Post by Pathfinder on Aug 24, 2023 10:34:08 GMT
Lahiri Mahasay Will Ichha
Izawa Nagahide was a hereditary retainer of a feudal lord in Kyushu. He was an
expert in both Japanese studies (kokugaku) and Chinese studies (kangaku) and
was a prolific author. While he was overtly averse to certain aspects of
Buddhism, as were many latter-day Shinto and Confucian authors, nevertheless
his work contains elemental principles of Zen and Taoism in nonsectarian
psychological terms. He was an outstanding thinker and wrote many books on
military and political science, manners and morals, history, philosophy, and
linguistics.
The origin of the warrior goes back to the divine age of antiquity when the
central ruler of heaven, the Great Goddess Lighting the Sky, made a pact with
her august descendant Ninigi-no-Mikoto, saying, “Let the emperor use artful
subtlety like the curve of the sacred gem to govern the earthly administration;
use clarity like the sacred mirror to oversee the mountains and rivers, seas and
plains; and wield the sacred sword to pacify the earth and benefit the populace.”
The sacred gem symbolizes flexibility and accommodation. The government
of the earth should be carried out with the warm, rich quality of humaneness
represented by this object. Artful subtlety is expressed by its rounded curvature;
the path is not a single fixed straight line but adopts what is suitable to the time,
in accord with the context. So it is a way of adapting to the time.
The sacred mirror symbolizes honesty. A mirror doesn’t retain anything but
reflects everything impartially, so right and wrong and good and bad features all
show. Virtue is to respond sensitively to those features. This is the basis of
honesty. For a mirror the essential feature is clarity. When the essence of mind is
clear, compassion and decisiveness are therein. If observed with honest
intelligence clear as a mirror, there will be no one corrupt at court and no savant
neglected in the countryside. With the operation of government honest, and good
communication between superior and subordinates, all people will find their
places.
The sacred sword symbolizes decisiveness. It implies the imperative to take
the side of absolute firmness and freedom from greed to destroy the internal
mental enemies selfishness and treachery and execute the external bandits crime
and violence, being straightforward and uncorrupted in body and mind and
government affairs as well, imbued with the commanding presence to overawe
the world.
If there is no accommodation, the people will be alienated, so it is good to be
flexible. In the absence of dignity, subordinates will be contemptuous, so it is
good to be firm. If you are desirous, your instructions won’t be carried out, so it
is good to be honest. Without being like this it is impossible to govern oneself,
order the home, rule the country, and pacify the world.
In high antiquity there was no writing, so these three articles were made as
lessons for the imperial descendants, that if they preserved the three virtues
symbolized by the sacred objects, they would flourish as eternally as heaven and
earth.
After this, when the imperial descendant came down from heaven, he was
attended by twenty-five armed men of the celestial Mononobe warriors. After
emperor Jimmu’s expedition east, Umashimaji-no-Mikoto, son of Nigihayahino-Mikoto [ancestral deity of the Mononobe], because of his outstanding
military achievement, was commanded to guard the imperial palace with a
contingent of soldiers. His charge was called the Mononobe, or Armorer’s Guild.
This is how warriors came to be called mononou.
Warriors ought to keep their bravery inside, not showing it outwardly. This can
be attained spontaneously after you’ve studied both culture and arms. In the case
of those who concentrate only on the way of the warrior, however, when too
young to have tempered their mental arts, if they keep their bravery inside it will
invariably manifest outwardly. Like an old adage says, “With pearls hidden in it,
the river is beautiful; with jade concealed in it, the mountain is lustrous.” There’s
a type who misperceives them as weak or capricious.
There are also immoral people who are violent and vicious by nature.
Everyone should be instructed after his words and deeds have been tested.
As we see current customs, people who are gentle and kindly are soft and
weak, while those who are brave and bold are coarse and violent. Because of
this, they should first be taught to read and become acquainted with the Way,
and then taught martial arts after that. When you study in this manner, the two
corruptions of soft weakness and coarse violence will not exist.
Once you have learned a little bit of commonplace martial arts, if you’ve always
got a glare in your eyes, on the lookout to take others to task for what they say,
even in casual encounters, you’ve been invaded by bloodlust and forgotten the
principles of loyalty and respect for parents. Preferably you should keep
boldness and ferocity inside, outwardly appearing gentle and loving.
When facing a situation where you might die, however, you should be the first
to volunteer and never retreat a single step. There are situations when it’s right to
die, though, and situations where you shouldn’t die. To die where you should die
is praised as a righteous death. To die where you shouldn’t die is disparaged as a
dog’s death.
Even if you give the appearance of gentility as recommended, don’t let your
heart be soft and weak. Those whose appearance is gentle and who are also soft
and weak at heart are what are commonly called sissy samurai. As a proverb
says, “While there are no mannish women, there are many womanish men.”
