View Single Post
Old 01-25-2011, 10:27 PM   #5
David Orange
Dojo: Aozora Dojo
Location: Birmingham, AL
Join Date: Feb 2006
Posts: 1,511
United_States
Offline
Re: Aikido - An analogy to the Japanese Sword (Pt1)

Quote:
Keith Gates wrote: View Post
One of my favorite moments from "The Samurai Trilogy", the story of Samurai legend Miyamoto Musashi quite elegantly epitomizes the notion. Musashi's blade has been well used and is chipped from a previous fight. He takes it to a polisher (still with blood on it I think). The polisher looks at the weapon then looks disdainfully at Musashi and scornfully says, "I don't polish weapons of death. I only polish the souls of the Samurai".

Musashi, immediately offended snatches back his sword, wrestling within himself whether to cut the fellow down on the spot. In a fit of rage, Musashi gets up from the floor and leaves the polisher's workshop.

Later after he has come to his senses, he returns back into the polisher's store. He kneels down, and bows his head to the floor, respectfully and remorsefully, even perhaps with shame, he says, "I request that you polish my soul". The whole Musashi story is about his spiritual journey from that of an animal to a refined enlightened being.
You realize that's fiction, right?

And it's quite insulting to Musashi to say that he transitioned from "an animal to a refined, enlightened being."

He was a swordsman with a highly refined spirit. He lived on the bedrock of truth. And he taught that until his death.

It's so strange to real martial artists that so many modern would-be martial artists need first to neuter history and modify the truth before they can accept a fiction over immoveable truth.

Regards.

David

"That which has no substance can enter where there is no room."
Lao Tzu

"Eternity forever!"

www.esotericorange.com
  Reply With Quote