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TLR
8th May 2007, 11:54
I recently picked up John Stevens book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow about the Kyudo Master Awa Kenzo. Prof. Stevens book the Sword of No Sword on Yamaoka Tesshu, is also superb.

I found the book, which I read in one afternoon over a cigar, way beyond what I expected. It was excellent. The book is divided into 3 sections - Historical background of the teacher with the second part a translation of some of Kenzo's writings and thirdly several zen stories concerning archery.

What I would like to direct you to is a section in the notes. It is almost like John Stevens read the previous thread called “The myth of Zen in the art of Archery” wherein over a 5 year period people jumped on the Yamada Shoji bandwagon that basically ridiculed Herrigal and Awa. It is absolutely refreshing to get to the facts. For those who do not know Prof. Stevens background he is Professor of Buddhist Studies at Tohoku Fukushi University – Sendai where Awa Kenzo lived and taught Kyudo. Professor Stevens is also a 7th Dan in Aikido (aikikai) and has lived in Japan since 1973. He is often used to authenticate Japanese calligraphy.

I hope this sheds some light on the mistakes made in Yamada Shoji article "The myth of Zen in the Art of Archery". If you have not read it I suggest you google it and read it before reading any further.

Aloha,

TLR

Quoted directly from the book page 90 - 93:

2. Recently, small-fry academics (the same pendants who claim that D.T. Suzuki did not really understand Zen) have criticized what they call the "Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery. They state that most modern archers in Japan practice archery with no reference to Zen. This is News?
They maintain that Awa Kenzo is not typical of Japanese master archers. No surprise there either, and in fact most readers realize that Kenzo was the exception, not the rule for martial arts teachers. Of course, Kenzo was not at all representative of Japanese archers - he was one of a kind, someone who epitomized the best of the particular tradition. And of course, many would oppose his innovations - in Kenzo's case he had rocks thrown at him during demonstrations - just as they would oppose other great masters. But despite the many who opposed Awa, his organization eventually had more then fourteen thousand members all over Japan, so it was perfectly understandable for Herrigel to believe that Kenzo was teaching him true archery and to present him as perhaps the most important archery instructor in the country.
More preposterous is the argument that Kenzo's understanding of Zen was faulty because it seems, Kenzo never did formal meditation or was certified by a Zen teacher. This is a gross misunderstanding of what Zen is meant to be. Right from the beginning of the Zen tradition, Zen as never been strictly a matter of formal seated meditation or certification from an "official" organization. Zen history is replete with examples of eccentric monks, zany laymen and women, Zen grannies, vagabond, and other outsiders who had intuitive understanding of Zen completely independent of formal meditation practices or study of monastic institution. It is ridiculous to contend that Kenzo did not understand Zen (or even archery itself) simply because he was not associated with any Zen teacher or organization. kenzo's understanding of Zen was as profound, and his enlightenment experience as eep, as anyone's during that period. Even more bizarre is the claim that Awa was not teaching Herrigel Zen in the art of archery. This is despite such explicit statements by Kenzo as "When the Bow and the self are one, that is Zen" and "In the full draw of the Bow your mind should be in the same state as in Zen meditation" Since Kenzo often brushed calligraphy that read "the Bow and Zen are One" (see page 28) and Laced his talks and writings with Zen expressions, it is perfectly natural that Herrigal would entitle his book Zen in the Art of Archery. What else would he have called it? Furthermore, Herrigel did not use the expression "Zen in the Art of Archery" just because he was a foreigner. Yoshida Yoshiyasu (1891 - 1985) perhaps Kenzo's most talented Japanese disciple opened a "Zen Bow dojo” and said about Kenzo almost exactly the same things as Herrigel. (Having said all this, Kenzo's interpretation emphasized Zen as meaning "complete integration" rather than "formal meditation” and he had quite a bit of samurai-flavored Confucianism included in his teachings.)
The most ludicrous - and racist - argument is Herrigal totally misunderstood what Kenzo was saying to him because of the language barrier. (I half expect a Japanese researcher to argue that because Herrigel had a German brain, he was genetically unable to understand the words emanating from Kenzo's Japanese brain.) To be sure, Kenzo the philosopher of the Great Doctrine as Herrigal calls Kenzo's teaching in the book, was not easy to understand, even for his closet Japanese disciples, especially since he was not a very good speaker, plus he had a thick Tohoku accent. However, Awa's other students largely stayed away when Herrigel and his wife came to practice so that the master could give them his full attention. Herrigal was an intelligent man, and after 5 years he likely understood Kenzo's Japanese quite well. (Among foreigners in Sendai, there is a saying that the quickest way to learn Japanese is to study a martial art.) Kenzo learned a little German, so they surely communicated quite well, and both certainly understood one another's body language. Furthermore, Kenzo promoted Herrigal to 5th Dan, a very high rank for the time, and gave the German one of his bows, something Kenzo would never have done if he thought the person had missed the mark, literally and figuratively. As we shall understand from chapter 2 of the book, Herrigal, in general, presented Kenzo's philosophy well and accurately, and there was little misunderstanding or misrepresentation on Herrigal's part. It is his critics who are way off target.
Herrigal's later Nazi politics are troubling, and there may be other problems with his overall approach, but the real hero in Zen in the Art of Archery is Awa Kenzo, and his teaching still serves us well.

Brian Owens
9th May 2007, 05:15
Thank you for posting that review.

If John Stevens is now stooping to name-calling of all who disagree with him, then I will not waste my money buying his book.

TLR
9th May 2007, 05:47
Brian,

I guess you would be calling his reference to "small fry academics" as name calling. I don't know but maybe it is true I have always been of the opinion if the shoe fits well...

However, please understand that this note is taken from the introduction directed surely at the uproar the article "the myth of zen in the art of archery" The book is actually a very good read and very well researched. There are several photographs of Awa along with a photo of a calligraphy fan that he brushed with the characters literally translated as "The Bow and Zen are One". He also translates many of Awa's poems and works that are at the very least interesting although I wish the book was even more in depth.

However not reading it because of his reference would be taking it a bit to seriously. It is a good book none the less.

aloha,

TLR

Earl Hartman
9th May 2007, 20:37
The mistakes are not in Yamada's paper, the mistakes are in Stevens' understanding of what Yamada is saying. I have yet to read the book in its entirely, but judging from the remarks that Tracy has appended, it seems that Stevens has misread Yamada in a very fundamental way.

Stevens seems to think that Yamada's paper is an attack on Awa's status or abilities as a Zen master. This was not the purpose of Yamada’s paper, and he did not address this question at all. So complaining that he did not write a paper about the greatness of Awa, that is, that he didn’t write the paper Stevens wanted him to write, seems a little silly.

Yamada was addressing three main questions, it seems to me:

1. Is Japanese archery generally understood as a form of Zen?

2. Was Awa’s Daishadokyo a mainstream understanding of Japanese archery?

3. Did Herrigel understand what he was being taught and did he present it accurately?

If I read Stevens’ comments correctly, it seems that he agrees with Yamada on points 1) and 2). Stevens does not argue with Yamada's assertion that Awa was unorthodox; nor does he take issue with Yamada’s contention that the masses of people in Japan do not practice kyudo as a form of Zen. Indeed he readily admits both claims but then dismisses both with a shrug. Stevens' subjective opinion regarding these facts does not make them any the less true, however. Yamada’s main purpose was to let his readers know that Herrigel’s interpretation of Awa’s idiosyncratic teachings is not the only way to understand kyudo. Stevens readily admits that most people do not practice kyudo as Zen, which is really all Yamada was saying, when you come right down to it. So he is fundamentally in agreement with Yamada, so far as I can tell. If so, then, what is the argument?

Stevens seems to be starting out from the position that Awa was a great archery master as well as a great Zen master and faults Yamada for not recognizing this. While it appears that Awa's approach to kyujutsu was unorthodox, I have seen video of him shooting, remastered from some old pre-war footage, and there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that for all of his supposed eccentricities he was a superb archer. His skill is a matter of public record, and in spite of his differences of opinion with other masters of equal stature, he received his Hanshi (Master) ranking from the Dai Nippon Butokukai, the national martial arts organization of that time. So he was clearly no slouch, and I don’t recall Yamada calling him one.

So, one thing that is clear is that however much an oddball Awa may or may not have been, his skill was unquestioned. I don't think Yamada questioned Awa's skill; his only point was that Awa was unorthodox and that his understanding of kyujutsu, and his attempt to recreate it as something new and untraditional, met with opposition from the traditionalists. This fact, in and of itself, is utterly prosaic, it seems to me, and as I said, Stevens concedes this point.