Those who are like this are useless.
When people get generally depressed, it’s a common convention to say it’s all up
to divine decree, but that is wrong. Divine decree is in oneself, not outside. Only
after you’ve exhausted human effort should you leave things to the divine.
Consider the ancient saying “Where human effort comes to an end, there lies
Fate.”
When people criticize someone else, don’t join them. Lin Hejing said, “Even if
you’ve heard it, don’t say it unless you’ve seen it with your own eyes.” As a
homely proverb says, “Others’ lies become your lies.”
Vulgar people don’t like to praise goodness; they like to expose badness. For
this reason, as they go around gossiping they exaggerate one into ten, and ten
into a hundred. When one person says something false, myriad people pass it on
as truth. When wrongly recorded in books without resolving contradictions and
left to later generations, this confuses right and wrong, false and true. We must
be very careful.
Accordingly, we have to compare carefully what we hear from others. As it is
said, “Listening only to one side creates prejudice.” Vulgar people say good is
bad if it doesn’t suit them, and they say bad is good. Since they speak
subjectively, they’re often way off.
You shouldn’t show any sign of making a distinction between good and bad
people. But even if you harmonize, don’t be influenced. If you don’t harmonize,
you’re turning against people; if you’re not influenced, you don’t lose the Way.
It is essential that the mind circulate throughout the body continuously and
ceaselessly. Where it’s stagnant is called dead matter. This is what is commonly
called being stuck.
The mind, going along with the body, should make armor go along with the
body. Don’t make the body go along with the armor.
Getting the jump on an opponent does not refer to technique. It is not a matter of
attacking, nor of awaiting. It refers to the energetic state.
A common saying has it that the spirit dwells in an honest head. Comparing this
to martial arts, in our hearts there is a broad plain called the High Plain of
Heaven. On that plain we lodge our own spirit. We appeal to this spirit to
remove the pollution of falsehood, bring pure light, judge right and wrong,
distinguish good and evil. Standing stolidly, calm and unmoving, straight from
head to hips without a slouch, mind’s eye open, unblinking, may be compared to
the principle of the spirit dwelling in an honest head.
According to an old saying, “When you open your eyes, right away you’re
wrong.” This refers to sticking to what you see. For example, when you look to
the left you forget the right, and when you look to the right you forget the left. If
you look at an opponent’s hands, your mind inclines to the hands; if you look at
his feet, your mind inclines to the feet. Once there’s any imbalance, you’re like
an empty house. If thieves break into an empty house, since the owner’s not
home he can’t stop them. For this reason, you should have an overall
perspective, not a biased view.
You should detach from arts when you have mastered them. If you do not detach
from arts, you are not an artist.
You should fight like hitting water with a stone, not like hitting stone with stone.
Hitting water with stone means using your energetic state to overpower and
inhibit your opponent. Hitting stone with stone means both you and your
opponent act out equally. To seek victory after having matched positions like
this is either stupidity or delusion.
The principle that flexibility can overcome hardness should be understood. If
you are adamant about being strong, that may make you weak instead. If you act
strong, your opponent acts strong too.
The principle of the contest is to control others and not be controlled by others.
Filling your body with the energy of bravery, go forth with your mind’s eye
open. If you go to an encounter in a calm, unshakable state, you naturally won’t
fall apart.
Among the vulgar are those who use sword technique to show off to people.
They say the founder of their sword technique, so-and-so, made a pilgrimage to
some shrine and prayed for artistry, and the spirit appeared and transmitted it to
him. Or some say they learned it in a dream vision or that they attained the art of
the sword by studying Zen. And some say they learned it from a goblin on some
mountain. These are all big lies.
The meaning of spirit is the quality of enlightenment. When the heart is
truthful, the spirit shrine inside the heart opens up at once, realized in oneself
alone. A spirit doesn’t come from a shrine; were it to manifest a form, it would
not be a spirit but a sprite.
It is also wrong to speak of having attained the art of the sword by studying
Zen. You’d have to say that Zen students also have sword teachers.
As for goblins, they are animals. What is lacking in humanity, the most
intelligent of creatures, that we should learn from the likes of goblins and werecats? Although the right way is transmitted from human to human, there’s
nothing unusual about that, so people concoct such things to fool people and
make money. This is extremely repugnant.
The commonplace idea that your moves should be swift as a bird in flight is
ignorant of the logic of fighting. You get like this when you’re being
maneuvered around by your opponent. Ideally you should move calmly and
surely, threatening your opponent, keeping him hopping. This is maneuvering
another without being maneuvered by the other. Rather than hop about like a
bird, it’s better not to miss others’ moves.
