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Charlie Kondek
7th February 2001, 21:53
Hi. We haven't met but Nathan Scott at SwordForum.com suggested I look you up. Scott-san and I were discussing the validity of D.T. Suzuki's treatises on Japanese swordsmanship, particularly in his book "Zen and Japanese Culture." Scott suggested I come over here and ask you for some references. I think I've read your stuff at EJMAS before.

I guess what we were really debating was, How accurate is Suzuki in his description of samurai life, particularly Zen's influence on swordsmanship.

(It started when Scott-san wrote: It's generally regarded as true that he who cuts first loses the match. To which I responded: No, no, the opposite is true; Suzuki says so, for one. You see the predicament I'm in.)

Thanks in advance,

Charlie

Joseph Svinth
8th February 2001, 11:17
Professor Bodiford is the fellow to answer this question, so I've asked him to check in. :)

Being neither Zennist nor swordsman, my theory is this: Swing with all the beauty and precision you like, but the first one to connect with three feet of sharpened steel has some serious advantages.

Meanwhile, a book you might try is Takuan, Soho. *The Unfettered Mind*, translated from the Japanese by William Scott Wilson (New York: Kodansha International, 1986). Online, try the keywords "Zen swordsmanship" on Google, and you can be reading for awhile.

Articles include http://members.nbci.com/budtoday/english/meditation/Zen/006-zenbuddhism.htm , in which the author asserts that *Zen and the Way of the Sword* is better on swords than Zen.

Joseph Svinth
8th February 2001, 22:20
In e-mail, Professor Bodiford replied that it might be a week or so, but he will get us a response to this question as soon as he can.

Meik Skoss
9th February 2001, 05:49
J. Svinth wrote: "Being neither Zennist nor swordsman, my theory is this: Swing with all the beauty and precision you like, but the first one to connect with three feet of sharpened steel has some serious advantages. Meanwhile, a book you might try is Takuan, Soho. *The Unfettered Mind*, translated from the Japanese by William Scott Wilson (New York: Kodansha International, 1986)."

Since Mr. Svinth is not a swordsman, perhaps he's familiar with the saying, "The last shall come first." That's both a statement in the New Testament AND the principle of what's known as "marobashi" (a.k.a. katsujin ken) in Shinkage-ryu heiho, especially in kirioroshi. Likewise in the Itto-ryu's kiriotoshi, "hito ken wa man ken," or words to that effect.

I might add that the principle can also be applied to the "ken" of karatedo. Funakoshi's maxim "karate ni sente nashi" is not just a moral teaching, it has a profound technical dimension to boot. It is probably the result of ontogenetic development and not from any influence of kenjutsu on tode (doubtful at best), but I reckon it's just a case of "it's all same thing, only different."

How's that for a pithy Zen saying?

Charlie Kondek
9th February 2001, 14:45
for contacting the professor for me. Interestingly, Suzuki discusses Takuan quite a bit. I started reading that article you directed me to, as well, thanks.

Meik Skoss: yeah, interesting, non? I think what I'm beginning to see is a difference in sword philosophies. Some advocate being the first to strike, others the last (because it allows you to parry your opponents blow and then attack your opponent's open areas) and others, like Musashi, are in the middle. I think Musashi would have said "Sometimes you need to attack first, other times last, sometimes in the middle." But this is based on my reading of the Book of Five Rings.

Clearly it becomes a matter of personal kamae as well. I'm wondering what historically was more accurate? I assume Suzuki is correct when he writes:

"One thing we have to notice in these accounts of swordsmanship given by the various writers on the subject is that the Japanese swordsman never thinks of defending himself but always of attacking, and thus that he is from the first advised not to think of coming out of the combat alive."

But I have been advised not to rely too heavily on Suzuki. But here, too, is Morihei Ueshiba, and whatever you think of Aikido swordsmanship you can't ignore that its founder was an accomplished kenjutsu-ka:

"Without the slightest opening
Nor the least thought of the enemy
And his encircling swords
Step in and cut!"

"Left and Right
Cut or parry
Discard all thought of them
The human spirit must rush instantly in!"

