. Their own, no.
Worth reading in this respect, I have to recommend: Soho, Takuan. The Unfettered Mind. Translated by W. Wilson. Published by Kodansha International. Letters by the Zen master and tea master Takuan Soho to Yagyu Munenori, second headmaster of the Yagyu Shin Kage Ryu. In particular the third letter.
The Family War Secrets Book by Yagyu Munenori. Translated by Thomas Clearly and published together with Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings under that title.
Fridy, Karl. Legacies of the Sword. University of Hawaii Press. An excellent history and analysis of on koryu, the Kashima Shin Ryu, by a man who hold menkyo kaiden and shihan licenses from the ryu. Karl Friday is a professor of history at the University of Georgia, and has written an excellent book that covers all the aspects of this ryu, including it’s ethical side.
Dokkodo – the Way of self reliance
- Do not go against the way of the human world that is perpetuated from generation to generation
- Do not seek pleasure for its own sake
- Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling
- Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world
- Be detached from desire your whole life long
- Do not regret what you have done
- Never be jealous of others in good or evil
- Never let yourself be saddened by a separation
- Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others
- Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of love
- In all things have no preferences
- Do not have any particular desire regarding your place of domicile
- Do not pursue the taste of good food
- Do not possess ancient objects intended to be preserved for the future
- Do not act following customary beliefs
- Do not seek especially either to collect or practice arms beyond what is useful
- Do not shun death in the Way
- Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age
- Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help
- You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honour
- Never stray from the Way
Shinmen Musashi no kami, Fujiwara no Genshin – 1645