But here we come to it. It is precisely Awa's reputation as an oddball that Stevens considers to be the proof of his authenticity. If one is convinced from the beginning that kyudo must be Zen, and that Zen is a kind of “crazy wisdom”, as Stevens seems to believe, then Awa, precisely because he was not mainstream, must be the only one who really understood the true spirit of kyudo and everyone else was not fit to carry his fundoshi. Indeed, this seems to be Stevens' opinion, if I read him correctly.

If one wishes to take this position one is free to do so, I suppose. However, it ignores the other masters, contemporaneous with Awa, who were his equals, in kyujutsu if not in "Zen". My teacher's teacher, Urakami Sakae, was one of these. The records of his skill as an archer are, so far as I know, equal to those of Awa. Based on what my teacher, his daughter-in-law, told me just a few weeks ago when I saw her in Japan, he scored a perfect 100 out of 100 shots certainly at least one time and achieved 99 out of 100 shots on any number of occasions (my teacher laughingly recalls her father-in-law saying wryly that "that last shot is really hard"). Urakami Sakae’s son Sunao, with whom I have had many a pleasant conversation, said that his father respected Awa’s spiritual insights and that Awa had a great respect for his father’s skill, which was, apparently, of an inordinately high order. Urakami Sakae received his Hanshi ranking from the Butokukai in 1927 (the same year that Awa did, I believe) when he was 45 years old and Awa was 47. So the fact that Awa was a good shot is not necessarily proof of his grasp of “Zen”, it is proof that he was a good shot.

I say this only to emphasize that a third party viewing both of these archers from the outside would most likely be hard pressed to see any significant difference between them. Of course, what impressed Herrigel so deeply was Awa's phenomenal accuracy. I will leave others to ponder the apparent contradiction between Herrigel insisting that where the arrow flew was of no significance and being astonished to the point of immobility at Awa’s seemingly magical accuracy (again, Yamada did not question that “The Target in the Dark” episode actually happened; he only questioned Herrigel’s interpretation of it, introducing statements from Awa’s most senior disciple that Awa had dismissed it as “a coincidence”). At the risk of being thought coy, I will say that accuracy of this level is definitely gained through something that transcends what most people consider “aiming”. Kyudo people will understand this easily. But this facility is not gained through a complete neglect of technique and a blithe disregard of where the arrow is pointing, as Herrigel seems to say. Such a thing is simply not possible. I do not believe for a moment that Awa did not teach Herrigel technique; I think Herrigel simply chose not to talk about it. This gives readers an entirely mistaken impression of what kyudo is and who Awa was.

All of this being said, the only question of any real relevance here is whether kyujutsu must necessarily be "Zen". Stevens insists that Awa was a great "Zen" master and had a profound understanding of "Zen". Yet at the same time he takes no issue with Yamada regarding the fact that Awa never once formally studied Zen. So, it is quite obvious that Stevens' understanding of "Zen" is different from that of most people's. Indeed, his notes indicate that one can be a great "Zen" master without ever once ever having had any formal training whatsoever (such a deal). Also, I don’t recall Yamada ever denying that Awa had some sort of “enlightenment” experience or denigrating that experience. His only question was what meaning should be ascribed to it.

I have to repeat again that when one says something is "Zen", most people will naturally and automatically assume that it is part and parcel of the formal practice of Zen Buddhism. Writers in the West who have been influenced by garden variety commentary on kyudo commonly assert that it was invented by Zen priests for purposes of meditation or some such rubbish. And as I have said before, I cannot count the number of people who have come to my dojo looking for this kind of effortless Zen magic only to be crushed when I tell them they have to practice proper technique really, really hard for a really long time in order to understand it. To an experienced marital artist there is no contradiction between hard practice and the eventual attainment of effortlessness, but to people with no frame of reference these two things are mutually exclusive. In kyudo, teachers always say that one must “transcend technique” or “forget technique”. One cannot transcend or forget something that one has never learned. One learns it, then one forgets about it. But people who don’t know budo normally understand Herrigel to mean exactly what he seems to be saying: that technique in any form whatsoever has nothing to do with “real” kyudo. It is primarily this tendency to misunderstand kyudo in this way against which Yamada was arguing. He wanted people to know that Herrigel's kyudo was not the only kind of kyudo there is. Again, Stevens does not disagree with this.

So the issue here is: just what is "Zen", exactly? Unless one can arrive at a mutually agreeable definition of the term, no rational discussion is possible (or is a rational discussion about "Zen" a contradiction in terms?). Judging from Stevens' comments regarding crazy Zen grannies and vagabonds, it appears that anyone can understand "Zen". Tracy and I have been over this before, but when a definition gets this subjective, there is simply nowhere to go. It's "Zen" if you want it to be "Zen". Since Stevens seems to share this opinion, by his definition Awa was a "Zen" master even though he never actually studied Zen in any formal way. But what proves his understanding of “Zen”? The fact that he used a lot of Zen phrases or that he was a crack shot?

It is true that Awa used a lot of Zen aphorisms in his lectures. To paraphrase Stevens: this is news? Regardless of what Herrigel may or may not have understood by this, Sakurai Yasunosuke, Awa’s disciple and the foremost authority on his life, states bluntly that Awa did not teach kyujutsu as Zen (from Yamada):


"Awa did use the expression 'bow and Zen are one.' Nonetheless, he did not expound archery or his shado as a way leading to Zen. Regardless of how Herrigel acquired that impression, today when many Japanese have the same misunderstanding we should not place the blame on Herrigel. Rather the responsibility must be placed squarely on our own Japanese scholars who have failed to clarify the difference between the arts of Japan and Zen."
What is one supposed to do with such a statement? The only conclusion to which we can come is that Herrigel was mistaken. While Awa may have used Zen terminology it must have meant something other than what Herrigel took it to mean. Or Herrigel was right and Sakurai was wrong. Take your pick.

Again, I want to emphasize that believing that Herrigel misunderstood Awa and so presented all of kyujutsu as Zen even though it was not, which was Yamada's main point, has nothing to do with Awa and is not a statement denigrating Awa or his teachings. It is simply the assertion that Herrigel got it wrong.

Personally, I believe that Awa simply emphasized certain aspects of kyujutsu that had always been there, bringing them to the foreground and explicitly making them the foundation of his teaching. Again, this is neither here nor there. Different teachers emphasize different things, and they often argue about it. But they all do it within the context of the art of shooting a bow, on the fundamentals of which there is broad agreement. The problem with Herrigel is that he gives his readers no context for understanding Awa’s apparently nonsensical statements (“do not aim at the target”, “the arrows do not carry because they are not spiritual enough”, “just wait at the moment of highest tension” etc.). These things can easily be understood for what they really mean by an experienced kyudo person. They are, in a sense, the psychological foundation of technique and can only be understood through technique. But people who do not know kyudo will simply have no idea what they really mean within the context of kyudo, which is the only place they have any value or meaning.

Like Yagyu Munenori in the Heiho Kadensho, Awa simply used the vocabulary of Zen to elucidate certain things that are inherent in kyujutsu. That is, he used Zen as a metaphor to explain kyujutsu. But I do not believe for a moment that by doing so he intended to create the kind of “Zen” archery that Herrigel appears to be talking about, where this is turned on its head and kyujutsu is used as a metaphor for Zen. This is where most “Zen archery” devotees make their mistake. Once concepts specific to kyudo are decontextualized, generalized, extrapolated to other things, or used as disembodied metaphors, they can be taken to mean practically anything. This is why I put no stock in opinions about kyudo held by people who are not themselves practitioners of kyudo. For the same reason, I never discuss aikido. I do not know anything about it, and so doing so would be presumptuous.

Finally, I find myself very perplexed and disturbed, to put it as mildly as I can, by Stevens' completely unjustified attempt to paint Professor Yamada, whom I know personally and with whom I have had many pleasant conversations (in Japanese), as a racist simply because his research leads him to believe that Herrigel did not understand the Japanese language. This is a grave charge. Yamada did not say anything as preposterous as claiming that Herrigel was congenitally incapable of understanding Japanese because of his race, and no matter how I look at it, I simply cannot understand how Stevens could come to such an astonishing conclusion. He seems to be projecting some sort of deeply felt resentment, but about what I cannot say. Indeed, I find the vituperativeness of his comments very disturbing, coming as they do from a prominent aikidoka and the author of books such as “The Way of Peace” and the “Art of Harmony”.