Meanwhile, Musashi advocated parrying, but he also said:

"The time for striking an opponent is refered to as the strike of a single moment. Take a position within sword's length of the opponent and before he can decide on a move, without moving your body, calmly and spontaneously strike in the timing of a moment."

Joseph Svinth
10th February 2001, 10:59
There is a semantic ("different connotative meaning") between "swing" ("a stroke with a sweeping arm movement") and "connect" ("to make a successful shot, hit, or throw"). Such distinction may be irrelevant in kata-based arts, but can be critical in tag-based games such as taekwondo and karate. For example, if during a taekwondo or karate tournament you swing and come within a couple inches of the target, then you may score a point, but if you connect, then you may get disqualified.

Parables (short, usually fictious, stories that illustrate moral principles) represent one way of avoiding such pedantry. For example, let's say that for some reason two different karateka are violently mad at you. The world champion, a healthy, enormously strong, 55-year old 7-dan, starts by breaking river rocks with his bare hands, and then does several of the most powerful kata that the world has ever seen. All of this is done at least twenty feet away, so of course sweat and flying debris don't even splatter you. On the other hand, a moment later, an equally angry 11-year old McDojo 7-kyu marches up to you, and, while throwing the sloppiest punch the world has ever seen, she scrapes her thumbnail across your eyeball, thereby detaching the retina.

Ah, you say -- enlightenment! Swinging is not the same as connecting.

Now, the enlightenment received via the parable ("koan," in Zen) is clearly an epiphany. (Epiphany: a sudden perception of the meaning of a thing.) But it is not necessarily Zen. (Zen: A Japanese sect of Mahayana Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation.)

Anyway, I mention all this because I assumed (we all know what happens when you assume) that the question was about Zen and swordsmanship. However, it seems that the true question is when and how to strike. If you are in a dance class for men, then you strike when and how your teacher says. Appearance is everything. On the other hand, if you are in a fighting art, then you hit whenever and however you can. Admittedly some methods work better than others, but if you see the chance for a cheap shot, well, then you can't improve on the advice of Admiral Jesse Oldendorf, who after sinking a Japanese fleet in 1944 said, "Never give a sucker an even break."

Now, I could still be miscontruing. Perhaps the story is about ethics. In a fictional context, in a discussion of gunfighting, John Wayne was made to say in "The Shootist", "It isn't being fast, it's whether or not you're willing." But of course those are just words put in Wayne's mouth by a professor of English named Glendon Swarthout. So the real question is what happens in real life?

So a true story. The author is Captain Eli Takesian, US Navy, retired. Takesian, who served as a Marine rifleman in Korea, later became a Navy chaplain, and as such served two tours with the Marines in Vietnam. In Vietnam, of course Takesian always traveled with armed men, but he himself never carried any weapon save faith. "Soldiering is an honorable profession," says Chaplain Takesian. "There is no disgrace in bearing arms. My point is that chaplains function differently... In an emergency, should a chaplain grab a weapon and use it for self-protection? Once, when Viet Cong were overrunning the mortar platoon of 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, I hit the deck, next to a dead Marine. His pistol lay in front of my nose. In a split second I resolved not to use it. Pretending to be dead, I felt the presence of a Viet Cong soldier. He kicked me a couple of times, perhaps to see if I were alive, and then ran off. I was terrified; I suspect he was, too! I could have used weapons on other occasions, but refrained. How would I respond in another situation? Honestly, I do not know." ("Marine Corps Gazette", February 2001, p. 53)

Furthermore, stuff happens. For example, in 1985 the factory representative of Heckler & Koch came to Las Vegas to give a demonstration of what the MP5 submachine gun could do. After giving his spiel, he turned down range, pulled the trigger, and -- click. Seems Mr. H&K had forgotten to remove the safety. Oops.

So, to summarize, while you can have perfect form in both kata and competition, that perfection does not necessarily mean perfect form in extremity. So, to reiterate what the chaplain said: "How would I respond in another situation? Honestly, I do not know."

Anyone who tells you otherwise is whistling in the dark.


[Edited by Joseph Svinth on 02-10-2001 at 06:08 AM]

W.Bodiford
11th February 2001, 01:36
Hello Joe. Thanks for putting me on the spot.

