Reading through the above exchanges, it comes to mind that the word "dojo" has a very specific history, which is summarized in the following excerpt from a talk by Robert Aitken.
Quote:
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Now I want to say a few words about the dojo. Dojo is a term that you are familiar with because it is used by people in akido, karate, judo and so on. It's even in the English dictionary. It is a sino-Japanese term made up of two ideographs. "Do" is the Japanese pronunciation of Tao, as in Tao-te-ching or Taoism. And Jo simply means place. The place of the Tao. Tao means "way". Arthur Whaley translates the Tao-te-Ching as the way and its power. But Tao does not mean only a way to - it does not simply mean a means. The opening words in the Tao-te-Ching are, "The way that can be followed is not the true way." So we should understand what Tao means.
When Kumara-jiva and other great translators set about rendering Buddhist Sanskrit into Chinese they had to find Chinese words that were equivalent to particular Sanskrit expressions. They used the word Tao to mean not only path but also realisation. They used Tao to translate Bodhi. So Tao is not only the path to realisation, it is realisation itself. Actually Dojo is a translation of the Sanskrit word Bodhi Manda. Bodhi is enlightenment, Manda is spot or place, the place or spot of enlightenment and it refers to the spot under the Bodhi tree where the Buddha sat when he saw the morning star and had his great realisation.
So, your meditation hall, your dojo, is your sacred place. Your cushions are your own personal dojo, your own personal Bodhi Manda, your own personal spot of realisation. Thus it is very important to keep the dojo as a sacred place of realisation. It must be spotlessly clean, it must be in regular order with a figure as the focal point of devotion - a Buddha or a Bodhisattva. Before the Buddha or Bodhisattva, you should have incense, flowers and a candle. The candle represents enlightenment, the flowers represent compassion, the two sides of any genuine religious experience. The incense is an offering to the Buddha, as of course candle and flowers are as well.
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While it is certainly common in the martial arts world to refer to a martial arts training hall as a
dojo, the usage isn't universal. A number of such schools, in both Japan and the West, use the word
juku, which can be translated as "private school" in their formal names, as distinct from the word
dojo.
All of this raises a question that is related to that of the relationship between Buddhist practice, Shinto practice and martial arts practice, particularly in the West. I would also note that, Josh Reyer's largely accurate and informative parsing of some of the differences between Shinto and Buddhist practice, most contemporary scholars of Japanese religious practice have discarded the sectarian narrative that draws sharp distinctions between those practices and now take a much more nuanced view that frankly asserts that much of what is regarded as "pure Shinto" is in fact refigured and nativized Buddhist practice.
That said, here is my question: Is it appropriate for martial arts schools that are operated with no interest in or an active disinterest in those spiritual traditions to use the word "dojo" as part of their names? Would it not be more accurate for them to refer to themselves as "clubs" or "schools" "academiesm" or some similar name which does convey the notion of education and training, but does not carry the implication of a linkage with East Asian religious practice?
What do folks think?
Best,
Fred Little