warrior notes: Credo: Warriors of Spirit

warrior notes: Credo: Warriors of Spirit: As Warriors of Spirit, we follow a path of integrity. We continuously endeavor to live in accord with the principles of generosity, lovingki...

Samurai

                                The samurai (or bushi) were the warriors of premodern Japan. They later made up the ruling military class that eventually became the highest ranking social caste of the Edo Period (1603-1867). Samurai employed a range of weapons such as bows and arrows, spears and guns, but their main weapon and symbol was the Sword.
                                Samurai were supposed to lead their lives according to the ethic code of bushido ("the way of the warrior"). Strongly Confucian in nature, bushido stressed concepts such as loyalty to one's master, self discipline and respectful, ethical behavior. Many samurai were also drawn to the teachings and practices of Zen Buddhism.
                                The samurai trace their origins to the Heian Period campaigns to subdue the native Emishi people in the Tohoku Region. Around the same time, warriors were increasingly hired by wealthy landowners that had grown independent of the central government and built armies for their own protection.
                                The two most powerful of these landowning clans, the Minamoto and Taira, eventually challenged the central government and battled each other for supremacy over the entire country. Minamoto Yoritomo emerged victorious and set up a new military government in 1192, led by the shogun or supreme military commander. The samurai would rule over Japan for most of the next 700 years.                                During the chaotic era of warring states in the 15th and 16th centuries, Japan splintered into dozens of independent states constantly at war with one another. Consequently, warriors were in high demand. Many of the famous samurai movies by Kurosawa are set during this era.
                                The country was eventually reunited in the late 1500s, and a rigid social caste system was established during the Edo period that placed the samurai at the top, followed by the farmers, artisans and merchants respectively. During this time, the samurai were forced to live in castle towns, were the only ones allowed to own and carry swords and were paid in rice by their daimyo or feudal lords. Masterless samurai were called ronin and caused minor troubles during the 1600s.                                 Relative peace prevailed during the roughly 250 years of the Edo period. As a result, the importance of martial skills declined, and many samurai became bureaucrats, teachers or artists. Japan's feudal era eventually came to an end in 1868, and the samurai class was abolished a few years afterwards.
                                 Samurai related attractions can be found across Japan in form of castles, historic residences, museums, historically themed amusement parks and dress up tours. The following are some of the many ways tourists can learn about and experience samurai culture and lifestyle today:

                                 While most history museums in Japan display at least a few samurai swords or armors, there are a few specialized museums that exclusively feature relics of the samurai.
Some of these include the Sword Museum in Tokyo, which displays one of the largest public sword collections in the country; the Tokugawa art Museum in Nagoya, which exhibits armor, swords, tea utensils, artwork and household items; and the Maeda and Honda museums in Kanazawa, which display relics of the two most prominent samurai families in the region.

Original Article on : www.japan-guide.com

Hidari Gomon

Hidari Gomon is a common symbol of Okinawa and it was once the Royal crest of Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa. In Japanese it is called the Hidari mitsudomoe and is a common design element in Japanese family emblems and corporate logos. The Hidari Gonon is the primary traditional symbol of Okinawa. It is unclear who used the symbol first but it has special significance to the Okinawan people especially those practicing the ancient art of Okinawan Karate.

The Koyasan Shingon sect of Buddhism which came from China to Japan uses the Hidari Gomon as a visual representation of the cycle of life. Others believe that the symbol is Shinto related because in Shinto mythology the symbol is often used to signify the structure taking place between three worlds. Such worlds include heaven, Earth, and the Underworld.

One explanation is that the Okinawan folktale where they interpret the "Hidari Gomon" as representing loyalty, heroism, and altruism to a proud island people and their descendants. They believe it to be expressed through a past full of struggle and hardship, but also a willingness to face the difficulties the ahead no matter what the cost.

According to the story the origin of the Hidari-Gomon takes place in feudal Japan, when the feudal lords and their private armies of samurai fought fiercely for land ownership. It was during a time of constant war in Japan. During these wars, Okinawa was defeated and dominated by the lord of Kagoshima, who imposed conditions on the Ryukyuan people. He proclaimed without exception that the people should go unarmed and that those who were found carrying weapons should be executed. Also, as a tribute of war, he proclaimed that Ryukyuans should submit an annual tax of rice to Kagoshima.

For many years the Ryukyu people religiously fulfilled the terms of the lords agreement. At the time rice was plentiful and no one went armed because a way of fighting had been developed in Okinawa which did not require the use of weapons. We now know this as Karate. Karate was developed because the Ryukyuan King did not want his people to be defenseless and he began secretly sending members of his guard to China, where he knew various forms of bare-hand fighting were being taught. Gradually, karate was being formed, the weapon was the body of the fighter, and it did not conflict in any way the terms imposed by the lord of Kagoshima.

