Deshi 1:  Sensei and all, I would like to ask a question that has come to mind after beginning the reading.  Why is it that we train as we do?  Meaning, the translator talks about how these letters are written to schools that trained warriors for the Shogun or people who were involved in life and death type battles.  The recipients of these letters lived a reality that had them facing life and death struggles in battle.  Our lives are not nor will they ever be as severe as the recipients of these letters.  Therefore, what is it that draws us to train and/or why should we bother training?  Cannot a person live their life without this hard, painful, and not always pleasant type of training?  Can we not find something that does not require so much dedication but that offers as much?  Moreover, what about the “happy-go-lucky” types, those who do not train, are they worse off?  Would not Yoga do the same and yet not hurt so much or bring up so many fears?  On a related note, why is it that we have difficulty viewing the dojo environment as nurturing?  Why do the dojo and our commitment to it so often come to us as “pressure” or as a “loss of free time?” 

To expand upon this last set of questions:  I have heard the dojo environment referred to as “pressure.”  People relate to the dojo as something that they "have to do" vs. something that they are choosing to do.  I have heard the dojo’s etiquette and protocols referred to as a “pressure” placed on a person.   In such cases, a person holding this view does not see that pressure as good or needed.  Instead, they feel it is something attacking them, something making them not feel good or good enough.  Under such viewpoints, one cannot embrace the dojo as a nurturing element, one trying to change us for the better.  At best, the dojo is understood to be more of a drill instructor that is trying to force us to change.  However, to change our physique, for example, we apply stress in the form of lifting weights or cardiovascular exercise, and our body adapts to the new stress and begins to change.  In the same way, is not the “stress” applied to us by the dojo nothing more than an attempt to create a change in us – a change that we are seeking but that we simultaneously seem to fight against.  Why, through the ins and outs of training, are we so resistant to change, to the “pressure” that brings about change?  Why are we so attached to our current identity and our ego?  Why can we not accept this “pressure” as a method of the change required?

Senshin Center:  Let me thank you for bringing this up.  While not part of the text itself, it is a subtext to what we are studying here today.  It is the big “WHY?” of things.  That kind of question is something that will always be a part of our training, even though it must be something we must in the end reconcile.  Toward that, I would like to redirect folks to a link that I feel is relevant to this type of subtext.  The rest of this reply here will be addressing those aspects of your comments that I feel are more related to the text itself, though I will of course be forced to overlap both issues in my response.  Because of this, it is not necessary for the reader to have to read the following link in order to understand my position here.  The link is to the Budo Contemplation, “Why Do We Train?”

Continuing onward…  I think before we address these questions, some context, both philosophical and historical, is in order.  First, the philosophical context:  Budo, which is what we train in, has always carried within it a dual purpose.  On the one hand, Budo is meant to address the spiritual cultivation of the human being.  By spiritual cultivation, it is implied that one is working toward a perfection, or a fulfillment, or a completion of Self or Being.  On the other hand, Budo is meant to address a type of martial prowess.  At first glance, these things may appear to be contrary to each other.  Alternatively, they may appear to be in some sort of causal or linear relationship to each other.  Though it is common to understand these two aspects of Budo in these manners, such understandings can in no way be deemed accurate and/or truthful. 

The best way to describe the relationship between these two aspects is to posit them as paradoxical to each other or to say, at most, they are incidental to each other.  By suggesting that we are dealing with a paradox we at least hint at the idea that any first glance (which will generally includes notions of contradiction and/or of linear-causal relationships) is going to be incorrect.  By suggesting we are dealing with incidentals we note that primacy cannot and/or should not be given to one aspect over the other.  Using an analogy:  We can say that spiritual perfection and martial prowess are like a boat and the river upon which the boat floats.  Without the boat, we do not float.  Without the water, we do not float.  With the boat and the water, we are able to float across the river.  We can reach the other shore where these two aspects can come to be more accurately understood for what they are and for what they are not.  Most of all, we come to understand their interdependency.

I mention this because it seems that the base of the position you are offering for us to consider lies in the assumption that if we have no immediate need for martial prowess, the kind that is at the level of constant “life and death” situations, we have no need for Budo.  Such an assumption gives primacy to only one aspect of what Budo is and/or can be: martial prowess.  However, because we should not separate spiritual perfection from martial prowess, such an assumption begs the following questions:  Is Man in no need of spiritual cultivation simply because his or her exposure to war is limited or next to nothing?  Is our material self, our selfish self, our angry self, our depressed self, our violent self, our egocentric self, our inconsiderate self, our prejudicial self, our neglectful self, our prideful self, our ignorant self, our self that is filled with hate, with fear, with jealousy, etc., in no need of purification simply because war is not on the horizon for us as individuals?  Are our friends and family, our fellow Man, no longer needing us to possess a soul that they can depend upon, a soul that is nurturing, a soul that is humble, gracious, courageous, honorable, steadfast, and loving, simply because we do not meet upon the battlefield everyday?  And the children of the world, are they so satisfied at every level of their being, brought about by the supposed absence of constant warfare, that they are without need for a parenting that is founded upon all that is sacred in the Universe?  Is this world so perfect, is our life in this world so complete, is our experience of this lifetime so fulfilled, simply because we are without the daily threat of violence and/or warfare?  I would think not.  My point:  When we approach Budo in this way, which is the correct way, it becomes almost irrelevant for us to point out that we are today not slave to the battlefield.  For the fact remains, that we are still slave to a great many things, things, to be sure, that often support the need for battlefields, but things that also keep us from nurturing ourselves and our loved ones, things that keep us separate from the Divine, and thus that separate us from the most complete experience of our humanity and of all Creation. 

