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Old 10-25-2005, 09:12 AM   #51
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
United_States
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Re: Kokyu explanation

Quote:
Fred Little wrote:
Did you miss the first line about "vast oversimplification?"

It sounds a lot like you are simply projecting your own desire for the triumphal validation of a particular totalizing system onto my occasional crazyquilt banners.

It's undoubtedly true that the use of "ki" in Japanese is much broader and cruder than the precise usages of "ki" in Chinese, going all the way back to the Yellow Emperor's Classic.

I would be very surprised if the usages of "jin" in Chinese weren't also vastly more precise than the general uses of "kokyu" in Japanese, but it would take a good bit of several kinds of study for me to say much more than that.
Hi Fred:

Asides aside, my point was *still* the questioning of why vagaries are constantly being used instead of factual discussions.

Insofar as, for instance, "kokyu", I know pretty exactly why the term for 'breath' is used to describe this power which has jin as its essence. I've laid out enough of the reason before (it, like many other things from me and many others, now resides in the archives for future generations to read). There is a bit more to it which is crucial, but I've never pretended to tell all I know, even though I have taken pains to tell exactly how many basic and checkable things are done. I would be tickled to death to see other people contribute in the same vein with factual how-to's and less "feels good".
Quote:
I would be further surprised if there weren't individuals in Japan who had good solid Chinese educations, both scholarly and martial, and got it, but rather than laying it out for their students in plain, precise language, intentionally draped their teaching in obscure, vague, or simply incorrect explanations for the express purpose of maintaining their own positions as teachers in perpetuity.
I agree
Quote:
That's what the whole iemoto system in particular, and Japanese culture more generally, is about.

But at the end of the day, however well or badly drawn, the map is still not the territory.

And I'm not even trying to draw a map, I'm just finding my way over the next ridge and dropping a few marks along my path.
If a beginner has a map that shows him where to go look for the treasure, that's a lot more valuable than vague directional hand-waves from people who have never been to where he wants to go.

Regards,

Mike
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