Everything was fine until a great drought occurred in the Ryukyu Kingdom, which caused a shortage of rice throughout the islands. This cause extensive poverty and hunger among the Ryukyu people and prevented the kingdom from being able to make the payment of rice to Kagoshima. Seeing the suffering of his people the Ryukyu King decided to send a delegation to Kagoshima with a message reporting the sad situation of his people and asking at the same time to forego the rice tax that year. This in the Kings mind was surely a reasonable request as there wasn’t even rice for those farmers who planted it.

The King’s envoy left the kingdom escorted by three unarmed samurai guards and was received by the lord of Kagoshima, who was outraged by the audacity of the Ryukyuans. Not only did they not bring the rice, but they had the guts to still come and ask him to excuse their debt. The Lord of Kagoshima then ordered his Samurai to kill the messenger. One of the lord’s samurai came towards the envoy with his spear but the three unarmed Ryukyuan guards were able to easily defend against the attack. This surprised the Kagoshima Lord who considered his samurai to be invincible warriors. As other samurai came to assist in the capture of the Ryukyuan guards, the envoy tried to reason with the lord by explaining further that the people in the Ryukyu Islands were starving, trying to make him understand the pain and suffering of the Ryukyuan people.

The lord ordered the immediate execution of the three guards by having them thrown into a huge caldron of boiling water used for extracting oils for fuel. They struggled in front of him and the envoy where they screamed out, pleading not for their own lives but for the lives of the Ryukyuan people. Hearing their screams for him to save the Ryukyu people even as they were boiling to death moved the Kagoshima lord. It caused him to finally open his mind to the suffering of the Ryukyu people. When he finally realized the extent of the of the Ryukyuan people’s plight he expressed solidarity to those people, and not only accepted their excuses for not paying tribute but had his men carry a cargo of rice to the islands to ease the hunger and suffering of the island people. In return for his generosity he requested that the masters of the art of Karate come to Kagoshima to teach his men the fighting techniques he had observed defeat his warrior. The value and courage of those three Ryukyuan warriors initiated a new period of relations between the two kingdoms and eventually led to the cooperation and friendship of both peoples.

Later, back in the Ryukyu Kingdom, the envoy described the death of three warriors to the King. The King after hearing the story of the Ryukyu guards deaths had up the Hidari-Gomon drawn up to symbolize their heroic action. The symbol is said to portray the three Ryukyu warriors spinning around in the pot giving their lives for the greater good of the people. The symbol has since become the symbol of the Ryukyu Kingdom, a symbol which can now be found just about everywhere in Okinawa. Many Karate dojos have also incorporated its use into the symbols they use to represent their particular style of the ancient Okinawan art of Karate

Shaolin Temple

Chinese Inscription of Shaolin Temple

The Shaolin order dates to about 540 A.D., when an Indian Buddhist priest named Bodhidharma (Tamo in Chinese), traveled to China to see the Emperor. At that time, the Emperor had started local Buddhist monks translating Buddhist texts from Sanskrit to Chinese. The intent was to allow the general populace the ability to practice this religion.

This was a noble project, but when the Emperor believed this to be his path to Nirvana, Tamo disagreed. Tamo's view on Buddhism was that you could not achieve your goal just through good actions performed by others in your name. At this point the Emperor and Tamo parted ways and Tamo traveled to the nearby Buddhist temple to meet with the monks who were translating these Buddhist texts.

The temple had been built years before in the remains of a forest that had been cleared or burned down. At the time of the building of the temple, the emperor's gardeners had also planted new trees. Thus the temple was named "young (or new) forest", (Shaolin in Mandarin, Sil Lum in Cantonese).

When Tamo arrived at the temple, he was refused admittance, probably being thought of as an upstart or foreign meddler by the head abbot (Fang Chang). Rejected by the monks, Tamo went to a nearby cave and meditated until the monks recognized his religious prowess and admitted him. Legend has it that he bored a hole through one side of the cave with his constant gaze; in fact, the accomplishment that earned his recognition is lost to history.

When Tamo joined the monks, he observed that they were not in good physical condition. Most of their routine paralleled that of the Irish monks of the Middle Ages, who spent hours each day hunched over tables where they transcribed handwritten texts. Consequently, the Shaolin monks lacked the physical and mental stamina needed to perform even the most basic of Buddhist meditation practices. Tamo countered this weakness by teaching them moving exercises, designed to both enhance chi flow and build strength. These sets, modified from Indian yogas (mainly hatha, and raja) were based on the movements of the 18 main animals in Indo-Chinese iconography (e.g., tiger, deer, leopard, cobra, snake, dragon, etc.), were the beginnings of Shaolin Kung Fu.

It is hard to say just when the exercises became "martial arts". The Shaolin temple was in a secluded area where bandits would have traveled and wild animals were an occasional problem, so the martial side of the temple probably started out to fulfill self-defense needs. After a while, these movements were codified into a system of self-defense.