When one questions the validity of Budo or the applicability of Budo, one cannot question one side of Budo’s nature and not the other.  Therefore, to question the need for martial prowess is to question the need for spiritual cultivation.  Equally then, and relevant to Budo, to question the need for spiritual cultivation, is to question the need for martial prowess.  Naturally, this, as you have done in your questions, forces us to wonder if other Paths are not equally valid – if Budo cannot be substituted by something else.  This is valid reasoning.  Please, allow me to address this in a bit, after I have brought some of the historical context to the forefront.

Let us realize that Takuan was no warrior.  He was a Zen monk.  He began his monastic training at the age of ten years old.  His letters are not of one man who faces death on the battlefield to another man who faces death on the battlefield.  Though he was born of a samurai family, his eyes were not filled with the distant stare of combat long experienced.  Let us also note that Munenori, the recipient of the letter we are currently reading, being fencing instructor to the Shogun, was a samurai of extremely high ranking, and thus was himself not continuously exposed to the realities of the battlefield – certainly not on any kind of regular and/or direct basis after he adopted such a position.  Let us also note that Takuan’s letters, which today are at the base of nearly all Budo praxis, were written at a time when Japan was in a state of relative peace (using the word “peace” cautiously here).  Rather than big battles in which huge armies were pitched against other huge armies on a regular basis, the Edo period, which is a major period of modern Budo’s actual development and the period in which this text was written, is more marked by  “police” work – work that was more aimed at increasing or popularizing the notion of a unified “Japan” than it was at crushing enemies in a kind of Machiavellian fashion. 

This is important to note.  It alerts us to the fact that while martial arts had long preceded this time of relative peace, that while martial arts had long been associated with various religious and/or spiritual elements prior to this time of relative peace, modern Budo proper was born not on the battlefield, but was rather born away from it.  After all, the warrior in the midst of battle, then and still now, is facing a different kind of practicality.  He or she is facing a practicality that makes it difficult to move beyond the apparent immediacy of the body and its preservation.  Thus, it is paramount to realize that the sophisticated spiritual praxis that is Budo is not hindered by peace, by the lack of a battlefield.  Rather, as it was for its genesis, what is required most by Budo is a time of peace and/or of relative peace.  This remains true no matter how martial we must be in our training.  How then can we discredit Budo by saying, “But today, there are no battlefields”?  Answer:  We cannot.  In truth, as we are still in a time of relative peace, we are in prime or fertile soil in which to cultivate both Budo and ourselves through Budo.

That said; let us address your other question of alternative Paths and/or substitutes to Budo.  To be sure, there are many.  However, we should not feel that these Paths are around every corner – especially today in the modern world or where the world has become modern.  In a place like the United States for example, where the common form of religious practice is dominated by weekend participation in rituals that are often void of deep and/or truly meaningful types of experience (the kind that can transform the Self), one is not likely to find an equally viable form of spiritual cultivation without some serious looking.  However, out of all the truly viable forms of spiritual cultivation that are indeed out there, not one of them will provide a path clear of pain, free of suffering, without loneliness, absent of fear, void of hardship, and lacking in moments of doubt.  There is no viable path to spiritual cultivation that will not require of us that we have faith, that we are courageous, that we possess endurance, that we are strong, that we capable of both discipline and commitment. 

In addressing your specific example:  Legitimate Yoga is indeed a valid system of spiritual cultivation.  However, finding a valid Yoga education is nearly impossible in this world.  It is a dying tradition and it is more alien to the modern world than Budo is.  Thus, more than likely, such a path would make Budo training appear to be a cakewalk in terms of easiness.  Let us remember that the Buddha, whose teachings are at the heart of Budo and at Takuan’s writings, rejected the path of the yogi as a path that is too extreme – too intense.  Hence, Yoga is not the alternative one should look for in order to “bring up less fears.” 

Yet, if on the other hand you are referring to what is now passing for “yoga” (here in the States for example), the answer is a clear “no.”  No, this type of “yoga” cannot act as a substitute to Budo training.  Why should it?  It is just a reinvention of stretching.  It is merely a re-packaging of the “new exotic.”  It is just the latest trend that beats with the same heart of material gain and satisfaction.  To be sure, flexibility training has its place in Budo training, but stretching will not ever make us one with God.  Being flexible in body will not allow us to be flexible in heart or in mind – especially when life seems to be “pressuring” us to be otherwise.  Feeling good about ourselves will not help us to be good toward others – not when others will need it or deserve it most – not when times are truly trying.

It is like this for Aikido as well – should Aikido training be reduced to the mere repetition of waza.  When a path is reduced to its most superficial elements, when a path is with no need for a full investment on the part of the practitioner, when a path does not “pressure” us at the deepest levels of our being, such a path is no Path.  It is merely hobby, merely activity.  If we run to such activities, knowing that they can never truly be Paths, particularly after we have seen the light of Budo, after we have felt its forging heat upon our body/minds, then we must realize that we are not running to such activities, nor are we even running away from Budo.  Rather, we are running away from ourselves.  We are running so that we do not have to reveal ourselves to ourselves.  We are running to where we know we can hide ourselves from ourselves.  Such an act then is not the simple act of picking something more akin to our liking.  Such an act is favoring only what allows us to ignore what we hate most about ourselves.  Spiritually speaking, such an act is merely an act of cowardice.  Spiritually speaking, it is us forfeiting our chance at cultivating fearlessness.  Thus, spiritually speaking, it us forfeiting our chance of ever really cultivating the capacity for practicing true Love in our lives.  At every level of our being then, it is the greatest of losses we can ever opt to take.  Moreover, it is not only us that come to feel this loss.  It is a loss that will be felt by our friends, by our family, by our spouses, by our children, and by our fellow Man.

Takuan writes, “It must be said that the enlightening of one’s mind depends on the depths of one’s efforts.”