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Thread: Zen Bow Zen Arrow - The life of Master Awa Kenzo

  1. #31
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    Feet!





    ,',',',',',',',','
    Richard Katz
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    Quote Originally Posted by TLR View Post
    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/...rs/pdf/586.pdf)
    Don J. Modesto
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  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by don View Post
    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.
    Richard Katz
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    Quote Originally Posted by richard808 View Post
    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.
    Don J. Modesto
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    Don:

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

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    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Hartman View Post
    Don:

    The "TENCHI Jesus"? Wilson Foxtrot Tango is that?
    A little Japanese superhero guy; THAT Tenchi, no doubt. Pop culture. Comic books.
    Richard Katz
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    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/...rs/pdf/655.pdf .

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    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Hartman View Post
    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.)
    Don J. Modesto
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    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).
    Earl Hartman

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    Quote Originally Posted by don View Post
    Ergo...(my cat is a dog.)
    It really is all zen

    Be well,
    Jigme
    Jigme Chobang Daniels
    aoikoyamakan at gmail dot com

  11. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Hartman View Post
    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.)
    Don J. Modesto
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    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Hartman View Post
    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.
    Richard Katz
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    Quote Originally Posted by richard808 View Post
    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.
    Earl Hartman

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    Quote Originally Posted by Earl Hartman View Post
    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.
    Richard Katz
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    Quote Originally Posted by richard808 View Post
    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.
    Richard Katz
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