As time went on, this Buddhist sect became more and more distinct because of the martial arts being studied. This is not to say that Tamo "invented" martial arts. Martial arts had existed in China for centuries. But within confines of the temple, it was possible to develop and codify these martial arts into the new and different styles that would become distinctly Shaolin. One of the problems faced by many western historians is the supposed contraindication of Buddhist principles of non-violence coupled with Shaolin's legendary martial skills. In fact, the Shaolin practitioner is never an attacker, nor does he or she dispatch the most devastating defenses in any situation. Rather, the study of kung fu leads to better understanding of violence, and consequently how to avoid conflict. Failing that, a Buddhist who refuses to accept an offering of violence (i.e., and attack) merely returns it to the sender. Initially, the kung fu expert may choose to parry an attack, but if an assailant is both skilled and determined to cause harm, a more definitive and concluding solution may be required, from a joint-lock hold to a knockout, to death. The more sophisticated and violent an assault, the more devastating the return of the attack to the attacker. Buddhists are not, therefore, hurting anyone; they merely refuse delivery of intended harm.

The Shaolin philosophy is one that started from Buddhism and later adopted many Taoist principles to become a new sect. Thus even though a temple may have been Taoist or Buddhist at first, once it became Shaolin, it was a member of a new order, an amalgamation of the prevailing Chinese philosophies of the time.

Other temples sprung from Henan. This happened because the original temple would suffer repeated attacks and periods of inactivity as the reigning Imperial and regional leaders feared the martial powers of the not-always unaligned monks. Refugee Shaolin practitioners would leave the temple to teach privately (in Pai) or at other Buddhist or Taoist temples. In rare cases, a new Shaolin Temple would be erected (Fukien, Kwangtung) or converted from a pre-existing temple (Wu-Tang, O Mei Shan). Politically and militarily involved monks (such as the legendary White Eyebrow and Hung Tze Kwan) would be perpetual sources of trouble for the generally temporally aloof monks.

The main enterance (Mountain Gate) of Shaolin Temple

The Boxer rebellion in 1901 was the beginning of the end of the Shaolin temples. Prior to that, China had been occupied by Western and Japanese governments and business interests. The British had turned the Imperial family into an impotent puppet regime largely through the import and sales of opium and the general drug-devastation inflicted upon the poor population. This lead to the incursion of other European powers, including Russia, France and Holland, and later the Japanese and Americans. By the late 1800s, China was effectively divided into national zones, each controlled by one of the outside powers (similar to post World War II Berlin, on a hugely larger scale). The long standing animosities between China and Japan worsened, and extended to include all other "foreign devils" as well. Coupled with the now almost universal disdain by the Chinese for their Empress, a Nationalist movement with nation-wide grass-roots support was born. Among the front line soldiers of the new "order" were the legendary and near-legendary martial artists-many Shaolin-known as Boxers (remember how Bruce Lee, in his films depicting these times, refers to himself as a Chinese boxer...). Though their initial assaults on the military powers of the occupation governments were not entirely successful (many believed in Taoist magical spells that would make them impervious to gunfire), their temporary defeat would lead to a more modern reformation that included adopting modern military weapons and tactics.

The withdrawal of western forces was prolonged over many years, and by the end of World War I saw China in an almost feudal state of civil war. Not only were national troops fighting loyalists, but both sides had to fight the Japanese (who still held much of the northern Manchurian region of China) as well as many powerful, regional warlords. Many parts of China were virtually anarchies, but by 1931 almost all non-Asian occupants had been successfully driven out (with the interesting exception, in the late 1930s, of the volunteer American airmen known as The Flying Tigers, who helped repel Japanese forces prior to World War II), and the major combatants within China were the Nationalists and the Communists. Both sides displayed the typical jingoistic attitudes of forces in mindless warfare-if you aren't with us, you are against us. Neutrality meant nothing except the possibility of a later enemy. Consequently, Shaolin and other monks were routinely murdered by soldiers from both sides. One result of this program of murder was the exodus of many monks into the hills, or abroad, with the hope that Shaolin knowledge might survive even if the temples themselves did not.

Shaolin Monks

The temples were unfortunate victims of war in a land that had abandoned its historical practice of respecting posterity and ancestors. All were ransacked and looted by various armed groups. O Mei Shan Temple ("Great White Mountain"), in Szechuan Province, was situated on a mountain top and deemed by Chinese officers to be a fitting target for artillery practice. It was shelled in turn by Nationalist and Communist armies. In a fitting twist of fate, this one-time site of medical and natural history knowledge was rebuilt by the Communists in the mid 1970s, and now stands as the National Park and Research Headquarters for the panda preserve.

There are various stories coming out of China today referring to the history of Shaolin, particularly over the past 300 years. However, many of these stories are suspect (compare Chinese accounts of Tiananmen Square with CNN news coverage), with the more commonly "authenticated" versions coming from government records. The fact that Chinese authorities outlawed Shaolin and martial arts practices makes any story about their history from such sources suspect. The prevalent wu-shu styles originated as a result of a compromise between the post-World War II governments and the national need and history of having a martial arts tradition. Wu-Shu, however, was not designed as a martial art (strictly illegal), and claims to the contrary date back only a decade or so, following on the popularity of Kung Fu.

Original article @ www.shaolin.com