In any case, it is a fact that Herrigel required the services of Komachiya as interpreter. If Herrigel and Awa understood each other, why was he there? Subsequent research by Yamada has shown that upon his return to Germany Herrigel submitted a statement to the Nuremburg police to the effect that his understanding of Japanese was quite low and that he could not read or write it. So Stevens’ insistence that Herrigel must have been able to understand Japanese must be discounted. He has no way of knowing this. Herrigel may have understood a few words of Japanese and Awa may have picked up a few German phrases (as Komachiya’s memoirs make clear), but it is a huge leap to assume that therefore Herrigel and Awa could clearly understand one other. I am sure that Stevens must know from his own experience that the real spirit of budo cannot be transmitted solely through pidgin and pantomime.

Harlan
10th May 2007, 03:08
Mr. Hartman,

Is it possible to read Mr. Yamada's paper? The links in the (old) previous thread on this topic don't work for me.

Thank you.

TLR
10th May 2007, 03:17
Harlan,

here you go.

http://homepage.mac.com/t.reasoner/filechute/The%20Myth%20of%20Zen%20in%20the%20art%20of%20archery.pdf

aloha,

TLR

Harlan
11th May 2007, 16:55
Thank you. Interesting read.


here you go.

http://homepage.mac.com/t.reasoner/filechute/The%20Myth%20of%20Zen%20in%20the%20art%20of%20archery.pdf

Walker
11th May 2007, 20:57
Earl,
Nicely done. Thank you.

richard808
13th November 2007, 13:21
It's really hard to debunk ANY myth, or fable, or urban legend. Herr Herrigel got the myth of archery-as-zen started, and it's had a good run ever since. I just the other day found the five year long discussion thread about it on e-budo. It's closed but it's still up. Earl Hartman does as good a job of debunking Herrigel's myth as anybody possibly could of any myth; the short discussion by Earl Hartman in this thread is more than sufficient to summarize just why it's a preposterous mythological creation by Eugen Herrigel.

Two thoughts: First, this is a situation of counterfeit. If you've ever dealt with a good counterfeit, eg a good piece of counterfeit art, you know what I mean. Herrigel's book was a good counterfeit, and remains so. The ONLY way to deal with counterfeit ANYTHING is to destroy it, and eventually people forget about it. As long as it exists, there will be people pointing to it and saying "See? Blah blah blah." Herrigel's book ain't going away, any time soon. We're stuck with it.

Second, you can't explain archery to non archers. Why even try? But they'll be glad -- some of them -- to explain it to you.

P Goldsbury
13th November 2007, 13:28
Mr Katz,

Welcome to E-Budo. The rules in this forum require you to sign all your posts with your full name. I believe you agreed to do this when you became a member.

Happy posting.

richard808
13th November 2007, 15:34
I forgot to add my name there
Richard Katz richard808 At gmail daht calm

richard808
13th November 2007, 16:16
from Richard Katz (his full name; novice e-budo member)

I got so interested in reading the continuation of the Herrigel opera (soap supra, about Awa Kenzo and his counterfeit interpretation by the later Nazi, Eugen Herrigel; that Herrigel, he was like a blotter: he took it all in but got it all backwards) that I totally forgot to ask the question that brought me to find e-budo in the first place, couple days ago --

for the archers out there, kyudo and otherwise:

I noticed the other day, when I glanced at a picture of Awa Kenzo hanging over by where I hang my bow at night, that his right arm (he's a right hand shot) is straight back. That is, it looks like it's ninety degrees to his chest; inline with his body and what he's shooting at. I only have this one picture.

The main thing I have emulated from the picture of Awa shooting is his feet. That's been a great thing to have been able to look at that stance now and then; it's a lesson, and an inspiration. Plus, now that we have YouTube, we can see Awa take a shot or two, which is somewhat less inspiring than I would have thought it would be, but with that there was no doubt a let-down factor; I expected it to be some great thing to look at, and it is after all just a movie of a great archery master :-))

So here's the question: How do you know your right arm is "correct", or good, ie good technique? You can't see it, not at all. You end up in this Heisenberg uncertainty situation where you look back at it and you screw yourself around to see it; or you use a mirror, which is the wrong view.

If you REALLY try hard (as in REALLY think about it, hence screw up your shot[s] just like thinking about anything) you can it seems always stretch a little more, maybe even go over ninety degrees, and the arrow gets a little more zip, and you have less control, but you think "I'll straighten that out; can't be afraid to try something better." The guy who set up my bow (it's a compound bow; like I said, I'm no kyudosha but I'm asking here on e-budo anyway) knew just what he was doing, and when I stretch that little bit farther the bow is sure enough overcam'd; just another hint that there's maybe no problem here, just a philosophical one.

So the question remains how you deal with something you can't possibly see, but, at least for me, the real question is how you deal with this apparently untrivial part of shooting -- your right arm and back, for a right handed shot -- when I can't honestly say that I can feel -- proprioceptively -- what I can see pretty clearly in the full length portrait of Awa sensei Tohoku de. (I'd email him but he's offline.)

Richard Katz richard808 aT geeeeemail dat commm

Brian Owens
14th November 2007, 04:21
...So here's the question: How do you know your right arm is "correct", or good, ie good technique? You can't see it, not at all. You end up in this Heisenberg uncertainty situation where you look back at it and you screw yourself around to see it; or you use a mirror, which is the wrong view.
A good question, but not really about meditation.

I'd ask it again in one of the other sub-forums.

Earl Hartman
15th November 2007, 09:11
Richard:

In kyudo, if the arrow releases properly, the arm will fly back naturally. I think this is true in any style of archery, but in the full draw, you are not just holding the string in place, you are pulling it gently so that the shot doesn't "shrink" and is naturally released at the point of perfect equilibrium. For this to happen, the finger and forearms must be sufficiently relaxed. Thus, when the string frees itself, the arm naturally flies back when the tension is released.

You have to understand that Awa did not stretch his arm out like that on purpose, it went there because his technique was correct. In the beginning, of course, you learn how to do it, but once you know how it takes care of itself. The only way to know if it is correct is to have your teacher look at it.

If you're shooting a compound bow, however, I'm not sure if any of this applies. I think it would be a mistake to copy kyudo technique with a compound bow. Every tool has the correct way it should be used, which is determined by its instrinsic nature.

richard808
17th November 2007, 19:45
shooting and meditation, which came first, chicken and egg, but don't get me/us started. (reply to "this isn't the right forum supra)

so what happened was that for days after I wrote that post, about Where does the right elbow go? I couldn't hit anything and even lost a couple arrows, something I haven't done in ... either years, or longer than I can remember.

That went away after awhile, after I got that natural rebound idea that Earl Hartman refers to; plus I did make an arrangement to go over to the Bow Rack and talk to Norm Mallonee maybe, if he's ever feeling up to it -- the Teacher.

back to the meditation thing, briefly: that's what the Herrigel controversy is about, whether shooting and meditation of the Zen sort have anything to do with each other, or any Zen or zenlike practice; so it ends up being questionable whether one can ask about technique where you can't see yourself, or feel yourself (proprioception), on, say, this forum. I don't know, I just got here. That's a good koan, right there, but the heck with it.

more to the point, and much to my surprise, a copy of John Stevens's book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow arrived from Amazon, because my wife had ordered it for me. I said I would never crack its cover and would immediately start using it for a target; but instead I read it right away (it's REAL short) and it's worth taking a look at. that's because pages 5-27 have a biography of Awa Kenzo that sounds pretty genuine (sure, someday I'll make the trip to Sendai and read that stuff for myself, or have it read to me by my kid who can read, write, and speak Japanese.) The best story is about how over and over again people would come to see Awa Kenzo at his dojo, to pick an argument with him; and he listened without saying much; and then he'd say "Let's go down to the dojo" , and he'd shoot an arrow, and the person who had come to argue with him would right on the spot would become his student. Imagine that!!

(the stuff about Herrigel is in the book too, here and there, at the very beginning and at the very end [in the Notes, actually]. You know, it sounds a lot like stuff an Editor would want the Author to add, to make a book more Saleable. Who knows. Who cares. Oh, and the middle of the book is page after page of deep thoughts that I guess Awa wrote in one of his notebooks; Stevens says there are over 900 pages in Awa's handwriting. People who have learnt their writing after WW2 have trouble, I've noticed, reading things that were printed or written from before WW2, so even if my kid could read Awa's handwriting [kanji's] it would be a slog. Hard to say; sometimes the kid gets real turned on by deep Japanese stuff.)

