Doka with Pine, Bamboo, Plum, Water, Fire

The Pine, the Bamboo, and the Plum.
The make up of Ki that we are training to purify
From where do they arise?
The Water and Fire of the change in the self.

Does anyone have the original Japanese ... well, actually a more literal translation of the orginal Japanese?

Thanks,
Mark

Mark Murray wrote: The Pine, the Bamboo, and the Plum. The make up of Ki that we are training to purify From where do they arise? The Water and Fire of the change in the self. Does anyone have the original Japanese ... well, actually a more literal translation of the orginal Japanese? Thanks, Mark

松竹梅錬り清めゆく気の仕組いつここに生るや身変るの水火

I don't have time to post a translation now, maybe a little later...

Best,

Chris

Christopher Li wrote: 松竹梅錬り清めゆく気の仕組いつここに生るや身変るの水火 I don't have time to post a translation now, maybe a little later... Best, Chris

Thanks Chris!

I just wondered how the fire/water change to purify intent was related to pine, bamboo, and plum.

Mark Murray wrote: Thanks Chris! I just wondered how the fire/water change to purify intent was related to pine, bamboo, and plum.

Peter Goldsbury did a dissection of this very Doka at http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15738

Best,

Chris

Why plum, bamboo, and pine?

Timon Screech has answers. Lesley Downer reviews his latest work, in which some of them might be found:

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/downer_07_12.php

Fred Little wrote: Why plum, bamboo, and pine?

because it sounded cool? sort of "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" kind of thing. i have used bamboo and pine as firewood to boil water before.

Phi Truong wrote: because it sounded cool? sort of "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" kind of thing. i have used bamboo and pine as firewood to boil water before.

No, Phi. It's another example of misplaced punctuation messing with the sentence structure.
Plumb and pine are both intended to be read as third person verb forms.
"Plumb bamboo and pine" is clearly a reference to the fact that bamboo, being a hollow solid, can be cut and arranged as piping for latrines; however, being not ideally suited for the task, the user will end up pining for proper indoor facilities.
Worthy advice indeed and the tie-in is obvious in that water is freely available; however fire to provide hot running water is another level altogether.

I believe that "pine, bamboo, and plum" are considerd the "three friends of winter"...You can look it up for more detail.......

"Fire and Water" within onesself refers, I believe, to the internal alchemy that needs to take place when they are combined in order to anchieve some level of enlightenment.

Could be wrong....

James Sawers wrote: I believe that "pine, bamboo, and plum" are considerd the "three friends of winter"...You can look it up for more detail.......

Yes, that's the conventional connection - there's much more for Ueshiba.

Best,

Chris

Christopher Li wrote: Peter Goldsbury did a dissection of this very Doka at http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15738 Best, Chris

Yes. But it's a bit hazy still.

We have this from Peter:

合気は和と統一に結んでいくのである。梅と松の仕組みである松竹梅の教え。
Aiki wa wa to toitsu ni musunde iku no de aru. Ume to matsu no shikumi de aru shochikubai no oshie.
Aiki is peace and harmony, the pine and plum together, the teaching of sho chiku bai.

Let's skip the first sentence for just a moment and look at that second one. Did anyone else notice that there's something just not right in there (he mentions pine and plum together but not pine)? If I might try a stab at it, I come up with something along the lines of:

The workings of shochikubai (pine, plum, and bamboo) can be found in the pine and plum together.

Ueshiba stating that a common Japanese term, "shochikubai" (as Peter noted, it has google hits of 774,000) can be discovered in his aiki training by looking at the pine and plum together.

What does he mean by pine and plum?

We go back to Peter's TIE article:

松竹梅 (Shochikubai)
錬り清めゆく(neri kiyome yuku)
気の仕組 (ki no shikumi)
いつここ/ いずこに生るや (itsukoko / izuko ni naruya)
身変るの水火 (mikawaru no iki)
(The Japanese text of Abe differs from that of Stevens in the fourth line.)
The pine, the bamboo, and the plumThe make up of Ki that we are training to purifyFrom where do they arise?The Water and Fire of the change in the self.

