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Bujinkan Hachidan 八段: Both Bull and Self Transcended

From Bujinkan Santa Monica by Michael

Both Ox and Self Transcended, digital c-print photograph by Andrew Binkley
Hatsumi Sensei describes the journey of a Bujinkan student through the Dan ranks as being akin to the Ten Oxherding pictures in Zen Buddhism. These pictures describe the seeker's journey to enlightenment.

If you haven't read my other posts in this series, please check them out. You may find them useful no matter what your rank is:

Bujinkan Shodan 初段: Searching for the Bull
Bujinkan Nidan 弐段: Discovering the Footprints
Bujinkan Sandan 参段: Perceiving the Bull
Bujinkan Yondan 四段: Catching the Bull
Bujinkan Godan 五段: Taming the Bull
Bujinkan Rokudan 六段: Riding the Bull Home
Bujinkan Nanadan 七段: The Bull Transcended
So what kind of training do we do for Hachidan?

Woodblock print by 德力富吉郎 Tokuriki Tomikichirō
人牛俱忘 Both Bull and Self Transcended

Whip, rope, person, and bull -
all merge in No Thing.

This heaven is so vast,

no message can stain it.

How may a snowflake exist
in a raging fire?
Here are the footprints of
the Ancestors.

I have abandoned the whip and ropes

At this stage of our training we have reached the state of zero Hatsumi Sensei often speaks about. In the dojo we neither train nor not train. We neither attack nor not attack. We neither defend nor not defend.

By being in neither position we become invisible. This is an aspect of ninjutsu and disappearing in plain sight. It is difficult for students because they will never see what the teacher is doing or not doing. Teachers cannot really explain it to students because they neither teach nor not teach.

In the original oxherding pictures from India and China, this was the last stage. Kakuan fleshed these ideas out from his 12th century Zen perspective so that the emptiness of the circle would not be the final goal of zen. But what is the quality of this emptiness in our training?

We can borrow a Buddhist phrase and parody it here: We do not linger where there is technique and we pass quickly through where there is no technique. Stopping to admire technique or no technique is the same trap as being tied to the Ox or the self.

We become a person who is nowhere. Hatsumi Sensei describes this in what it means to be Soke:
"Soke" signifies nothingness, zero, emptiness, void. Something that exists, and yet does not. The Soke is just an ordinary person, and yet, somehow, he is someone who is living his life according to some invisible divine command. You see, I do not live by my conscious mind, not at all, so that whatever I have thought up till now can just suddenly change in my mind, though it is not a consciously engineered change."
And here is the same idea from Zen:
"A distinguished Zen teacher, questioned as to how he disciplined himself in the truth, simply said: 'When I am hungry I eat; when tired I sleep.' The questioner remarked that this was what everybody did and asked whether they could be considered as practising the discipline as he did. The teacher replied: 'No; because when they eat they do not eat, but are thinking of various other things thereby allowing themselves to be disturbed; when they sleep they do not sleep, but dream of a thousand and one things. This is why they are not like myself."
The emptiness of this stage burns away every thought of technique or no technique. It burns away any thought of attacker or no attacker. Defender or no defender. As the poem above states, dualistic and discriminating thoughts are burned away like a snowflake in a raging fire…

This is at the heart of 万変不驚 Banpen Fugyo, as Hatsumi Sensei describes, "It's where you're not expecting anything, but you're ready for anything. You're all potential."

At this stage we are connected to our ancestors and the Bujin.

From this place we will explore Bujinkan Kyūdan 九段: Reaching the Source…

The dragon with the burned tail

From TENRYU by jorgevaccaro


Image

There is a Japanes proverb that says 猿も木から落ちる Saru mo ki kara ochiru. Which means “Even the monkeys also fall from the tree”

I like to sometimes change it for 龍も空気から落ちる Ryu mo kuki kara ochiru, “Even the dragons fall from air”

The nature of the dragon is to fly in an oscillating and changing wat throughout the air and throw fire on ocasions. The fire is one of it’s weapons, to drive off the bad spirits, protecting the weak from evil and powerful.

It’s fire may sometimes be it’s words and techniques, trying to take care and teach, even though sometime by fear of human conscience, ends up being misinterpreted.

There are no dragons of water , earth, sky, fire, clouds, struggle, etc… those are simply variants of the endless manifestations that an honorable White Dragon may have during certain state of divine awareness, giving life to thousand of dragons all around the world.

The features are individual, but the manifestations are changing according to lifes. Infinite changes of conscience ar the result of millions of manifestations of human conscience, but it all ends in a position of the escential point of life (Kaname no Shisei).

Those dragons filled with hunger tend to burn the tail of other dragons, to delay their flights and take advantage onto their roads, who have been confused with the role to protect, by the role of colonizing in a state of competition.