P Goldsbury
17th November 2007, 23:09
I forgot to add my name there
Richard Katz richard808 At gmail daht calm

If you access User CP, at the far left side of the screen on the brown menu bar, you can Edit Signature and put your name as your signature. Then moderators like me would not need to give you infractions.

richard808
18th November 2007, 00:07
the post about shooting archery and meditation was by Richard Katz

Earl Hartman
19th November 2007, 06:45
Richard:

Like I said, if you're shooting a compound bow, forget about Awa, kyudo, "Zen" and meditation. Talk to somebody who understands the bow you are using. Trying to effect a kyudo release with a compound bow is like trying to play Mozart on a tuba. Not gonna work.

richard808
20th November 2007, 04:36
Awa, kyudo, "Zen" and meditation

Like Earl Hartman just said, if I want to play Mozart's Clarinet Quintet I better get a clarinet.

Not a tuba.

Not to differ with Earl Hartman by any means (a fifth dan archer) but any archer gains from learning about Awa. That's a personal journey, though. I'll never forget going into all those bookshops in downtown Kyoto and asking for a book, or anything, by or about Awa Kenzo; and one bookstore owner after another scowling and saying "No. Nothing." Sumimasen. Then you get to the Kyoto Budo Center, and there's a photo of Awa Kenzo shooting, high on the wall of the Kyudo Pavilion, and no pictures of anything (or anybody) else.

(Zen and meditation? Can you imagine trying to make a half decent shot with that stuff running around in your head?)

Personally, I"ve always used a simple three fingered glove, and no bowsight. Couple years ago I started slicing off the third fingertip of the glove and drawing with two fingers; works better, but with that third finger still there to position the glove a little. "Releasing a compound bow" sounds like I'm out there with some kind of space age gizmo like most of the shooters at the range. Maybe someday.

That's kind of funny about the Mozart, though. I can play the Clarinet Quintet okay, not great. When I was a kid, I remember being a little surprised to find out that the version I was playing on the B-flat clarinet isn't the real deal, because Mozart wrote that piece for the A clarinet, which is just a little bigger and sounds different. So I rented one of those orchestral clarinets a couple times.

Then maybe ten years ago I went to listen to that quintet being performed by some professionals playing vintage instruments, and the clarinetist had an early-model horn that somehow got out two extra notes at the low end. Turns out Mozart had written two passages in that piece that sound okay when you play them with our instruments, but damn if they don't sound just a little zippier the way that fellow played them with those couple extra low notes there, just the way Ol' Wolfgang had meant it to sound.

I'm going to stop by the Emeryville dojo one of these days soon so I can perhaps see up close what is going on in the kyudo release. I'm just curious, and have been for years, about that. It's got nothing to do (as Earl Hartman has pointed out) with shooting a compound bow.


A bow is just a tool; on the other hand, get the right tool for the job. How'se that for Zen? in the Art of Archery! One hand shooting.

richard808
23rd November 2007, 22:42
Richard:

Like I said, if you're shooting a compound bow, forget about Awa, kyudo, "Zen" and meditation. Talk to somebody who understands the bow you are using. Trying to effect a kyudo release with a compound bow is like trying to play Mozart on a tuba. Not gonna work.
I got to thinking about what Earl Hartman said, in reference to Awa Kenzo, and it occurred to me that Awa Kenzo was nearly a hundred years ago. So I wrote a few pages about that; it's a GoogleDoc:

publicly viewable at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgkqn6xw_116ggpcqd

the gist of it is that Awa Kenzo became aware of the "mental game" (the kind of mental game they talk about in golf, say); BUT, bearing in mind, that it was a LONG time ago and predates -- seems to me, but I'm no historian of the mental game -- the mental game in "practice makes perfect" sport in general.

Earl Hartman
25th November 2007, 04:23
People were aware of the "mental game" of archery more than two millennia before Awa.

One of the bases of Japanese kyudo is a section of document from 2nd century B.C.E China called the Li Ki , usually translated as "The Book of Rites". In Japanese it is called the "Rai Ki". It is a compilation of the various rites and rituals practiced in China around the time of Confucius. (I am not a China scholar, so I don't know when the document was first written down, but it contains descriptions of rituals dating back even further than that.)

There is a section in it dealing with the proper conduct of archery, known in Japanese as the Shagi, or "Ritual of Shooting" which the Japanese adopted in their archery practice. It says the following:

The shooting, with the round of moving forward or backward can never be without courtesy and propriety (Rei).

After having acquired the right inner intention and correctness in the outer appearance, the bow and arrow can be handled resolutely.

To shoot in this way is to perform the shooting with success, and through this shooting virtue will be evident.

Kyudo is the way of perfect virtue. In the shooting, one must search for rightness in oneself. With the rightness of self, shooting can be realized.

At the time when shooting fails, there should be no resentment towards those who win. On the contrary, this is an occasion to search for oneself.

(This the official translation which is found in the English version of the Kyudo Mnaual put out by the All Nippon Kyudo Federation. I would have translated it a bit differently, perhaps, but it captures the gist.)

Here is a link to the pertinent section of the document, translated by James Legge: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/liki2/liki243.htm

What it says, basically, is that when the archer's inner intention, that is, his mental state, is correct, he will be able to shoot his bow properly, and that when he can do this his shooting will be successful, that is, he will strike the target. This is the idea of 正射必中, or "a true shot never misses".

To repeat, this document is more than 2,000 years old. It has always been the foundation of Japanese archery almost from its inception. By stressing the "mental game" of kyudo, Awa was absolutely not coming up with anything new, nor was he radically departing from accepted doctrine. Anyone who has ever shot a bow with any seriousness is aware of how vital the mental aspect is.

Awa's departure was, so far as I have been able to tell, twofold: his apparent disdain for accuracy (I say apparent because I'm not sure it's true) and his establishment of his own school of archery which apparently was explicitly religious. Awa called his style of shooting "Daishadokyo" (大射道教) which means "Teaching of the Great Way of Shooting". The character for teaching (教) can also be translated as "doctrine" (Herrigel's "Great Doctrine"), or "church" (in Japanese Christianity is "キリスト教"). Personally, I believe it was Awa's emphasis on the religious aspects of his teaching, and his propagation of his style as a sort of church or sect, that angered the traditionalists. Yamada's research shows that Awa considered himself a missionary of sorts and taught Daishadokyo as a kind of religion. Sakurai mentions that the group led by Honda Toshizane (one of Awa's teachers) objected to his introduction of religion into kyujutsu where they felt it did not belong.

We have to remember that Awa was formulating his ideas at a time of great cultural ferment in Japan, where Western ideas were inundating the country and people were aping Western ways. Honda Toshizane himself had fought in the Boshin War which accompanied the fall of the Tokugawa and the establishment of the Meiji government. I think it is safe to assume that he used his bow in this conflict. He was genuine "Old School" for whom archery was, literally, a matter of life and death. His apparent disdain for Awa's quasi-religious approach is not too surprising if you look at it like that. Interestingly, the style that Honda developed, later called the Honda Ryu, changed the traditional shooting method to better reflect Western ideas of physical education. It was a radical departure which, when first introduced, faced widespread opposition. So Honda was something of a radical in his own way.

Awa, taking his lead from Kano Jigoro, tried to re-formulate traditional kyudo to make it fit better with the modern world. This is the real distinguishing characteristic of modern kyudo, which owes a lot to Awa and his disciples, many of whom were key figures in the establishment of the All Nippon Kyudo Federation after WWII: the emphasis is on the role that kyudo should play in society and what meaning it can or should have in a world where kyudo no longer has any practical value. This reformulation was quite conscious and explicit. Modern kyudo is not what it once was, even in Awa's time.

The real question is: does one try to master the "mental game" in order to become proficient in archery or does one practice archery in order to understand the "mental game"? Where one stands on this issue determines one's attitude to kyudo.

People always talk about kyudo being "spiritual". People who, influenced by Herrigel, think that the "spirituality" of kyudo is the goal will often disparage accuracy or technical training because they think that somehow this is not "spiritual". This is wrong. The Raiki Shagi shows that the proper spiritual intention is vital to the proper practice of archery. The spirituality of the archer is evident from the quality of the shooting. This is the fundamental attitude of kyudo and it always has been. If Awa truly and genuinely thought that accuracy was of no importance and that one's spiritual attitude was the only thing that was important, then he was, indeed, a heretic and the opposition to him makes perfect sense. Personally, I don't believe that is true and that Herrigel misrepresented him. However, he is on record as being supremely disdainful of kyujutsu and formulated his "Shado" in conscious opposition to it. I believe he did this not because he thought hitting the target was unimportant, but because he thought that kyujutsu was not being put to what he saw as the correct use and that his Shado would put kyujutsu back on the right path. It should surprise no one that this ruffled some feathers.

