I promised I would write more often. I can see the problem now with this; I’m not a good blogger.
BLOG, in case you didn’t know, is short for “web log”. A log is analogous to a diary or a chronicle, something ongoing. I like each entry to be a work in itself, some high concept entry based on supposed wisdom from my life. (Keep your sarcasm to your self, I’m a ninja, I can hear you) Anyway, in true web log fashion, allow me to elucidate on an important event of my life….
A few months ago a senior instructor from the Bujinkan in Japan showed up on our doorstep, in Monterey to be precise. These senior instructors, personal students of Masaaki Hatsumi, the last Ninja, do not travel abroad to teach, as a policy. This one came to the US for reasons related to his work.
His presence here, his willingness to teach, share and train with us fortunate few represents an occurrence so rare, so unusual, as to almost not be believable. As time has passed and I learn more and more the feeling of this man and his taijutsu (body art or body movement) it occurs to me that I would be little better off if I were even in Japan training right now.
In SGI we speak of a seeking spirit but being the cynic that I am, I only now understand what that is. My seeking spirit has to do with absorbing, assimilating, becoming every nuance of what makes this teacher such a wonderful budoka (practitioner of budo), or if you can accept this; what makes him a ninja.
The Japanese teachers use little power in their taijutsu. Instead they rely on the inherent power of their own body movement instead of their musculature and physical strength. Taken as a spiritual analogy, it is the difference between our faith in the Gohonzon vs. our own “positive thinking” or mental determination.
While faith is an eternal and living thing, or own intellect is fleeting, unreliable, and deceptive.
Ummm…. Perhaps I should add “well, speaking only for myself"….
Rev. Greg, Shidoshi