fasting in the classical bugei

[allan]

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone on here has had personal experience or come across anything regarding fasting (abstaining from food and sometimes water) as a part of koryu training? Without any evidence I would imagine that, at the very least, the founders of some of the classical ryu may have used fasting as part of their shugyo before they ran into their tengu or had their moment of communion with the gods or what have you. Pure speculation on my part and I look forward to the discussion.

Regards,

[roninseb]

Well I dont have any direct historical examples to give you BUT! Since older Koryu were inluenced by Mikkyo (Esoterical Buddhism) under the form of the Shingon, Tendai or Shugen school then for sure there is fasting in some of their Shugyo. So it would be natural that some of the founders or hard core Shugyosha must have done such practices.

Hope my 2 yen helped

[renfield_kuroda]

The only example I know of that comes close regards the arcane practice of performing kenbarai -- dispelling of evil spirits with the sword ('blessing'); often done for new dojo, homes, or other buildings, or to a person directly when the bad karma has gotten particularly unbearable.
There are very few people in Japan who can 'legitimately' perform kenbarai, for the simple fact that it is a totally arcane, major pain in the !!! that requires, among other things, a combination of high rank/experience in both sword and spirit (often shinto or animist buddhist derivative), as well as spending the week before the ceremony 'totally pure': no meat of any kind, no women, no alcohol, and various other restrictions on deed and act.

Regards,
r e n

P.S. Please note that I take all this with a grain of salt. I respect the centuries old traditions handed down from my sensei, but at the same time I believe more in the psychosomatic affects of such ceremonies and acts, but I would rather this doesn't devolve into a religious debate, so we'll leave it at that.

[Walker]

I thought starving was for peasants, not samurai. ;)

[Nathan Scott]

This is an interesting subject. I fasted annually for years as part of my training "shugyo", which is something I became fond of from a survival/leadership course I had in my late teens. There was very little documentation about the subject available, so mostly I expeirmented with lengths of time and subtances (1 week to 1 month; only water, miso soup, liquids only, etc.). Unfortunately, I found that fasting started to screw up my metabolism, causing my body to go into "survival mode" and store body fat for future use. I began to gain weight regardless of the level of trainining I was doing, which was at that time 6-7 days a week.

I suspect that the type of fast followed should be appropriate for the length of time and frequency. For example, a one-time experience of a week or so on water only and w/ keiko would be fine for your average healthy budo-ka. However, when doing regular fasts, or longer fasts, it probably is necessary to put your body into a bare-minimum to maintain itself rather than a 100 to 0 to 100 again program. Theoretically, if you were to consume (liquids or otherwise) a minimum amount of nutrients during a fast, though it would be a big change, it shouldn't cause your body to kick into survival mode (just "suffer" mode).

Anyway, I don't know if any of this is interesting, but I found combining fasting with outdoor training periods to be a very valuable experience for spiritual forging. It's just a matter of figuring out what is right for you.

As far as classical ryu-ha, I suspect, as others have said, that fasting probably isn't part of most/any curriculums, but rather, was something that certain exponents chose to follow based on their seniors and own experiences. There are many stories of secluded training periods (shugyo type events), many of which are likely true. I believe it would be safe to assume that fasts or modified fasts were part of these.

Regards,

[renfield_kuroda]

There are also plenty of stories about fasting unintentionally; otherwise known as being poor and hungry. Plenty of samurai, especially traipsing around the country on mushashugyo, fasted for the simple reason that they had no money and no food.
One of the reasons many samurai practiced some kind of shuriken/knife throwing: to hunt food (rabbits, squirrels, etc.)

Regards,

r e n

[allan]

Thanks for your responses.

Ren-- your reference to kenbarai is something I tried to follow up on google and yahoo searches. Nothing whatsoever. On clusty.com a citation from your own webpage came up. Perhaps you are, in your own way, the living non-Japanese "expert" if we take search engines a means of determining such things. The other reference which I have read and which seems close is about Otake Risuke of Katori Shinto Ryu performing a sort of exorcism with his sword on, I think, a Chiba-ken local. This I found in that THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR book.

Also Ren, though you would like to avoid a religious type of argument, I think that the debate between psychosomatics and religion is of profound importance to the non-Japanese practice of (partly esoteric) bugei. Apart from Hyaku not many on this board profess much personal investiture into buddhism, shinto, or what have you. The way in which we believe and practice has, I think, more significance than most here would be willing to acknowledge. Of course this is so darn personal too. I think that discussion about these differences in approach could be useful to those who consider themselves atheists, agnostics, buddhists, christians, or whatever else. How, for instance, does a non-believer in Japanese wrathful deities conceptualize their own undertaking of keppan? Ellis Amdur touches upon his personal feelings in OLD SCHOOL, I think.

roninseb-- although this part of the forum must focus on koryu bujutsu as a matter of course I would like to know if you can cite for me references or personal experiences about fasting in mikkyo, shugendo, etc. You can PM if you prefer.