Earl Hartman
25th November 2007, 05:28
A slight correction: "Shagi" (射義) is more properly translated as "The Morality/Meaning of Shooting". The "Ritual of Shooting" would be written with a different character for "gi" (儀).

Ron Tisdale
26th November 2007, 15:56
Thanks again Earl for your contributions here...I don't have any connection to the bow at all, but I find your posts very well written and extremely informative. They make an excellent back ground for Budo in general.

Best,
Ron

richard808
27th November 2007, 07:26
A lot of the quotes were familiar to me; then I realized I had read them on Earl Hartman's pages from the dojo in Emeryville. You can learn a lot from reading that syllabus front to back.

I too, like Ron Tisdale, find Earl Hartman's posts extremely informative. It's generous of him.

This rearrangement, on e-budo, of some of the teachings jiggers some of the thought into an interesting conformation; especially the part about


"does one try to master the "mental game" in order to become proficient in archery or does one practice archery in order to understand the "mental game"?"

That is one tough question; and there are some good teachings given to evaluate that question intelligently. The unknown aspect, for me and probably any number of others in all sorts of martial arts, is that I may very well be mentally operating at one tenth the intensity of a really good archer, even on a good day and on a really excellent shot. I just have no idea. (The converse is easier to ascertain though: Not that long ago I started having some pretty disturbing thoughts about archery, and I was just amazed at how inaccurate I became, and how badly behaved I got, acting just like all those golfers who act annoyed at a lousy drive (nearly all amateurs; not quite all though.) It just went away after a while, like the flu. ) That is actually somewhat encouraging, the idea that one must be doing it mostly right, because when something goes bad everything goes REALLY bad.

One more note about Awa Kenzo: I don't want to sound like I"m marketing John Stevens' little book Zen Bow Zen Arrow; far from it. REally, save your money! BUT, that having been said, there's what sounds like an okay biography of Awa Kenzo on pages 5-27. On page 10, Stevens quotes from Sakurai Yasunosuke Awa Kenzo Sensei Shoten Hyakunensai Jikko Iinkai 1981 (100th Anniversary of Awa's Birthday) (having just recounted how Awa had won the national tournament in Tokyo when he was 30):

"Kenzo Sensei had just been appointed archery instructor at our school. Archery was not very popular at the time, and Sensei lived in a tiny little house with his family. Sensei had a strict demeanor, and he used a huge, very strong bow. He made a bull's eye with almost every shot. The zip of his arrows in flight was extraordinary. Sensei was tremendously powerful physically ... During that period, Sensei stressed technique much more than philosophy; he was very critical regarding our posture, insisting that our form be perfect. ...."

Steven ends the next Paragraph with: ".... by 1917, at the age of 38, he was widely recognized as the best shooter in the country."

[Then Stevens gets into the morass of trying to figure out whether Awa was dabbling in religion, so let's quietly slip out the door.]

The point is that technique-wise, we're talking about an archer who was a master. His students said that. Is there anybody out there who thinks that somebody who shoots with awesome accuracy all the time could have anything but excellent technique? Naaaaah. No way. But then he said something like "technique doesn't matter" ..... See, I don't question that; I'm just on a little expedition here to understand that. And I keep asking myself, Why don't you go to Sendai and see what word he used to use for "technique"?

One last thing, and it's not really germane to the discussion of technique, or the discussion of the mental game:

So if you get a really old text, and you translate it, you tend to invest and imbue your translation --- your words, your phrases --- with meanings you are getting from today's world.

Let me give an example, that's not Japanese or Chinese or from the world of martial arts, just one that I bumped into that shows what I mean: There's a well known passage in the New Testament where Christ is quoted as saying "Don't be like the hypocrites in the Temple". I looked that up in the Greek dictionary: two thousand years ago, a hypocrite was an understudy, in Greek drama. The meaning of the statement is that the priests were just actors who didn't really believe in anything, they were just acting; and they weren't even good enough actors to get the lead role. (Quite an insult, really, when you stop to think about it.) But, when you read "hypocrite", you have the modern meaning that we all know, in your head: somebody who says one thing and believes quite another. Of course the two are related, but that modern shade of meaning hadn't been invented yet. The modern meaning is actually somewhat watered down; but we have to tap ourselves on the side of the head to remember that that was then, this is now.

But you know what? If Earl Hartman is pretty sure that that phrase translated as "inner intention" from Chinese through Japanese means about the same as what we call "having your mind right" or "having you mental game together" I'm more than willing to go along with him, ie that the old boys were hip to the mental game at least as early as a couple or three thousand years ago. Homo sapiens had become conscious by then so why not?

Earl Hartman
27th November 2007, 09:10
All the old kyudo texts stress the need to go beyond technique and that the release has to come naturally without thinking about it. Any Western archer will tell you exactly the same thing. This is archery, not Zen. But like I said, that can only happen once you have technique. You can't pass beyond something you don't have. Do you think Yo Yo Ma worries about technique when he plays? No, he doesn't have to any more. But I'll bet in the beginning his teacher made him play scales until his fingers bled.

Awa's progress in his career strikes me as very typical: as a young man he was full of piss and vinegar, and like any good young man with testosterone poisoning, he was out to prove himself. You cannot achieve the kind of skill Awa achieved without impeccable technique. Kyudo technique is founded upon proper posture, so Awa, like any instructor worth his salt, drilled his students in proper posture. There is nothing out of the ordinary in this. My teachers did the same thing with me.

Awa was clearly something of a prodigy. Everybody tries to do what he did, some people are just better than others. Awa had the natural talent and the drive to realize his potential.

Anyway, regarding technique, my personal belief is that Awa got to the point where he never missed and looked around and said: "Is this all there is to kyudo? No, there must be something more." This is what the Japanese call "the luxury disease" (贅沢病): like a gourmet who has sampled all the delicacies the world has to offer and is disappointed that there is not another dish he can try, Awa had the luxury to worry about other things because technically there was nowhere further for him to go. Very, very few people ever get to the point where they have the luxury of being able to worry about things like that. There is nothing more pathetic than a diletante who cannot hit the broad side of a a barn yet who wanders around musing about the Real Meaning of Kyudo. You do not have the right to waste your time thinking about things like that until you can shoot. Most of us will never have the opportunity to worry about such things.

Like I said, I don't believe that Awa didn't care about technique. Ultimately, as I explained above, the archer's mind controls his technique. Assuming two archers have an identical technical capability, the archer with the correct mind and spirit will be the better shot. In this sense, what kyudo people call "the working of the mind and spirit" (心気の働き) is the ultimate technique of kyudo since it holds the key to a successful shot, assuming that the physical technique is there. Kyudo technique is fundamentally very simple; what Awa was trying to teach Herrigel was that ultimately the solution to his problems lay within his own mind and spirit and that he should stop obsessing over little details, thinking that a little twist here or squeeze there would make everything work properly. This leads you down the wrong path. However, Herrigel, like an idiot, assumed this meant that technique wasn't important.

Regarding the translation of "having your mind right", the Raiki Shagi says "内志し正しくして". There is only one way to translate that: "make your inner intention correct".

richard808
27th November 2007, 19:20
Would you be so kind as to write out in Roma Ji how to say that phrase for "having your mind right"= "making your inner intention correct"

yomu koto ga dekimasen.

I'd sure appreciate it. Dozo.

Earl Hartman
27th November 2007, 20:43
Uchi kokorozashi tadashiku shite

richard808
30th November 2007, 01:58
Uchi kokorozashi tadashiku shite

Thank you.

That's a great essay. I've read it a few times, since you wrote it a few days ago; to give it a chance to digest. It venerates the past, appropriately, whilst bringing the teachings right up to the present.

(Let me know when my questioning becomes tedious, or a pain in the neck): Do any of those subelements in uchi kokoro za shi come from "head" or "brain", (e.g. the way the little square made from three strokes derived way back when from "mouth", in, say, katsuben shi*)?

______________
*I only know that one because I took it for my name some years ago.

Earl Hartman
30th November 2007, 02:38
Sorry, I wouldn't know.

Josh Reyer
30th November 2007, 04:49
No, they don't. And incidently, it breaks down as "uchi-kokorozashi", with kokorozashi being one word (which is why Earl wrote it that way), and the uchi acting as a prefix.

内 - uchi: inside, inner
志し - kokorozashi: aim, ambition, intention, desire

It's often a mistake to assume that the elements or a kanji are actually made up of similar looking characters and mean the same thing. Here, for example, there appears to be the kanji for "person" in uchi, but actually it's a corrupted form of "enter". It looks like kokorozashi has the character for "gentleman, scholar" in it, but actually that's an altered representation of advancing feet.

richard808
30th November 2007, 05:27
Feet!





