View Single Post
Old 05-28-2012, 06:44 PM   #96
lbb
Location: Massachusetts
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,202
United_States
Offline
Re: Spiritual and i/p

Quote:
Hugh Beyer wrote: View Post
The specific claim has been made that O-Sensei quoted classic concepts from Chinese martial arts extensively.

This claim is either true or false, isn't it? Is there any room here for how "I feel" about the matter?

If the claim is true, surely it has implications about the art we practice. Either it's based on principles which go all the way back to the Chinese or it's not. Is there any room for "what I want" in the question?
But couldn't the claim be true and also be a big "so what"? People say all kinds of things; not every statement is of deep significance. Unless you're some kind of fanatic, surely you don't think everything O-Sensei ever said was intended as some "here's the eternal truth" statement. And, if you accept that (and I know that many don't), surely the guy was allowed a tossoff remark now and again that just didn't mean that much. Maybe, if we really want to know the truth of history, we need to consider the context of historical figures' statements before assigning importance to them.