However, you should concentrate on getting position. You should maneuver
your opponent into a confined space, not letting him get on high ground.
Izawa Nagahide was a hereditary retainer of a feudal lord in Kyushu. He was an
expert in both Japanese studies (kokugaku) and Chinese studies (kangaku) and
was a prolific author. While he was overtly averse to certain aspects of
Buddhism, as were many latter-day Shinto and Confucian authors, nevertheless
his work contains elemental principles of Zen and Taoism in nonsectarian
psychological terms. He was an outstanding thinker and wrote many books on
military and political science, manners and morals, history, philosophy, and
linguistics.
The origin of the warrior goes back to the divine age of antiquity when the
central ruler of heaven, the Great Goddess Lighting the Sky, made a pact with
her august descendant Ninigi-no-Mikoto, saying, “Let the emperor use artful
subtlety like the curve of the sacred gem to govern the earthly administration;
use clarity like the sacred mirror to oversee the mountains and rivers, seas and
plains; and wield the sacred sword to pacify the earth and benefit the populace.”
The sacred gem symbolizes flexibility and accommodation. The government
of the earth should be carried out with the warm, rich quality of humaneness
represented by this object. Artful subtlety is expressed by its rounded curvature;
the path is not a single fixed straight line but adopts what is suitable to the time,
in accord with the context. So it is a way of adapting to the time.
The sacred mirror symbolizes honesty. A mirror doesn’t retain anything but
reflects everything impartially, so right and wrong and good and bad features all
show. Virtue is to respond sensitively to those features. This is the basis of
honesty. For a mirror the essential feature is clarity. When the essence of mind is
clear, compassion and decisiveness are therein. If observed with honest
intelligence clear as a mirror, there will be no one corrupt at court and no savant
neglected in the countryside. With the operation of government honest, and good
communication between superior and subordinates, all people will find their
places.
The sacred sword symbolizes decisiveness. It implies the imperative to take
the side of absolute firmness and freedom from greed to destroy the internal
mental enemies selfishness and treachery and execute the external bandits crime
and violence, being straightforward and uncorrupted in body and mind and
government affairs as well, imbued with the commanding presence to overawe
the world.
If there is no accommodation, the people will be alienated, so it is good to be
flexible. In the absence of dignity, subordinates will be contemptuous, so it is
good to be firm. If you are desirous, your instructions won’t be carried out, so it
is good to be honest. Without being like this it is impossible to govern oneself,
order the home, rule the country, and pacify the world.
In high antiquity there was no writing, so these three articles were made as
lessons for the imperial descendants, that if they preserved the three virtues
symbolized by the sacred objects, they would flourish as eternally as heaven and
earth.
After this, when the imperial descendant came down from heaven, he was
attended by twenty-five armed men of the celestial Mononobe warriors. After
emperor Jimmu’s expedition east, Umashimaji-no-Mikoto, son of Nigihayahino-Mikoto [ancestral deity of the Mononobe], because of his outstanding
military achievement, was commanded to guard the imperial palace with a
contingent of soldiers. His charge was called the Mononobe, or Armorer’s Guild.
This is how warriors came to be called mononou.
Warriors ought to keep their bravery inside, not showing it outwardly. This can
be attained spontaneously after you’ve studied both culture and arms. In the case
of those who concentrate only on the way of the warrior, however, when too
young to have tempered their mental arts, if they keep their bravery inside it will
invariably manifest outwardly. Like an old adage says, “With pearls hidden in it,
the river is beautiful; with jade concealed in it, the mountain is lustrous.” There’s
a type who misperceives them as weak or capricious.
There are also immoral people who are violent and vicious by nature.
Everyone should be instructed after his words and deeds have been tested.
As we see current customs, people who are gentle and kindly are soft and
weak, while those who are brave and bold are coarse and violent. Because of
this, they should first be taught to read and become acquainted with the Way,
and then taught martial arts after that. When you study in this manner, the two
corruptions of soft weakness and coarse violence will not exist.
Once you have learned a little bit of commonplace martial arts, if you’ve always
got a glare in your eyes, on the lookout to take others to task for what they say,
even in casual encounters, you’ve been invaded by bloodlust and forgotten the
principles of loyalty and respect for parents. Preferably you should keep
boldness and ferocity inside, outwardly appearing gentle and loving.
When facing a situation where you might die, however, you should be the first
to volunteer and never retreat a single step. There are situations when it’s right to
die, though, and situations where you shouldn’t die. To die where you should die
is praised as a righteous death. To die where you shouldn’t die is disparaged as a
dog’s death.
Even if you give the appearance of gentility as recommended, don’t let your
heart be soft and weak. Those whose appearance is gentle and who are also soft
and weak at heart are what are commonly called sissy samurai. As a proverb
says, “While there are no mannish women, there are many womanish men.”