Ah, D.T. Suzuki! How can one adequately appraise such a long life and vast oeuvre in just a few words on a computer screen? Suzuki is at once a beacon and the bane of Asian studies. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many scholars entered the field because an attraction initially aroused by Suzuki's numerous writings---yet afterwards they devote their professional careers to disabusing new students of Suzuki's looking-glass approach. Buddhist centers throughout the United States and Europe likewise are full of practitioners who discovered Buddhism through Suzuki's works only to abandon his intellectualizing when they were fortunate enough to encounter authentic teachers. It would be easier to reject Suzuki if he was a fraud or completely wrong. Instead he serves to remind us of how the intellectual currents of an age and unexamined methodological assumptions can blind even well-informed authors and audiences. Suzuki wrote not just popular books in English for Western audiences, but also works of real scholarship in Japanese, especially ones in which he introduced and edited previously neglected texts and focused attention on previously ignored people and events in Buddhist history. Nonetheless it is his popular works, not the scholarly ones, that remain in print, that are widely read, and that present the most problems.

It is important to remember that D. T. Suzuki (1870--1966) was an outsider who had been trained neither in the academic discipline of Buddhist studies nor in a religious setting as a Buddhist monk or priest. As a young university student he did participate in a few Zen meditation sessions organized for lay people (a new innovation that would not have been possible only a few years earlier), but the primary influence on his intellectual development was the English-language education he received first in Japan and then in America. Suzuki spent eleven years from 1897 to 1908 in the United States studying the "Science of Religion" advocated by a German emigre named Paul Carus (1852--1919). Carus had earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and theology in Germany, but came to America to develop a new faith that combined the best philosophical features of the world's religions with science while rejecting the dogma, ritual practices, and institutional organizations that prevented different religions from mixing together.

Suzuki inherited Carus's approach. While in America, like so many other Japanese intellectuals abroad, Suzuki rediscovered his Japanese roots. He came to find the new intellectually advanced religion for which Carus searched in Japanese Zen. Suzuki's Zen also rejects dogma, ritual practices, and institutional organizations. For this reason he was forced to acknowledge in several of his books that the Zen of which he wrote is not the exclusive property of the Zen school, Zen temples, nor Zen monks. In other words, it is not the Zen Buddhism that is recognized as such by Zen priests in Japan. Rather, for Suzuki, Zen was to be found in the Japanese spirit as expressed in secular arts and in bushido. Suzuki's new non-denominational and non-religious interpretation of Zen was based on the American philosophy of William James (1842--1937), especially his notion of pure experience, and based on the German theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768--1834), especially his assertion that the true essence of religion is found in irrational intuition and feelings that cannot be expressed in words. Thus, Suzuki introduced Zen to the West as a secularized "pure experience" that while not itself dependent on religious rituals or dogmas nonetheless underlies all religions worldwide and which, paradoxically, finds true expression only in the "unique" arts of Japan (which actually originated in China).

Suzuki was by no means the first person to identify Zen with warriors, with bushido, with martial arts, and with death. As Japanese society became ever more militarized following the 1904 Russo-Japanese war Buddhist religious leaders and Buddhist intellectuals of all stripes (Pure Land, Nichiren, Tendai, Shingon, Zen, etc.) tried to outdo one another in their proclamations of support for the military and their assertions of how their own particular religious teachings produce the most loyal subjects and the most effective soldiers. And it was not just Buddhists; Japanese Christians also did their best to promote what they saw as the patriotic cause. Suzuki was just one of many. Because Suzuki wrote in English, though, his writings continue to be read today while everyone else's have been forgotten.

In 1936 Suzuki went on a lecture tour across the United States and England in which he addressed "the part Zen Buddhism has played in the molding of Japanese culture and character, especially as exhibited in the arts generally, and particularly in the development of Bushido (the way of the warrior)." Reflecting the zeitgeist of 1930s Japan, Suzuki portrayed Zen in antinomian terms as "a religion of will power" that advocates action unencumbered by social norms, ethics, or any considerations of right and wrong. Many of Suzuki's assertions would seem just as reasonable (or more reasonable) if one were to replace the word "Zen" with "Nietzsche." Only one year later, in 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army demonstrated the power of pure will power unencumbered by ethics in the Rape of Nanking. Atrocities are not just a byproduct of war. Social and intellectual structures either enable or restrict their likelihood. Infatuation with will power certainly must have been one enabling factor. Be that as it may, in 1938 Suzuki's English lectures were published in Japan as *Zen Buddhism and its Influence on Japanese Culture*. Amazingly, this book was reprinted in expanded form in America in 1959 as *Zen and Japanese Culture* and has remained in print ever since. Until very recently most readers of the reprint edition have completely ignored its mid-war 1930s background.