Here Ueshiba notes that shochikubai arise from Water and Fire and the change in self.

We know from your translations that fire and water are placeholders for in/yo training. So, if we substitute, we find that the pine and plum are in and yo while the bamboo must be the change between them.

In other words, Ueshiba's saying that his view of shochikubai is that, in aiki, where one must have contradictory spiraling forces, the pine and plum are the contradictory forces while the bamboo is the area in between where the change occurs. Even more so when the contradictory forces are reversed.

Does that make sense?

Going a bit further in Peter's article, if we take the pine as irimi and the plum with void, we see that in contradictory forces, we have active/passive here. Then we see bamboo as tenkan, or change. Given that we are dealing with spirals and the area between contradictory ones, tenkan is probably a natural occurance.

Mark

Mark Murray wrote: Yes. But it's a bit hazy still. We have this from Peter: å�ˆæ°—ã�¯å'Œã�¨çµ±ä¸€ã�«çµ�ã‚"ã�§ã�„ã��ã�®ã�§ã�‚る。梅ã�¨æ�¾ã�®ä»•çµ„ã�¿ã�§ã� ‚ã‚‹æ�¾ç«¹æ¢…ã�®æ•™ã�ˆã€‚ Aiki wa wa to toitsu ni musunde iku no de aru. Ume to matsu no shikumi de aru shochikubai no oshie. Aiki is peace and harmony, the pine and plum together, the teaching of sho chiku bai. Let's skip the first sentence for just a moment and look at that second one. Did anyone else notice that there's something just not right in there (he mentions pine and plum together but not pine)? If I might try a stab at it, I come up with something along the lines of: The workings of shochikubai (pine, plum, and bamboo) can be found in the pine and plum together. Ueshiba stating that a common Japanese term, "shochikubai" (as Peter noted, it has google hits of 774,000) can be discovered in his aiki training by looking at the pine and plum together. What does he mean by pine and plum? We go back to Peter's TIE article: æ�¾ç«¹æ¢… (Shochikubai) 錬り清ã‚�ゆã��(neri kiyome yuku) æ°—ã�®ä»•çµ„ (ki no shikumi) ã�„ã�¤ã�"ã�"/ ã�„ã�šã�"ã�«ç"Ÿã‚‹ã‚„ (itsukoko / izuko ni naruya) 身変るã�®æ°´ç�« (mikawaru no iki) (The Japanese text of Abe differs from that of Stevens in the fourth line.) The pine, the bamboo, and the plumThe make up of Ki that we are training to purifyFrom where do they arise?The Water and Fire of the change in the self. Here Ueshiba notes that shochikubai arise from Water and Fire and the change in self. We know from your translations that fire and water are placeholders for in/yo training. So, if we substitute, we find that the pine and plum are in and yo while the bamboo must be the change between them. In other words, Ueshiba's saying that his view of shochikubai is that, in aiki, where one must have contradictory spiraling forces, the pine and plum are the contradictory forces while the bamboo is the area in between where the change occurs. Even more so when the contradictory forces are reversed. Does that make sense? Going a bit further in Peter's article, if we take the pine as irimi and the plum with void, we see that in contradictory forces, we have active/passive here. Then we see bamboo as tenkan, or change. Given that we are dealing with spirals and the area between contradictory ones, tenkan is probably a natural occurance. Mark

Good stuff Mark - I'm slammed this week, but I'll throw in that you might want to think about "tai no henko" - the "change of the body" which is usually represented by the circle (bamboo) and the interchange of fire and water, which are intimately connected to In and Yo, but are not (quite) synonymous.

Peter might have some thoughts....

Best,

Chris

James Sawers wrote: I believe that "pine, bamboo, and plum" are considerd the "three friends of winter"...You can look it up for more detail....... "Fire and Water" within onesself refers, I believe, to the internal alchemy that needs to take place when they are combined in order to anchieve some level of enlightenment. Could be wrong....

