3 Metaphors

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[Jorx]

At the beginning of the world,
There came from the Heavens
The Curved Stone, the Mirror and the Sword
To build up a nation.

- Morihei Ueshiba

That was today's doka.
Your impressions?

Anyway what are the metaphors Stone, Mirror and Sword?


Jorgen
Estonian Aikikai
Riveta Sportsclub

[jaxonbrown]

stone = :square:
mirror = :circle:
sword = :triangle:

balance, flow, force

Aikido is everything, yet nothing.

Hell, I don't know.:straightf

[Hanna B]

Originally posted by Jorx
Anyway what are the metaphors Stone, Mirror and Sword?
Aren't the sword and the mirror some kind of sacred objects to the Japanese? The verse sounds pretty nationalistic to me.

Hanna

[Arianah]

Originally posted by Hanna B
Aren't the sword and the mirror some kind of sacred objects to the Japanese?
There is the myth of Ame-nigishi-kuni-nigishi-ama-tsu-hidaka-hiko-ho-no-ni-nigi-no-mikoto (whew! :D), who, according to legend, founded the imperial dynasty of Jamato. His grandmother, Ama-terasu-o-mi-kami, the sun goddess gave him "The Three Treasures," the sword(Kusa-nagi-no-tachi), the mirror, and the curved jewel, which are imperial symbols still. "Stone" could just be a loose/mis translation of "jewel." Also, stones are sacred objects to Shinto. Who knows? As I understand it, it was hard enough to understand O'Sensei if you were a native speaker of Japanese. With only rough translations (as precise translations of unrelated languages are a lot of the time impossible) of what he said, I wonder if there is any hope for we non-Japanese speakers. Sigh.

Sarah