Those who are like this are useless.
When people get generally depressed, it’s a common convention to say it’s all up
to divine decree, but that is wrong. Divine decree is in oneself, not outside. Only
after you’ve exhausted human effort should you leave things to the divine.
Consider the ancient saying “Where human effort comes to an end, there lies
Fate.”
When people criticize someone else, don’t join them. Lin Hejing said, “Even if
you’ve heard it, don’t say it unless you’ve seen it with your own eyes.” As a
homely proverb says, “Others’ lies become your lies.”
Vulgar people don’t like to praise goodness; they like to expose badness. For
this reason, as they go around gossiping they exaggerate one into ten, and ten
into a hundred. When one person says something false, myriad people pass it on
as truth. When wrongly recorded in books without resolving contradictions and
left to later generations, this confuses right and wrong, false and true. We must
be very careful.
Accordingly, we have to compare carefully what we hear from others. As it is
said, “Listening only to one side creates prejudice.” Vulgar people say good is
bad if it doesn’t suit them, and they say bad is good. Since they speak
subjectively, they’re often way off.
You shouldn’t show any sign of making a distinction between good and bad
people. But even if you harmonize, don’t be influenced. If you don’t harmonize,
you’re turning against people; if you’re not influenced, you don’t lose the Way.
It is essential that the mind circulate throughout the body continuously and
ceaselessly. Where it’s stagnant is called dead matter. This is what is commonly
called being stuck.
The mind, going along with the body, should make armor go along with the
body. Don’t make the body go along with the armor.
Getting the jump on an opponent does not refer to technique. It is not a matter of
attacking, nor of awaiting. It refers to the energetic state.
A common saying has it that the spirit dwells in an honest head. Comparing this
to martial arts, in our hearts there is a broad plain called the High Plain of
Heaven. On that plain we lodge our own spirit. We appeal to this spirit to
remove the pollution of falsehood, bring pure light, judge right and wrong,
distinguish good and evil. Standing stolidly, calm and unmoving, straight from
head to hips without a slouch, mind’s eye open, unblinking, may be compared to
the principle of the spirit dwelling in an honest head.
According to an old saying, “When you open your eyes, right away you’re
wrong.” This refers to sticking to what you see. For example, when you look to
the left you forget the right, and when you look to the right you forget the left. If
you look at an opponent’s hands, your mind inclines to the hands; if you look at
his feet, your mind inclines to the feet. Once there’s any imbalance, you’re like
an empty house. If thieves break into an empty house, since the owner’s not
home he can’t stop them. For this reason, you should have an overall
perspective, not a biased view.
You should detach from arts when you have mastered them. If you do not detach
from arts, you are not an artist.
You should fight like hitting water with a stone, not like hitting stone with stone.
Hitting water with stone means using your energetic state to overpower and
inhibit your opponent. Hitting stone with stone means both you and your
opponent act out equally. To seek victory after having matched positions like
this is either stupidity or delusion.
The principle that flexibility can overcome hardness should be understood. If
you are adamant about being strong, that may make you weak instead. If you act
strong, your opponent acts strong too.
The principle of the contest is to control others and not be controlled by others.
Filling your body with the energy of bravery, go forth with your mind’s eye
open. If you go to an encounter in a calm, unshakable state, you naturally won’t
fall apart.
Among the vulgar are those who use sword technique to show off to people.
They say the founder of their sword technique, so-and-so, made a pilgrimage to
some shrine and prayed for artistry, and the spirit appeared and transmitted it to
him. Or some say they learned it in a dream vision or that they attained the art of
the sword by studying Zen. And some say they learned it from a goblin on some
mountain. These are all big lies.
The meaning of spirit is the quality of enlightenment. When the heart is
truthful, the spirit shrine inside the heart opens up at once, realized in oneself
alone. A spirit doesn’t come from a shrine; were it to manifest a form, it would
not be a spirit but a sprite.
It is also wrong to speak of having attained the art of the sword by studying
Zen. You’d have to say that Zen students also have sword teachers.
As for goblins, they are animals. What is lacking in humanity, the most
intelligent of creatures, that we should learn from the likes of goblins and werecats? Although the right way is transmitted from human to human, there’s
nothing unusual about that, so people concoct such things to fool people and
make money. This is extremely repugnant.
The commonplace idea that your moves should be swift as a bird in flight is
ignorant of the logic of fighting. You get like this when you’re being
maneuvered around by your opponent. Ideally you should move calmly and
surely, threatening your opponent, keeping him hopping. This is maneuvering
another without being maneuvered by the other. Rather than hop about like a
bird, it’s better not to miss others’ moves.
However, you should concentrate on getting position. You should maneuver
your opponent into a confined space, not letting him get on high ground.