This book contains Suzuki's most sustained discussion of Zen and martial arts. More pages (about 160) concern warriors and warrior spirit, especially swordsmanship, than any other topic. (The book's second largest subject, love of nature, warranted only 63 pages.) As other writers have pointed out, Suzuki's vague definition of Zen allowed him to quote any and all texts as expressions of Zen teachings regardless of their actual viewpoints. For example, Suzuki devotes a great deal of attention to the account of the swordsman Hariya Sekiun written by his student Kodagiri Ichiun (1630--1706). This text, however, advocates a Tendo (i.e., Confucian) worldview that, while not unknown to Japanese Zen teachers, has no intrinsic connection to Zen. Suzuki's approach is perhaps most outrageous when he discusses the vocabulary of swordsmanship. Suzuki confesses (see pages 121 & 161 of the 1959 revised edition) that he has no personal training in swordsmanship, has never been initiated into its secrets, and does not understand the relationship between its cryptic vocabulary and the actual wielding of the sword. Nonetheless, Suzuki's lack of knowledge did not prevent him from devoting two chapters of this book to the secrets of swordsmanship. Not knowing any concrete, physical referents for the martial art vocabulary, Suzuki invented abstract, psychological connotations for the key terms, always based on his hypothetical, antinomian vision of Zen. Suzuki's kinds of mistranslations, in which Japanese technical terms for specific physical skills and techniques become abstract psychological experiences explained in terms of Western religious theories which are never acknowledged nor identified as such, tend to render the notion of Zen and the martial arts at once exotic and tantalizingly familiar to Western audiences.

Needless to say, Suzuki's descriptions have only the most tenuous relationship to traditional Japanese martial training. It is difficult to demonstrate this point because most people who write on this topic also lack any first-hand knowledge of traditional swordsmanship and, therefore, rely on Suzuki as their source. Moreover, Suzuki's method resists counter-argument. Once a training method is reinterpreted as an abstract psychological experience, how can anyone demonstrate that it is the same or different from another abstract psychological experience found in some other context? Perhaps someone else who received the same education in nineteenth-century Western philosophy and theology as did Suzuki and who actually received instruction in Japanese swordsmanship also would have described its mental aspects in similar psychological terms. After all, Suzuki cites (pp. 117--119) the Spanish bullfighter Juan Belmonte as someone who described in words the state of mind that Suzuki associates with Zen and the martial arts. I would argue, however, that this example merely demonstrates that Suzuki was trying to describe a Western state of mind which he could gloss as his "Zen."

As I mentioned above, Western students of Buddhism in secular academic circles and in religious practice centers have moved beyond Suzuki. I hope the same is true for Western practitioners of martial arts. Since I do not interact with many members of that community I cannot know. Judging from the books in the popular press, though, there is little evidence to suggest that such is the case.


------< For Suzuki's own words, see:

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1938. Zen Buddhism and its Influence on Japanese Culture. Kyoto: Otani Buddhist College.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1940. Zen to Nihon bunka. (Japanese translation of Zen Buddhism and its Influence on Japanese Culture.) Translated by Kitagawa Momo. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

Suzuki, Daisetz T. 1959 (1938). Zen and Japanese Culture. (Expanded edition of Zen Buddhism and its Influence on Japanese Culture.) Princeton: Princeton University Press.

------< The best English-language appraisal of Suzuki is:

Sharf, Robert H. 1995 (1993). "The Zen of Nationalism." Originally published in the journal, History of Religions 33, no. 1 (1993); reprinted in the book, Curators of the Buddha: The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism. Edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

------< For another important discussion of Suzuki (which will be a little bit more difficult to understand than Sharf), see:

Faure, Bernard. 1993. "The Rise of Zen Orientalism." Chapter 2 of his book, Chan Insights and Oversights. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

------< For an attack on the ways that Japanese Buddhist intellectuals and religious leaders supported militarism and Fascism, see:

Victoria, Brian A. 1997. Zen at War. New York: John Weatherhill.


