beginner’s mind is something which we hope to meet along the Way. We cannot fix on the beginner’s mind as an object of our search, however, for,
“When one first seeks the truth, one separates oneself far from its environs. When one has already correctly transmitted the truth to oneself, one is one’s original self at that moment.” Genjokoan
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FOUNDATIONS OF KARATE
Historical Background
Origins in China
Bodhidarma, whom the Japanese call Daruma, was an Indian patriarch, the twenty-eighth in the line of succession from Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. Bodhidarma left India for China, arriving there in 520 A.D., and he established himself at Shaolin Monastery, which had been founded by the Indian monk Batuo some three decades earlier. Shaolin Monastery is nestled on the barren slopes of Song Mountain in the Henan Province of central China.
Bodhidarma left India in order to plant Buddhism in the new soil of Chinese culture. In India, Buddhism had evolved into a complex philosophical system, and the core of its practice was eroding. Bodhidarma sat in silent meditation (zazen) in a cave on Song Mountain for nine years. Through this solitary, ascetic practice, he reached enlightenment. However, he did not feel that the training of the body was to be neglected. While doing zazen, he practiced a series of physical movements, both for exercise and for defense against wild animals.
Bodhidarma passed on his physical training techniques to the monks at Shaolin, who integrated them into their spiritual training. These techniques were also used to defend the monastery against bandits who roamed the desolate Chinese countryside. As word spread about the effective selfdefense techniques used by the monks, it was inevitable that the monastery would be drawn into local politics. At the peak of Shaolin’s fortunes, during the T’ang Dynasty some 13 centuries ago, the monastery had several hundred fighting monks and a thousand lay residents who tilled several thousand acres of communal farm land that had come under the monastery’s control. Shaolin’s fortunes rose and fell during the struggles among various Chinese warlords, reaching the low point in 1928, when the monastery was burned to the ground. The techniques that Bodhidarma had developed were formalized into an indigenous martial art called Wushu. This art has withered over the years, being replaced by kempo, or “temple boxing.” After 1928, the practice of the martial arts was banned, as part of the effort to destroy the temple’s power and influence.
The martial arts were born in China out of Bodhidarma’s search for spiritual enlightenment. It was not long, however, before the secular world became interested in them for very non-spiritual reasons. The martial arts spread beyond the monastery walls, and they became intimately involved with the world of courtly politics and economics.
The very practical nature of Chinese culture and thought had revivified the Buddhism that Bodhidarma brought from India. Buddhism lost the unworldly, ascetic bent it developed in India. In China, it was practiced widely in temples, which were intimately involved in local activity; Buddhism became perhaps too worldly, and again the core of the practice was being lost. It was necessary that the seed be carried to fresh ground. This was to be Japan.
The Middle Way Comes To Japan
Buddhism arrived in Japan in the middle of the sixth century from Korea. At that time, there was tremendous rivalry among the various clans competing for the favor of the Japanese Emperor. The Soga clan championed the cause of Buddhism, and it successfully influenced the royal family. Toward the end of the sixth century, Prince Shotoku Taishi, an intellectual and philosopher, threw his support to Buddhism. He became a prominent Buddhist scholar, writing commentaries on the sutras, or scriptures.
In the early part of the seventh century, the T’ang Dynasty (618-906) began its ascendancy in China. Remember that Shaolin’s influence was at its height under the T’angs. Japanese culture and administration patterned themselves after the T’ang Dynasty. The city of Nara, for example, the imperial city of Japan, was built on the model of Ch’ang-an in China.
On the political front in Japan, as the clans struggled for influence with the Emperor, his own real power started waning. The Emperor eventually became a figurehead, with the Fujiwara family becoming the real civil power in Japan. With the Emperor weakened and no central system of taxation or administration, Japan fell into an extended feudal period. The Fujiwaras, meanwhile, divided into warring factions, each one allying itself with a military house for support and protection. Eventually, the military class wrested power from the dominant families, and, in 1192, Yoritomo was made the first Shogun, or “Generalissimo.”
Buddhism had been planted firmly in the Japanese soil under the patronage of Prince Shotoku Taishi. In Japan, however, it was radically transformed into something unique, namely, Zen. Dogen, a Japanese Buddhist monk, went to China to study and learn first-hand the deeper teachings of Buddhism. In China, he went from temple to temple, inquiring and observing the practice. He was unsatisfied with what he saw and heard, and he decided to go back home to Japan. Before returning, he stopped at a temple and observed a very old monk kneeling on the ground, drying mushrooms in the sun.
Dogen was surprised that an old man, a senior monk of the temple, was doing the labor of the most junior monks.
“Why are you working in the hot sun doing the job of your younger subordinates when you are a senior monk of the temple?” asked Dogen.
“If I do not do this, if I do not work here and now, who could understand? I am not you, I am not others. Others are not me. So others cannot have the experience. I must dry these mushrooms here and now, today, at this moment. Now, go away so I may work!”’
Dogen was startled and had the experience of enlightenment (satori). He spent a year in the temple, studying with the old monk’s teacher. Dogen received the kesa of transmission from the Master and went home to Japan to introduce his practice of Zen to Japan.
In China and India, Buddhist practice came to be secondary to philosophical systems or to ethical and political norms. Dogen, as a result of his experience, and continuing in the line of succession from Shakyamuni Buddha, founded Zen based on two basic principles:
• Direct, personal experience.
• Practice of zazen (seated meditation).
What Dogen did was to strip away all the philosophical, intellectual and external superstructures of Buddhism that had been destroying the core, namely, the practice. The practice, that is zazen, now became the only thing. Everything else was secondary.
The quiet, spare simplicity of Zen appealed greatly to many elements in the Japanese character, and it quickly took root and interacted in many profound ways with Japanese history and culture. Zen became a way for the warrior, the aristocrat and the scholar. It stressed, among other things, a unity with nature. The Zen influence led to a very prolific period in Japanese landscape painting. No aspect of Japanese art and culture escaped the Zen influence. The most striking example, which remains today, is the Dai Butsu, the huge statue of Amida at Kamakura.
During the feudal period in Japan, the samurai, or warrior class, rose to positions of great influence and respect. Particularly during the Kamakura period in the thirteenth century, the samurai absorbed much from Zen. They, in turn, imbued Zen with much of their stoic attitude. The samurai reached their peak of power and influence