Regarding Morihei Ueshiba and his writing/sayings/doka/etc, there are - in general - two layers: spiritual and physical.

For the longest time, everyone was focusing on his sayings as entirely spiritual and everyone was lost. (Everyone meaning 99.9% I'm sure there were exceptions out there.) Ueshiba, himself, cleared up this dilemna by saying that you didn't have to follow in his spiritual footsteps. You could pick pretty much anything. Aiki made it better. Aiki being the martial concept.

Because of that and because we are now finding that Ueshiba was also referring to some fairly old physical, martial training concepts, we have recently begun to look at what Ueshiba was saying in reference to those martial training concepts.

Spiritually - someone else can dig into those meanings.
Martially - He meant specific training concepts. What were they?

For instance, he would write ka and mi (fire and water) as kami. Now, when he's speaking, did he mean kami as in spirits or kami as in fire/water? When someone wrote down what he said, did they get the right "kami"?

Refer to Chris Li's blogs for more examples.

Mark

Christopher Li wrote: Good stuff Mark - I'm slammed this week, but I'll throw in that you might want to think about "tai no henko" - the "change of the body" which is usually represented by the circle (bamboo) and the interchange of fire and water, which are intimately connected to In and Yo, but are not (quite) synonymous. Peter might have some thoughts.... Best, Chris

LOL. Yeah. I started looking at tai sabaki awhile back. Thread is here:
http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15054
There were some very interesting replies.

It just goes to show that when Ueshiba referenced anything "tai" or body, it wasn't about the physical, outward appearance. So, why would tai no henko be any different?

It's funny that we've copied the outward, physical appearance of tai no henko for over 40 years. It got us nowhere. And according to Aikido Journal, Ueshiba did this exercise regularly.
http://www.aikidojournal.com/encyclopedia?entryID=652
We obviously missed something.

Mark:

Quite correct. Unless we have a firm grounding in the language and symbology used by the author, we can only guess at the original, true meaning. For myself, I only speak Scots, English, American, and a little Fortran (cough!). Unfortunately, I do not speak Japanese (or Chinese), so I am at the mercy of the translators. It is gratifying to have found here such a rich source of knowledge and experience. Thanks.....

Jim......

Can we entertain these three (Sho Chiku Bai; square, circle and triangle) as:
1. Sho 松 Pine, being the ‘Earth’ base square of Ko-tai, solid form.
2. Chiku 竹 Bamboo, being ‘Man’ centred circle of Ju-tai, fluid form.
3. Bai 梅 Plum, being ‘Heaven’ oriented triangle of Ryu-tai, gaseous form.
A progression from the gross to the subtle, from the rough to the refined as indicated by the everyday usage of good, better, best quality in Japan?

1. The evergreen pine is associated with the Jewel, completeness, the square, and Katsuhayabi;
2. the sturdy bamboo is associated with the Sword, resilience, the circle, and Agatsu;
3. and the elegant plum blossom is associated with the Mirror, stability, the triangle, and Masakatsu.

�� The triangle represents ‘Iku-musubi’, the power of birth and creation, the gaseous dimension. It symbolizes initiative, the animal realm, and Masakatsu. Technically, the triangle represents entering and flowing movements (Ryutai).
“The triangle represents the generation of energy and initiative; it is the most stable physical posture.”

⏺ The circle represents ‘taru-musubi’, the enriching power, the liquid dimension. It symbolises unification, the vegetable realm, and Agatsu. Technically, the circle represents blending and soft movements (Jutai).
“The circle symbolises unification, serenity and perfection; it is the source of unlimited techniques.”

⏹ The square represents ‘tamatsume-musubi’, the power that fixes the soul in the physical body, the solid dimension. It symbolizes form, the mineral realm, and Katsuhayahi. Technically, the square represents control and firm or ‘hard’ movements (Gotai).
“The square stands for form and solidity, the basis of applied control.”

“When the triangle, the circle and the square become one, it moves in spherical rotation together with the flow of ki, and the Aikido of sumi-kiri (total clarity of mind and body) appears.”
–Morihei Ueshiba