,',',',',',',',','

don
30th November 2007, 20:04
I guess you would be calling his reference to "small fry academics" as name calling. I don't know but maybe it is true I have always been of the opinion if the shoe fits well... Stevens?! Complaining of poor scholarship?! Forget about shoes that fit, think pots calling kettles black.

Does he publish in refereed journals? Please provide a link.

The one review article I read of his, and I could only find one academic review of his stuff (The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei. by John Stevens, Author(s) of Review: H. Byron Earhart, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer, 1989), pp. 244-245), was very dismissive. While congratulating Stevens on the oral interviews he conducted of the monks, the reviewer noted many instances of wrong KANJI and poor understanding of history and concepts.

His popular books are absolute slop: Citations MIA, bibliographies containing nothing but his own books or those of his patrons, the Ueshibas, crazy claims (diseases cured by chanting, KI particles?!), undisciplined thinking (the TENCHI Jesus?!)

More congenial readers distinguish him as a folklorist. I don’t think anyone schlepping books with a PhD after his name in the bio blurb ought to be allowed such latitude for sloppiness. Stephen J. Gould didn’t dumb down his articles for lay readers. Neither do Hawking, Dawson, Caldwell, or other writers worth reading. The only reasons Stevens gets play at all is 1) because MA are such a small pond, and 2) because there’s always some market for nonsense.

(The link provided for the Yamada article didn’t work for me but this one does: http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/586.pdf)

richard808
3rd December 2007, 03:13
Stevens?! Complaining of poor scholarship?! Forget about shoes that fit, think pots calling kettles black.

Probably somebody could write a better book, but near as I can tell Stevens's Zen Bow Zen Arrow is the only book in English about Awa Kenzo. If there are any more out there, I'd love to find them and read them.

So that makes his little book better than nothin', which was about what I was able to dig up about Awa before the Stevens book came out and I ordered a copy. (That includes going to bookstores in Japan.)

I should have Stevens's little gem up for sale, used, on Amazon any day now; like, Stick a fork in it; it's done.

here's my thoughts about

Archery Technique

This document is publicly viewable at:

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgkqn6xw_120fb6wd4

I'm attempting to sort out technique from "tricks". I'm pretty sure this is applicable to other arts. Maybe somebody knows of a good example of a trick, something in archery or some other practice that seems to work but when you've seen it done it's plainly just a trick.

don
3rd December 2007, 17:01
Probably somebody could write a better book, but near as I can tell Stevens's Zen Bow Zen Arrow is the only book in English about Awa Kenzo. If there are any more out there, I'd love to find them and read them.

So that makes his little book better than nothin',Yeah. That's kind of true for aikido, too.

Not many folk have commented on the historical/deeper aspects of Ueshiba's spirituality.

But Jesus! Such hokum you have to tread around to in order to get anything of value...

Stevens was actually of some use in my own researches, but as soon as I started reading Grapard, Abe, Teeuwen, Rambelli, Hardacre, et al., I jettisoned Stevens PDQ.

Earl Hartman
4th December 2007, 19:17
Don:

The "TENCHI Jesus"? Wilson Foxtrot Tango is that?

richard808
5th December 2007, 04:23
Don:

The "TENCHI Jesus"? Wilson Foxtrot Tango is that?
A little Japanese superhero guy; THAT Tenchi, no doubt. Pop culture. Comic books.

Joseph Svinth
5th December 2007, 04:57
My guess is that Tenchi Jesus is a reference to the Kakure Kirishitans (Hidden Christians). See, for instance, Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians by Christal Whelan (University of Hawaii Press, 1996), portions of which can be read at Google Books -- the romaji is tenchi hajimarino koto. Stephen Turnbull has also written a book called The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs, and Rituals to the Present Day. (Routledge, 1998). The two authors studied different communities, so they are different books. Both authors are worth tracking about the academic media if you're interested in the topic.

For a Japanese author, try Ikuo Higashibaba, Christianity in Early Modern Japan: Kirishitan Belief and Practice (Brill, 2001). My guess is that this one will be dry, as it was his dissertation at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. The published review was not kind to this book, either -- http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/655.pdf .

don
5th December 2007, 16:32
Don:

The "TENCHI Jesus"? Wilson Foxtrot Tango is that?In one of his books, Stevens juxtaposes a picture of Osensei following TENCHI NAGE with one hand up, one hand down and a picture of Christ in statuary with one hand up, one hand down. Ergo...(my cat is a dog.)

Earl Hartman
5th December 2007, 19:08
Don: Like I (should have) said: Wilson Tango Foxtrot?

I knew a Catholic woman who insisted that Passover and Mass were the same, since they both involved wine and a matzah/wafer. Of course, in Passover the wine and matzah are, well, wine and matzah, and in the Catholic Mass the wine and wafer, through Transustantiation, become the literal blood and flesh of a resurrected man-god.

Just a wee bit different, I would say. But some people just see the surface appearance of things, I guess.

Joe: my guess is that "tenchi hajimari no koto" (天地始まりの事) probably refers to the 1st verse of the book of Bereshit (Genesis).

kenkyusha
5th December 2007, 20:24
Ergo...(my cat is a dog.)
It really is all zen:p

Be well,
Jigme

don
5th December 2007, 20:44
I knew a Catholic woman who insisted that Passover and Mass were the same, since they both involved wine and a matzah/wafer. Of course, in Passover the wine and matzah are, well, wine and matzah, and in the Catholic Mass the wine and wafer, through Transustantiation, become the literal blood and flesh of a resurrected man-god.I had a philosophy prof in undergrad who used to cackle that on transubstantiation either Catholics were 1) plain wrong or worse, 2) cannibals.

(I don't recall him cackling when he got arrested [again] for feeling up a male undercover cop in an adult movie, but he was a great teacher whatever his proclivities.)

richard808
5th December 2007, 21:39
Don: Like I (should have) said: Wilson Tango Foxtrot?

I knew a Catholic woman who insisted that Passover and Mass were the same, since they both involved wine and a matzah/wafer. Of course, in Passover the wine and matzah are, well, wine and matzah, and in the Catholic Mass the wine and wafer, through Transustantiation, become the literal blood and flesh of a resurrected man-god.

Just a wee bit different, I would say. But some people just see the surface appearance of things, I guess.

Joe: my guess is that "tenchi hajimari no koto" (天地始まりの事) probably refers to the 1st verse of the book of Bereshit (Genesis).
The Last Supper was either a Passover seder or the night before the Passover seder, the year where the Priests at the Big Temple got JC arrested for performing miracles on Shabbos (Sabbath; Saturday). You're not supposed to work on Shabbos; working miracles, that's work, off with his head. They got the Italians to rub him out. But they had to hurry, because it's against the rules to kill anybody on Yom Tov (a Holy Day) and Passover started at the next sundown, and crucifixion takes a while, so it was touch and go. INteresting, because usually the Romans left crucifixees up there for a while, to make an example of them.

At a seder:

the matzah is all about leaving Egypt in a hurry (not a complicated symbolism there);

the wine, on the other hand, is right up there with the primitivest of primordial practices: You put out an extra cup of wine and Elijah the Prophet is gonna come and drink from it. Now that's the kind of relationship with the right side of the brain that we ALL used to benefit from, as explained by Julian Jaynes back in 1976 , The ORigin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Somewhere on that seder table there is an extra cup, or maybe they already took it over by the door, or set it on the mantel.

If JC were a prophet of the type that Elijah was, a few thousand years before, it would not be surprising to hear him say something as direct as "this is my blood." They used to take this stuff literally; everybody did; I'm fairly certain that the Jews did, before Christianity got going. It was a world where EVERY Jew was an Orthodox Jew. (That's a hard world for me to imagine but that was the deal.) I think they really thought that Elijah literally showed up. I'm pretty sure that three year olds really think that Santa shows up.

Earl Hartman
5th December 2007, 22:11
If JC were a prophet of the type that Elijah was, a few thousand years before, it would not be surprising to hear him say something as direct as "this is my blood."


Ummmmm.....what? Eliyahu Ha Navi would never say anything like that. You ought to know that eating blood of any kind whatsoever is totally assur (forbidden).

No Jewish prophet would direct his followers to eat any kind of blood, especially his own. If he did, he would be flouting one of the strongest prohibitions to be found anywhere in the whole Torah. Drinking the blood and eating the body of a god who was killed to offer atonement to his worshipers is totally foreign to Judaism and shows that Christianity is, essentially, a type of Greco-Roman mystery religion.

richard808
6th December 2007, 01:06
Ummmmm.....what? Eliyahu Ha Navi would never say anything like that. You ought to know that eating blood of any kind whatsoever is totally assur (forbidden).