Nathan-- thank you for sharing some of your personal experiences. Glad to know that I am not the only wingnut who has messed around with such things. Have you ever fasted withouot water or any other liquids? Not that I recommend this. It is something that is done ritually as part of a way to invoke visions by indigenous peoples and I can't help wondering if this was done in the Japanese martial context. Certainly not a health thing in this case!

Okay. I hope to see more of this!

Regards,

[renfield_kuroda]

I don't think there's a whole lot out there in English about kenbarai.
Googling in Japanese I get tons of stuff though, so there is some information.
Again it relates to the spiritual aspect of the art which, in many cases, is intrinsically tied to the art.
In the case of Mugairyu it is Buddhism, not Shintoism; a rare but legitimate link.
I think the word 'religion' is not an accurate translation; Christianity to Buddhism is apples to oranges. I think the word 'philosophy' is better, or maybe just 'spirit' as in spirit of the art...

Regards,

r e n

[roninseb]

Mr. Heinman

Your answer to me is a bit funny. “although this part of the forum must focus on koryu bujutsu as a matter of course I would like to know if you can cite for me references or personal experiences about fasting in mikkyo, shugendo, etc. You can PM if you prefer.”

This is the Koryu/History and tradition forum part of the forum so of course you will get answers and topics moving out of the direct span of Kryu and even more when you ask about fasting.

Now I have a question for Mr. Kuroda

Since Mugai Ryu’s spiritual side is Zen-shu (By the way could you tell us what faction) I there any reason why Kenbarai is still practiced since Ken-barai is mostly a Shinto practice and we can also see some adaption of Kenbarai in Mikkyo. The reason why I am asking is because usually practitioner of Zen do not mixt themselves in Mikkyo so by default the Mugairyu Kenbarai would have more of a Shinto influence.

Please enlighten me

[Daniel Lee]

Ren-- your reference to kenbarai is something I tried to follow up on google and yahoo searches. Nothing whatsoever. On clusty.com a citation from your own webpage came up.

This form of purification can be done using "inkei" ( 印形 ) hand signs, swords, etc. You might try searching under the more general term, "oharai/o-harai" ( お祓い/御祓い ), which would render more results than "kenbarai" ( 剣祓い ).

Sincerely,

[Nathan Scott]

No, I've never done a no food/no water fast. I don't think you'd last long in a training atmosphere. My first fast was a 5 day water only fast in which we backpacked 20 miles through the mountains using topographical maps at about 18 yrs old. While you were moving you were o.k., but every time you stopped to rest, any muscles used would immediately cramp up. A great forging experience, but a bit hard on the body if you do this on a regular basis. After that I experimented as I mentioned above w/ modifed fasts and different liquids combined with hard training.

For those who haven't tried fasting, it is a big eye opener on how much we think about eating on a daily basis (and use eating socially), how much food we eat that we don't need, and a real enlightment regarding enhanced clarity/sharpness of the senses. Colors become brighter, hearing sharper, etc. But as I say, you have to know your body, and at the same time, try not to mess your metabalism up in the process of finding out. I'm happy with my weight now, but am hesitant to risk messing with my metabalism again. The older you get, the harder it is to keep the weight off.

BTW, any fasting is helpful as it gives your body a well needed break from the 24/7 processing of foods, toxins/poisons (McDonalds) and wastes. However, you really need at least two days to get any type of cleansing benefit from it, and something longer to get much of a forging benefit. Personally, I reckon a 5-7 day fast once a year is a good goal if balanced correctly and combined w/ hard keiko (preferably outdoors).

I wrote something up on this subject on my webpage years ago called "Shugyo Renshu", but it is out of date and only partially revised. I'll try to post something to this thread when I get around to editing it.

Regards,

[hyaku]

I have reliable information that Musashi would only eat a cucumber sandwich with mayo and a glass of water before duels.

[MarkF]

I have reliable information that Musashi would only eat a cucumber sandwich with mayo and a glass of water before duels.

That sounds suspiciously like the Jewish fast for twenty-four hours (a little less, actually, as it begins after the Sabbath dinner) every week in rememberance of Shabbat beginning Friday evening sundown.

I say Musashi's sandwich seems familiar as that some Jews, when hunger gets the better of them on Saturday, look out the window with great hope of not seeing the sun. The usual break of this fast goes something like this at around 2:00PM: "Eh, it's cloudy. I think I'll make a sandvich."


Mark

[Jason Jennings]

I have reliable information that Musashi would only eat a cucumber sandwich with mayo and a glass of water before duels.

Now I am confused...It's written in the Nitenki that it was a "tomato" sandwich :)

[Baio]

not related to bujutsu but the same type of fasts the "miso and water" thing and even less are done by the hiei monks during their kaihogyo http://www.trailrunnermag.com/features/feature%2019.html

[allan]

Thanks for that Dean. I had actually read that article when it first came out in Trail Runner magazine but had either forgotten or overlooked this element. I will have to have a re-read. Do you do alot of running yourself?

Regards,

[Baio]

i'm a barfoot runner so its kinda related to their running style all the same body positioning. http://www.runningbarefoot.org/ theres a bunch of info about it