------< Finally, for my published reviews (both of which are very short) of two of the works above, see:

Bodiford, William M. 1994. Review of Zen and Japanese Culture, by Daisetz T. Suzuki. Asian Thought and Society: An International Review 19, no. 55.

Bodiford, William M. 1998. Review of Zen at War. By Brian (Daizen) A. Victoria. Monumenta Nipponica 53, no. 4.

Neil Hawkins
12th February 2001, 00:30
Gentlemen,

Is it possible that much of Suzuki's writing was 'propaganda' rather than scholarly study?

The impression I get from Sharf is that Suzuki was writing in order to build the mystique and "uniqueness" of Japan, rather than a true study of Zen. It is also implied that other writers of the time did the same thing, Japan was trying to find it's place in the world and anything that set it apart, or made it different from, or better than anyone else was good in the eyes of the Nationalists.

By expanding the ideas of Zen and implying that all Japanese had an intrinsic "understanding" or enlightenment, gave them a percieved edge both militarily and commercially.

This is discussed in part in an essay (http://jgb.la.psu.edu/1/derocha001.html) by Cristina Moreira da Rocha, at the University of Sao Paolo's Department of Anthropology...


The appropriation and construction of Zen that took place in many Western countries had a similar departing point. D. T. Suzuki—one of the first Japanese scholars to write on Zen in English—and the Kyoto school scholars were fundamental to the creation of a discourse on Zen in the West. As Robert Sharf observed, for Suzuki Zen was "pure experience—a historical, transcultural experience of 'pure subjectivity' which utterly transcends discursive thought." Sharf argued that Suzuki was writing during the period of Nationalistic Buddhism (Meiji New Buddhism—Shin Bukkyoo) "as a response to the Western universalizing discourse." Under this pressure, Suzuki and many other writers such as Okakura Kakuzoo, Watsuji Tetsuroo, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishida Kitaroo—influenced by the ideas of nihonjinron (the discourse on and of Japanese uniqueness)—struggled to recreate Japanese national identity as something special that was identified with the Way of the Samurai and Zen Buddhism. For these authors, Zen, as the very essence of the Japanese Spirit, would denote the cultural superiority of Japan. Moreover, because it is experiential and not a religion, Zen was able to survive the enlightenment trends of the West and was viewed as rational and empirical. The global expansion of Zen Buddhism carried Shin Bukkyoo ideas with it. However, they were appropriated, indigenized, and hybridized locally.

Is this a valid conclusion, or am I over-simplifing?

Regards

Neil

W.Bodiford
12th February 2001, 02:32
Dear Neil Hawkins:

Yes, I think it is an oversimplification to label Suzuki's writings "propaganda." I cannot detect a difference in approach or attitude between Suzuki's popular writings and his more scholarly work in Japanese. In both he assumed that any educated audience shared certain 19th-century philosophical and theological approaches to religion and experience. At the same time, the result of his writings (in terms of the impression they made on their audience) probably was similar to propaganda.

In a new postscript to the reprinted version of his article Robert Sharf notes that his goal was not to criticize Suzuki so much as to admonish "those Western scholars who uncritically accept [authors like Suzuki] as living representatives of an unbroken tradition, and who refuse to acknowledge the ideological and rhetorical dimensions of the Zen of men like Suzuki."

All writing and all scholarship operates within ideological frameworks, sometimes explicit ones but more often implicit ones. Normally we automatically take what the author presents with a grain of salt, examine its context for hidden agendas, and test it against other sources of knowledge. In the case of Suzuki, though, far too many readers just accepted whatever he wrote. They allowed his writings to function as propaganda.

By the way, can you please provide a complete citation for the essay by Cristina Moreira da Rocha?

Thanks.