No Jewish prophet would direct his followers to eat any kind of blood, especially his own. If he did, he would be flouting one of the strongest prohibitions to be found anywhere in the whole Torah. Drinking the blood and eating the body of a god who was killed to offer atonement to his worshipers is totally foreign to Judaism and shows that Christianity is, essentially, a type of Greco-Roman mystery religion.
You're absolutely right. Obviously; it never even occurred to me whilst I was writing what I just wrote. Then I checked out the New Testament and I can't find that JC said what I said he said. Thanks for pointing out the error.

richard808
6th December 2007, 06:14
You're absolutely right. Obviously; it never even occurred to me whilst I was writing what I just wrote. Then I checked out the New Testament and I can't find that JC said what I said he said. Thanks for pointing out the error.

ummm, it's in the Book of Mark. That makes it more perplexing, not less. A good Jewish boy said that? I guess so.

richard808
6th December 2007, 06:34
.... and shows that Christianity is, essentially, a type of Greco-Roman mystery religion.

I always thought of the relationship as a cargo cult, ie Christianity is a cargo cult of Judaism.

Once again, interesting what you've pointed out here, this blood thing. Yep.

Earl Hartman
6th December 2007, 06:48
A good Jewish boy said that? I guess so.

Not.

A.

Chance.

Alternatively, if he did say that, and he actually thought he was the literal Son of G-d and that partaking of his flesh and blood would save people from sin, he was a blasphemer.

Certainly not a "good Jewish boy".

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Awa or kyudo. I think we should stop.

richard808
6th December 2007, 18:45
Certainly not a "good Jewish boy".

Anyway, this has nothing to do with Awa or kyudo. I think we should stop.

Agreed.

Back to the topic, meditation/martial arts:

Someday somebody around here is going to offer to teach a very short but wide-ranging course (three or four sessions) on the Teachings of Awa Kenzo.

I'd be first in line to sign up, if:
1. it were prerequisite that the enrollees be limited to kyudo practitioners, students on up; with Western archers accepted with Instructor's permission, and if they agree not to say anything;
2. it was in English, mostly (lest we end up like Eugen Herrigel)

ichibyoshi
17th December 2007, 10:37
Dunno if it's been mentioned already (my guess is not) but you might try an essay called Twentieth Century Budo and Mystic Experience by Suzuki Sadami of the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies. You'll have to buy a book though (how old skool is that?), Budo Perspectives, vol 1, edited by Alex Bennett (ISBN 4990169433) (C) 2005 Kendo World Publications, Auckland.

It has more info on Awa sensei's early life and thought than any other book or essay I have read (i.e. Herrigel, Yamada and Stephens) and a decent-sized bibiliography (all Japanese language texts of course). Less tendentious to boot.

You can buy it here (http://www.kendo-world.com/products.php?s%5Bid%5D=1&s%5Bcat%5D=4). Well worth the $25.00.

b

Earl Hartman
20th December 2007, 17:42
When you say the "International Research Centre for Japanese Studies" do you mean the "国際日本文化研究センター"? If so, that's where Prof. Yamada works.

Do you know when was this essay was originally published? If both Prof. Yamada and Suzuki work at the same place, it seems odd that Prof. Yamada would not cite Suzuki's work. Perhaps it was published recently?

Would it be possible to get a copy of the section(s) discussing Awa? I have a copy of Sakurai's book on Awa that Yamada cites, but it is, essentially, a hagiography and pretty thick going in many places.

Prof. Yamada has published a follow-up work to his original essay entitled "禅と言う名の日本丸" (The Japanese Cargo Ship Called 'Zen') which I have translated. It should be out in English some time in 2009. It is a discussion of how aspects of Japanese culture which previously had little or no connection to Zen, such as kyujutsu, became "Zennified" in the popular imagination. It is quite interesting and contains a wealth of previously unknown information about Herrigel that Prof. Yamada uncovered on research trips to Germany. Not a lot more information about Awa, though, since Prof. Yamada was debunking Herrigel, not Awa.

As far as tendentiousness is concerned, it is true that Yamada has an agenda, which is to rescue kyudo from Herrigel, but as I mentioned previously, I don't think that this must necessarily be read as a criticism of Awa. Awa may have been a character but that is neither here nor there. A lot of budo people are.

ichibyoshi
20th December 2007, 23:51
I think it may be the same, it is known as the "Nichibunken" for short. The paper was written for an international symposium in 2003, The Direction of Japanese Budo in the 21st Century: Past, Present and Future.

Yamada is not referenced in the bibliography, which as you say is perhaps a bit strange. Sakurai is mentioned several times and interpretations of Sakurai's as to the meaning of some of Awa's aphorisms are examined closely by Suzuki.

I'm not sure but I think the paper would have been presented in Japanese and then translated for the aforementioned "Budo Perspectives". If you contact Alex Bennett through www.kendo-world.com, you might be able to find out more about the essay's background.

I can't provide you with any decent-sized excerpts without the time-consuming labour of copying it out by hand, which would not only be verging on infringement, but also short-changing Mr Bennett, whose labour in the area of bringing academic-level essays on budo to the English-speaking world equals even the Skoss'. But really, for $25.00, you get an awful lot of interesting stuff. Granted not all about kyudo, but all good stuff nonetheless (e.g. Anton Geesink setting himself the fascinating subject "Judo as Olympic sport or tradition" and then just spruiking his own training method: "Judo as Olympic Sport" = 1 paragraph, "Judo as tradition" = 1 paragraph, "The Anton Geesink Basic Teaching Method" = 18.5 pages!).

b

Earl Hartman
21st December 2007, 04:53
Yes, it's the same organization. I will contact Prof. Yamada and ask about it. Perhaps I can get the original Japanese of Suzuki's essay.

It is really quite odd that the authors wouldn't cite each other, since Prof. Yamada's original essay came out in 2001 and his book in 2005. Curious. Perhaps Suzuki dealt with things that Yamada wasn't discussing and vice-versa. As I said, Yamada's main subject was Herrigel. He didn't spend any time analyzing Awa's philosophy.

Joseph Svinth
21st December 2007, 06:38
Earl --

The book also contains an essay by Prof. Bodiford called "Zen and Japanese Swordsmanship Reconsidered."

You can order the book direct from Kendo World. Cost is US $25, but unless you pay more, they ship surface, so it takes a few months. http://www.kendo-world.com/products.php?s%5Bcat%5D=4

mosb
21st December 2007, 09:03
I think this might be an extract of the original article:

http://www.nichibun.ac.jp/%7Esadami/extract/budo/budo2.htm


Regards

Li Bao

Joseph Svinth
22nd December 2007, 20:29
Earl --

The main sources cited are by Sakurai Yaunosuke. Oinaru sha no michi no oshie provides 18 of 47 notes and Shasei Awa Kenzo: Tenchi daishizen no diagensha provides 4 of 47 notes.

The only other obviously kyudo-related cites are Shibata Jisaburo, Nihon no kyujutsu, 1941.

The version of Herrigel cited is the Japanese version rather than the English translation (or the German original). Nitobe is also cited from the Japanese rather than the English version.

Musashi is cited from Yoshikawa Eiji. Thus, in this book, one would probably do better referring to Uozumi Takashi's "Research of Miyomoto Musashi's Gorin no sho -- From the Perspective of Japanese Intellectual History." BTW, Uozomi states straight off (footnote 1) that Musashi's reputation since the 18th century owes a lot to posthumous theatricals (bunraku and kabuki) and popular novels.

Earl Hartman
23rd December 2007, 02:19
Joe:

I've got both of Sakurai's books; if anything, "Shasei" is more of a hagiography that "Oi Naru Sha no Michi no Oshie" is, if such a thing is possible.

I've been reading "Oi Naru" trying to get a better idea of Awa's philosophy; one thing I found was that he conceived of kyudo as having 10 progressively higher levels.

Guess what the very first level is? I'll buy you a beer if you can guess (and if we ever actually meet face to face). It's ridiculously simple. And blindingly obvious, if you put Herrigel's nonsense out of your mind and just think about it for a moment.

Also, in "Shasei", Sakurai refers to China as "Shina", writing it in katakana, IIRC. AFAIK, this is common among unreconstructed right-wing "Tenno Heika Banzai" militarists, no?