A dragon with the burned tail, just comes around to check itself on how  bad it’s body is, but knows that it can auto-regenerate itself instantly in the sinergic force of it’s flight, on the giving and protecting. A Dragon comes from the sky, it’s escential nature doesn’t belong to earth, however takes care and plays with people.

If today you feel that your tail has been burned, just continue your path, in the direction of giving and protecting, not just those who believe, come and follow their flights in action, but also to those who even asleep ignore the force of the dragons.

 

Komyo no satori wo sagashite “Seeking within the light of hope”

Tenryu, fall of 2012 in Buenos Aires.


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Doron Navon – Taijutsu + Feldenkrais

From New Products from Budo Shop Store by New Products from Budo Shop Store

This video is also available for download at Payloadz, click here!
Title: Ninpo Taijutsu & Feldenkrais

Instructors: Doron Navon

Theme: Ninpo Taijutsu & Feldenkrais

Recorded: Recorded in Stockholm, Sweden 1994

Format: VideoCD. 55 minutes. Moviebox

Doron Navon from Israel started training with Hatsumi Sensei in the late 60's long before the "ninja-boom". When he came home from Japan 1974 he had so many injuries that he could hardly move for a long time. He was introduced to Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais who founded the Feldenkrais Method, and learned this method directly from him.

Doron says that the Feldenkrais method is a shortcut to the godan test. This has been confirmed by both Hatsumi Sensei and many other who have studied Taijutsu and Feldenkrais.

Skr169.00

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Bujinkan Nanadan 七段: The Bull Transcended

From Bujinkan Santa Monica by Michael

The Ox Transcended, digital c-print photograph by Andrew Binkley
Hatsumi Sensei describes the journey of a Bujinkan student through the Dan ranks as being akin to the Ten Oxherding pictures in Zen Buddhism. These pictures describe the seekers journey to enlightenment.

If you haven't read my other posts in this series, please check them out. You may find them useful no matter what your rank is:

Bujinkan Shodan 初段: Searching for the Bull
Bujinkan Nidan 弐段: Discovering the Footprints
Bujinkan Sandan 参段: Perceiving the Bull
Bujinkan Yondan 四段: Catching the Bull
Bujinkan Godan 五段: Taming the Bull
Bujinkan Rokudan 六段: Riding the Bull Home

On reaching seventh dan we may find that we have forgotten the ox. What does it mean to forget the Ox?


Woodblock print by 德力富吉郎 Tokuriki Tomikichirō

忘牛存人 The Bull Transcended
Astride the bull, I reach home.

I am serene. The bull too can rest.

The dawn has come. In blissful repose,

Within my thatched dwelling

I have abandoned the whip and ropes

We made it home. Comfortable in our own taijutsu and in our dojo, whatever ambitions we had attached to training or rank are abandoned. We no longer attempt to manipulate training to serve the purpose of our ego.

Through all the stages of finding, following, catching, taming, and riding the ox, we have been seeking the true essential nature of training and of ourselves. If this process was pursued with pure intent, the self that was doing the seeking falls away. It disappears little by little until it is gone. What you are left with is only the essential, true training.

Even better than this, you may enter into another dimension of training where the true self doesn't even make an appearance at all. This is often symbolized in Japanese art and poetry as the pure white moonlight moving apart the clouds until there are no longer clouds and the whole world is bathed in this purity. This aspect of training becomes pure experience and is beyond words. Only direct experience remains.

And, your consciousness remains, observing. The bull is gone but through your direct experience all that is left is you observing and feeling. There clouds may gather again.

At this point in training we may start to wonder at how pointless all of the work we did up till now has been. All of the exercises, all of the kata, all of the drills… they feel like useless effort in the face of the pure moonlight. With this direct experience of the essence of training, everything else is a distraction.

People sometimes find themselves in the dojo going through the motions. Observing their movement and the movement of others and feeling like it is wasted effort. It is amusing to find your body repeating whatever the class is working on, while your heart is not in it. Or it feels pointless.

It feels like once you have grasped the essential nature of training, there is nothing left to do. You realize that what you were seeking in training is within you already, but also without. You stop looking and it is everywhere. All the secrets are made known.

So with nothing left to do, what is the point of training?

The fabric of training itself is the students and the art. Just like the stream is also water, or stars are also night sky- so students are their study. You observe this relationship: uke and tori; teacher and student; training and dojo; body and gi; hands and bokken. As you notice these things, you realize you are not them and they are not you. But you are part of this fabric.

This dreamlike quality of training can carry you for a long time. Even though you no longer need the whip and the halter, or the tools and exercises of the dojo, you are left observing these. In your reverie, you are still tied to those experiences.