Neil Hawkins
12th February 2001, 02:43
The essay dealt primarily with the introduction of Zen into Brazil, and can be found at http://jgb.la.psu.edu/1/derocha001.html (there was a hyperlink to it in my original post, under the word 'essay'). It is interesting in that it attempts to explain why the concept of zen taught outside of Japan is sometimes different from that which is taught by the Japanese.

Thanks for your response.

Regards

Neil

Charlie Kondek
12th February 2001, 20:33
for such thoughtful an informative information.

"Informative information," that's good, eh?

Anyway, thanks. What I've been trying to arrive at in my head is a picture of the historically accurate Japanse mind-frame when it came to swordsmanship. Which is true: the bold, no-regards-for-personal-defense attack or the more calculating parry-counterattack or debanawaza? I think I can only conclude that philosophies must have differed a great deal from ryu to ryu and person to person, and that both are true. Also, as a kendoist and iaidoist, I wanted to hone my own practice.

Interesting about Suzuki. I arrived at Suzuki through the "pop Zen philosophers" of the 50s and 60s. I had no idea his background, his unusual route.

This all started as a thread at swordforum.com. The question posed was: True or false, most Japanese sword fights resulted in aiuchi and were over in a few seconds?

Anyway, thanks all; couldn't have asked for better replies.

Charlie Kondek
15th April 2004, 16:53
Bump!

Charlie Kondek
15th April 2004, 17:33
Damn. Rereading this thread 2 years later is enlightening. Bodiford's post in particular is packed solid with information and could be an article of its own.

Ron Tisdale
15th April 2004, 19:23
Good bump Charlie, I missed this thread the first time around...oh, and


"Informative information," that's good, eh?

Would be called a tautology. :)

RT

Aozora
15th April 2004, 19:38
Originally posted by Ron Tisdale
Would be called a tautology. :)

RT

You'd think so, but I've felt less informed after receiving some information...;)

I'll second the good bump! That's what I was looking, critique-wise. While it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of Suzuki, it does credit him somewhat (at least as far as provoking thought). Sounds like what psychologists have done with Freud (although I udnerstand he's been coming back into vogue).

glad2bhere
15th April 2004, 19:47
Dear Charlie:

".......Anyway, thanks. What I've been trying to arrive at in my head is a picture of the historically accurate Japanse mind-frame when it came to swordsmanship. Which is true: the bold, no-regards-for-personal-defense attack or the more calculating parry-counterattack or debanawaza? I think I can only conclude that philosophies must have differed a great deal from ryu to ryu and person to person, and that both are true....."

I was sure that there was a string within the last year that seemed to speak to this ("...Which is true: the bold, no-regards-for-personal-defense attack or the more calculating parry-counterattack or debanawaza?...") as characteristic of the transition of Japanese sword during the Tokugawa Shogunate. As I recall the comment was made that the latter strategy seemed to characterize more urban development while the more rural practitioner continued with the bolder, committed tactic. If I am remembering this discussion at all correctly I believe that someone held that the rural folks bested their urban cousins more often than not. If anyone recalls this string I would appreciate a word on the subject. FWIW.

BTW: I don't discount the possibility that I may be confusing things with a similar string that might have occurred on SFI.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

Chidokan
15th April 2004, 21:25
Charlie,
there was an interesting article in Kendo world this month on exactly this type of thing...read 'hanshi says'...
I also noticed the longer I do kendo the longer I wait for someone to think about attacking me so I can get the jump on them while they become agitated. So although I hit/attack first am I responding or not???? ooh.. thats nearly a Zen question....!!!:D

Ron Tisdale
15th April 2004, 21:26
I think there are some stories out there about 'active' vs 'passive' swordsmanship...and about the creator of the 'passive' style not being too happy about some who claimed to use it. So he went 'active' on them, and kicked some serious butt. I believe it was one of the Yagyu family. I'm sure someone more literate in the area than I can tell it better...

Ron (might have seen this in one of Dr. Friday's books?)

Hissho
15th April 2004, 21:40
Ron-

Might you be thinking of Yagyu Jubei's "test" against swordsmen of the "vacant" style that Draeger relates in Modern Bujutsu and Budo p. 79?

Ron Tisdale
15th April 2004, 22:14
Yes! I think that's it (I thought it was Jubei, but wasn't sure at all).

Thanks! I'll have to re-read it tonight.

Ron