Elder999 said:Discipline is a means to an end, never an end in itself.
I accede that point.
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Elder999 said:Discipline is a means to an end, never an end in itself.
OnlyAnEgg said:[/color]
I see martial arts as a path to many things: physical fitness, discipline, skill and, as it's the topic, a degree of internal knowledge that can easily be moved to a deeper spirituality. I maintain spirituality is innate; but, there's a great difference between a spiritual creature and a creature of spirituality. It, too, is a path.
OnlyAnEgg said:/Is that not an agreement on the innate nature of some degree of spirituality?
I think it's encouraging that instructors are going the extra mile to accommodate students who have the desire to further travel their own spiritual paths in the art. Excellent. Though for me, no matter what the art, there's always capacity for practitioners to gain a deeper knowledge of themselves, which hopefully directs them towards enlightenment. I don't think this is strictly the domain of eastern arts either.bushidomartialarts said:the general kenpo culture doesn't seem to place much importance on the spiritual growth of their students, but many individual instructors and dojos work hard to provide some guidance anyway.
There's still a confusion among practitioners in the arts between religion and spirituality / philosophy even [take a look at the MT spirituality / philosophy sub-forum and see how many threads concern organised religion]. But whilst a faithful follower of a religion can undoubtedly attain a martial spirituality with the assistance of their faith, I maintain, that there is no requirement for one to hold any religious convictions to achieve the same enlightenment.Xue Sheng said:I can respect a truly religious person but I equally fear a religious zealot. I did not wish to leave anyone the impression that I am against religion or the lack of it either. I am just very concerned with the application of religion to martial arts, particularly Western religions and new age religions.
MartialIntent said:ps. I hope you don't return to the safety of your “martial arts” area of the boards. Your insight is welcome. I say be free and roam and cast your net wide!
Respects!
With regard to Shorinji Kempo. There are three ranking structures in operation. These are Bukai (martial art) Hokai (philosophy) and Sokai (religion). To gain Sokai rankings it is necessary to train at doin, as dojoÂ’s are not allowed to teach the religious syllabus. As there are no doinÂ’s outside of Japan there are only a few westerners with Sokai ranking. Bukai and Hokai ranking will be gained in normal practice at a dojo or shibu.MartialIntent said:What style of Kenpo do you practise? As a layperson when it comes to kenpo, I'd have thought of the art as perhaps not aligning itself to any particular spiritual ideas - though having done some research into Shorinji Kempo, I found the opposite to be true in that time is devoted within the practise hall to the spiritual practices utterly integral to the artform as formulated by Doshin So. Do you know if this is the case?
Respects!
If a dojo is in any government owned building they are not allowed to teach religion. This is not only with us, it is any religion. If the dojo is in a privately owned building they can teach religion. In regards to Shorinji Kempo, to teach the religion (Kongo Zen Buddhism) it is necessary to hold the required ranking in this aspect. If you hold the rank and the premises is suitable then you will have the classification of doin instead of dojo and teach the religion along side of the martial art and philosopy. Just for interest our headquarters is a temple in Tadotsu. It is a Shorinji Kempo temple and also a school. They teach a normal high school curriculum along with Shorinji Kempo. They also have a higher learning institute where Shorinji Kempo kenshi of yudansha ranks can study full time for a period of either 2 or 3 years. They devote 4 hours a day to the martial art and 4 hours a day to the religion. At the end of the period they will exit with the required grade to teach Shorinji Kempo. Below is our Headquarters, the buildings are for accomodation of live in students, WSKO administration, the School, a museum, and a three level training complex (2000 people can train there at any one time I've been told). I have been there twice and would dearly love to return again, the experiance was great. This is a link to the school if your interested http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/school/zenrin/distinctive.htmlFu_Bag said:Colin_Linz,
Thank you for sharing that information. That's interesting about the religion in publicly owned buildings being illegal. Do they define dojos as publicly owned buildings? It seems self-defeating to me that a law would be passed outlawing a certain aspect of culture. If that's the case, that really is a sad state of affairs for the preservation of the martial arts.
Three years full time study will get you to 4th dan, you need to be at least 1st dan to start. Grades in Shorinji Kempo can take a little while to acheive. From memory the two head instructor's (we do most of our techniques in pair form) there are 6th or 7th dan. This is a link to Kawashima sensei profile, he is head the head instructor. at Hombu (headquarters) Doin. He has studied there pretty pretty much full time for many years. I first met him in 1989 he was assisting the then head instructors Arai sensei and Yamazaki sensei. http://www.shorinjikempo.or.jp/wsko/instructor/17.htmlFu_Bag said:Colin_Linz,
Thank you for the additional information and clarification. What an outstanding setup you guys have going! It's very encouraging that such a place exists! I bet the students there get very high grades.
In short....<drool>
That'd be great if such places existed in the West.![]()