Josh Reyer
23rd December 2007, 04:44
I've been reading "Oi Naru" trying to get a better idea of Awa's philosophy; one thing I found was that he conceived of kyudo as having 10 progressively higher levels.

Guess what the very first level is? I'll buy you a beer if you can guess (and if we ever actually meet face to face). It's ridiculously simple. And blindingly obvious, if you put Herrigel's nonsense out of your mind and just think about it for a moment.

Hit the target?

Earl Hartman
24th December 2007, 06:55
Close, but no cigar. But you're on the right track. What do you need to hit the target?

Josh Reyer
24th December 2007, 09:58
Close, but no cigar. But you're on the right track. What do you need to hit the target?

Proper form?

Earl Hartman
24th December 2007, 16:40
OK, I'll give it to you.

The very first level, the basis, is technical training, what Awa called 整形技習, or "setting form in order and training in technique". In his philosophy, the "opening of energy" (開気) doesn't even come until Level 7. Up until then, it's just various levels of physical training.

It is true that Awa did not believe that technique was the be-all and end-all of kyudo. However, by making technical training the foundation of his entire philosophy, it is clear that he viewed it as the bedrock upon which everything was built, the essential thing without which nothing is possible. That is, without physical archery, spiritual archery is impossible to attain. Awa saw his archery as an integrated practice, where one naturally progresses from a physical understanding to a spiritual one. Again, this seems completely normal to me. My teachers all told me the exact same thing. I can't see what the fuss was all about.

For Awa, the shot was everything. No technique, not shot. No shot, no way to get to the upper spiritual levels. By passing over the need for perfecting form and technique as the prerequisite for proceeding to the next levels, Herrigel gives the entirely mistaken impression that Awa cared nothing for technique and didn't even teach it. By doing this, he gives his readers the idea that one can hit one's own arrow in the dark just by becoming "enlightened". This rhetorical sleight-of-hand, where Herrigel creates an entirely false picture of kyudo by cherry-picking his experience in order to create a certain "mystical" impression, has done incalculable damage and is one of the fundamental causes of the misunderstanding of Japan and its arts in the West.

P Goldsbury
26th December 2007, 08:16
Dunno if it's been mentioned already (my guess is not) but you might try an essay called Twentieth Century Budo and Mystic Experience by Suzuki Sadami of the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies. You'll have to buy a book though (how old skool is that?), Budo Perspectives, vol 1, edited by Alex Bennett (ISBN 4990169433) (C) 2005 Kendo World Publications, Auckland.

It has more info on Awa sensei's early life and thought than any other book or essay I have read (i.e. Herrigel, Yamada and Stephens) and a decent-sized bibiliography (all Japanese language texts of course). Less tendentious to boot.

You can buy it here (http://www.kendo-world.com/products.php?s%5Bid%5D=1&s%5Bcat%5D=4). Well worth the $25.00.

b

Hello Ben,

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Well, I have read Suzuki's essay and I must confess to being highly unimpressed with the lack of scholarship displayed in reference to Morihei Ueshiba and aikido. The essay, allegedly,

"will focus on the kyudo of Awa Kenzo that Herrigel encountered, and by comparing his experiences with Ueshiba Morihei, I will pursue an outline of the history of budo within the purview of contemporary and modern Japanese thought and cultural history" (Bennett, p.18).

Now Suzuki is a Japanese professor at the International Research Centre for Japanese Studies and therefore is in a position to gain easy access to the wealth of material on Morihei Ueshiba in Japanese. However, he is content to discuss Awa Kenzo and Morihei Ueshiba on the basis of quotations of Ueshiba in English and at third hand.

The discussion appears on p.37 of his essay. He uses Peter Payne's Martial Arts: The Spiritual Dimension, published by Thames & Hudson in 1981. Actually, I was training in London at the time Payne was preparing the book and recognize many of the photographs. It is quite a good book, well illustrated, but makes no pretensions to being an academic work.

Suzuki takes issue with a quotation from Payne in which Ueshiba refers to God as the 'Creator of the Universe' and suggests that Payne made a loose translation. In fact, Payne took all the quotations of Ueshiba in his own book from another book, Aikido, a work by Kisshomaru Ueshiba published in 1975. The wording is exactly the same and the 'Creator of the Universe' part appears on p,154 of the edition that I possess.

If Suzuki had dug a little, he could have found the Japanese original of Ueshiba's statement. It took me just a few minutes. The statement appears on p.47 of Aikido, one of two Japanese original works of which Kisshomaru Ueshiba's book in English is a translation. The original of the phrase was clearly aware of the mind of God, the Creator of the Universe is konu uchu wo souzou sareta kami no kokoro ga, hakkiri rikai dekiriyouni natta.

I am in no position to judge the quality of Prof Suzuki's research on Awa Kenzo, but, given the main topic of the paper (quoted above), the general sloppiness of the discussion on Ueshiba makes me wonder.

Brian Owens
26th December 2007, 10:38
Hello Peter.

Since this thread has little to do with meditation, and more to do with philosophy (with occasional diversions to archery technique), could we move it to the Budo no Kokoro subforum?

TIA.

P Goldsbury
26th December 2007, 11:05
Done.

All good wishes for the New Year.

PAG

Earl Hartman
26th December 2007, 18:00
Peter:

That seems like a bad translation. I think "came to clearly understand the mind of the god who created the universe" is more accurate.

Whether this is "G-d" in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim sense is not clear. I doubt it, since Ueshiba wasn't a Christian AFAIK. He was Omoto Kyo, right? Not sure what they believe or what their god/gods is/are like.

P Goldsbury
26th December 2007, 23:05
Peter:

That seems like a bad translation. I think "came to clearly understand the mind of the god who created the universe" is more accurate.

Whether this is "G-d" in the Jewish/Christian/Muslim sense is not clear. I doubt it, since Ueshiba wasn't a Christian AFAIK. He was Omoto Kyo, right? Not sure what they believe or what their god/gods is/are like.

Hello Earl,

Yes, indeed it is a poor translation, but Payne knew no Japanese, as far as I recall. He lifted the quoted passages from Kisshomaru Ueshiba's book, which was translated into English by Kazuaki Takahashi and Roy Maurer Jr. The Japanese originals are freely available here in Japan and I think Suzuki should have used these in his essay.

Best wishes,

PAG

ichibyoshi
28th December 2007, 13:33
Hi Peter

Akemashite omedetou to you and thanks for your reply. I must admit I glossed over the aikido-related content in the essay and bibliography. I'm disappointed to hear that there were a few holes in the the essay's scholarship from your perspective, however it is always good to have informed input. My poor Japanese skills condemn me, like many others, to take at face value many of the conclusions drawn by academics in the JMA field. I just get excited when when new and pertinent information is available in English.

b

don
28th December 2007, 14:52
Something which struck me about the Budo volume was Friday's piece dismissing the conventional wisdom Budo/Bujutsu evolving from utility (JUTSU?) to spiritual discipline (DO?) He suggests that from inception, the KORYU BUJUTSU were intrinsically antiquarian pursuits. He reasons from the premise that most of the RYU pivoted on the sword, but actual battles depended on the bow, primarily, and later the gun, spear, rocks...

I only skimmed other articles, but what I saw was the typical teleological view of bujutsu --> budo. Has anyone better read than I (esp. Jpn literate) seen Jpn scholarship supporting Friday? Anyone attacking his thesis would be interesting, too.

Interesting thread. Thanks, all.

richard808
7th January 2008, 08:12
Joe:

I've got both of Sakurai's books; if anything, "Shasei" is more of a hagiography that "Oi Naru Sha no Michi no Oshie" is, if such a thing is possible.

I've been reading "Oi Naru" trying to get a better idea of Awa's philosophy; one thing I found was that he conceived of kyudo as having 10 progressively higher levels.



Are we referring to books that quote Awa or books by Awa?

Earl Hartman
8th January 2008, 07:10
I've never heard of anyone writing his own hagiography. It would be quite unseemly, I think.

By the phrase "Sakurai's books", I intended to convey the meaning that these books were written by a man named Sakurai Yasunoske, one of Awa's students and the foremost authority on him.

I am not aware that Awa wrote any books.

Joseph Svinth
9th January 2008, 02:39
Earl, what about those books about the various politicians running for Prez? Wouldn't those fit the category of hagiographies reportedly written by the principal?

Earl Hartman
9th January 2008, 03:18
Earl, what about those books about the various politicians running for Prez? Wouldn't those fit the category of hagiographies reportedly written by the principal?

Not sure to which books you are referring, but if they were indeed written by the principals, then it sort of proves my point about unseemliness, doesn't it?

But that is to be expected of politicians, of course.