Next we go even further to Bujinkan Hachidan 八段: Both Bull and Self Transcended…

Tachi bokken "2"

From Paart Budo Buki by buki stolar

This is the second tachi bokken slightly better, with few details on the saya and kashira, still under development,
third should be fully faithful to original copy of the Tachi sword.

For now, enjoy the pictures, and all other possible questions or orders, please contact me via e-mail, because it will be three more tachi bokken AVAILABLE.




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Regarding the Ranks

From TENRYU by jorgevaccaro

Regarding the Bujinkan Ranks

By Sôke Masaaki Hatsumi.

DVD HIMON BUJIN DEN

必問 武神 伝

 

There are off course, levels, ranks and casts everywhere.

I believe this cast of zones is important for human existance in earth.

I feel this things are necessary for those who adapt. The creation of a territory is also what adapts on each individual. I believe  that is not something that produces an impediment, but also what is free. This is some matter to understand on each position. Those who not have this strenght and aim to high, will certainly fail.

On my 5th Dan test, there’s an attack from behind. This is the beginning of the Kihon Happo. Please this means that you must understand the Happo and the Juppo. This is what is called Juppo Sessho no jutsu. You don’t know where an opponent may come. You don’t know what kind of dissaster will come and from where.

You must be able to deal with things  when they come from certain way, and it’s not just a question of protecting from a blow from behind – Please know about Juppo Sessho no jutsu and Kihon Happo. The ways in that Kihon Happo can be applied on this kinds of situations, are the tipe of things that are though on 5th dan. The test isn’t about just try to avoid an attack from behind.

Three people are bound to propose someone for the 10th dan. This in a sence, is Sanshin No Kata. This is the meaning of Sanshin no Kata that I’ve mentioned before. A person cannot become a 10dan without 3 people as sponsors.

There are individual differences on people, that’s why there are ranks until the 15th dan -This isn’t a question of ryuha-

I’ve created the ranks of 15dan, off course, with the meaning that people can take notice that they are in fact human beings. You could say that is to leave the abode.


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Relativity

From TENRYU by jorgevaccaro

As many of you may know, the teachings of Sôke during 2001, where focused in Gyokko Ryû and Daisho. Inside Gyokko Ryû Sensei Hatsumi tought the concepts of IN/YO (opposite polarities) applied to the In Ryoku 引力 concepts (gravity force, attraction),Jû Ryoku 重力 (gravity),  Ji Ryoku Sen  磁力線  (magnetic force line) among others.

Last night, we had a wonderful class with Sōke. Outside of the Dojo, the wind and the rain blew strongly in Taifu 台風 way, inside of the dojo the wind of the Bufu kept us moving from the hands of Sōke, while he shared with his Kuden the theory of relativity of Einstein  相対性理论, applied to Taijutsu. During the class, as Sôke showed techniques with Katana, Daisho, Kodachi and long weapons (Bo), he explaines the importance of moving freely taking advantage  the skillness of being able to use any weapon, even firearms. Throughout  the enlightening skills of  Sôke, while Uke fell naturally over the sword, that was naturally unsheathed by letting if fall down (In ryoku), he started to introduce us into the theory of relativity of Einstein, Everything happens so fast in the Dojo when Soke teaches, but at the same time seems very slow and hard to understand.

The escencial idea, of vital point (Kaname) of the theory of relativity, is for example that two observers that move relatively side by side with different speed, (if the difference is much minor than the speed of light, it’s not appreciable), often will have different measures of the time (time frames) and space (distance – maai) to describe the same series of events. That is, the perception of space (kukan) and the time depend of the state of movement (Taijutsu) of the observer or its relative to the observer. However, despite of the relativeness of space and time, there’s a more sutile form of physic invariance, as the content of the physical laws will be the same for both observers. This last thing means that, despite that the observers differ on the result of concrete measures of temporary and space magnitudes, they’ll find that the equations that relate physical magnitudes have the same form, with independence of his state of movement. This last fact is known as principle of covariance.

I feel that beyond what’s relative on each observer and the variance of perceptions, we can all find a vital point (Kaname要)  that can connect us to the escense of Budo, even though there are infinite changes (Banpen) and if the Mushin mind is kept, the escencial point appears by itself. Maybe that’s the Gokui of martial arts, though if we try to understand it, it’ll loose it’s escense.

Soke said, The Kaname can be understood, or it cannot be understood, it’s simple”

Bufu ikkan Banpen Kaname !!!

Christian


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HEISEI

From TENRYU by jorgevaccaro

平静 Heisei; is equanimity, from latin “aequanimitas”: balance, fairness, consistency and fairness in mind. We can understand it as keeping a balanced and serene attitude. It can also be translated as neutrality, balance or justice.

Antonyms of Fairness: imbalance, Inequality, obsession, paradox, bias, perversion, goodwill, prejudice, injustice.

If anyone saw pass  “equanimity” please let it notice and don’t let it get away!!

Train daily both inside and outside of the Dojo is one of my targets, to achieve “Kokoro no heisei (心の平静), an equable mind.


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The Meaning of ‘Shihan’

From The Magick & The Mundane » Bujinkan by Shawn Gray

What does the title Shihan mean?
This blog post is in response to a question that I received on Facebook the other day:

I’m surprised every time I see people in the Bujinkan title themselves as Shihan. If I’m not mistaken you never present your self with -san added, this is only used when addressing others. So would not the same thinking apply to Shihan?
I’m not sure when people started doing this, maybe when they got tired of “just” having 15 dan? However, this are just my own thoughts, which very likely can be completely wrong [:)] I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe this could lead to yet another great and educational blog post of yours?

In the Bujinkan martial arts, the title “Shihan” has come to be used to refer to anyone ranked Judan (10th degree) and higher. Many people seem to think that it was always used this way, but it actually used to be used differently. So for this blog post I’ll be discussing what the word Shihan means in general, and how it’s come to be used the way it is in the Bujinkan.

師範

The word Shihan is generally defined in regular Japanese as instructor, teacher, or model. In Japan, there are various groups, organizations, or situations where both Sensei (the much more commonly used of the two terms) and Shihan are used, and in such cases Shihan is generally used to mean senior instructor, senior teacher, etc. This is common in the martial arts, but both words are  often used in other areas of Japanese life as well.

As far as the use of the word Shihan in the Bujinkan martial arts goes, the term was originally used to refer to the senior Japanese students of Hatsumi Sensei. That much is common knowledge, but many people I’ve spoken with over the years were unaware that Shihan was also used to refer to the senior Japanese students even before they reached the rank of Judan. Even now many people don’t seem to be aware of this – most people seem to think that the title is synonymous with the rank of Judan and up – and indeed, in a large sense, this is the meaning that it has taken on over the years. However, the senior Japanese students of Sensei (and two foreigners that I know of – there very well could be more) were called Shihan (by Hatsumi Sensei himself) before they reached the rank of Judan.

Over time, as the senior Japanese instructors began to reach ranks of Judan and above, they of course continued to be called Shihan. As time passed, foreigners began to associate the title Shihan with the colourful Judan patch. As more time passed and foreign students also began to reach ranks of Judan and above, they started to call themselves Shihan, thinking that it means a rank of Judan or higher, and perhaps desiring a new title after having already “achieved” the title of Shidoshi way back at Godan. Eventually, people began to think that having one of those Judan patches on one’s uniform makes one a Shihan, and this has become the default understanding that we see in the Bujinkan today.

In Japanese culture, just as with a title like –san, a title like Shidoshi, Sensei, or Shihan is not something that one applies to oneself. It is not something one puts on one’s business cards. It is not something that one uses to refer to oneself in class, or on one’s own website, or in email or other correspondence. It is something that others apply to you out of respect. In speaking of respect, it is my opinion (because this is the way that my teachers taught that it should be) that one should not force one’s students to call them by any particular title. This is something that should come naturally from the students’ side. If someone wants to be a Sensei or a Shidoshi or a Shihan, it is more important to act like the type of Sensei or Shidoshi or Shihan who deserves that title. In simple terms, respect is something that should be earned rather than demanded.

It’s important to realize that the word Shihan doesn’t just refer to a number on a rank certificate. This is one possible reason that Hatsumi Sensei refers to good Shihan (meaning that also, by unspoken implication (quite important in Japanese culture), there are not-good Shihan as well). In speaking of good Shihan, Sensei is indicating that it is more than just a numerical value written on a piece of paper. It is something other than simply that. There is a reason why we have both the numerical grade names (Judan, Juichidan, etc.) as well as the title Shihan. Through observing the people and the circumstances in which Hatsumi Sensei refers to people as Shihan, it is my opinion that he is using the title with an expectation that the person indicated is willing and able to take on positions of leadership and responsibility within the Bujinkan organization. More than just a numerical rank grade, it is a title that acknowledges leadership. These two things, rank and leadership, are not at all necessarily the same. Simply because someone is a skilled martial artist doesn’t mean that they are ready, willing, or even able, to take on a role of leadership in the Bujinkan and assume the responsibilities of service (let’s not forget that leadership is service) that are required of a leader. True Bujinkan Shihan are able to act as leaders and role models for others, leading by example and inspiring others to become martial artists of true ability, humility, integrity, and sincerity. These abilities don’t come from a rank number, but from a heart set on the true values (価値観, kachikan) and virtues (武徳, butoku) of the martial arts.

I hope that this article has provided some insight into the meaning of the word Shihan, particularly with regard to the history of the use of the term within the Bujinkan and how it relates to leadership in the organization.


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