Classical Japanese Martial Arts and the Concept of the Peaceful Warrior

Over at Ellis Amdur's excellent blog, Kogen Budo, there is an excellent guest post. It is an essay by Dave Lowry on the concept of the "peaceful warrior" and classical Japanese martial arts. 

Anything written by either of these authors is worth reading.

An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

The short treatise, translated into English, was on the nature of budō. It was written by a very senior exponent of classical koryu. I knew him. He was among the most erudite—and physically talented—budōka I’ve ever encountered. I have paid attention to every word he’s said and written. He made the point in the essay, one that was an overview of some of his opinions and beliefs, that in the end the ultimate goal of all traditional budō was to “establish peace.”

The notion is hardly unique, of course. We read it, we hear in the dōjō similar sentiments all the time. Curious about it though, I found the same essay online in the original Japanese. The same line in Japanese used the word junjo (順序) for what was translated as “peace.” Which is not at all the same thing. Junjo means “to put things in order.” And that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, makes all the difference.

The concept of peace is perhaps one of the more ubiquitous we encounter in discussing traditional Japanese arts. The etymologically inclined have broken down the kanji for “bu” (武) into two radicals that demonstrate how it actually means “to stop a spear,” implying that peace is indeed the righteous, lofty, and true goal of these cultural enterprises. Budō, the “Way of Martial Art,” we are reliably informed by dozens of writers on the subject, is really the Way of Peace. Martial arts writing and advertising is loaded, of course, with all manner of references to the ideal “peaceful warrior.” We are reminded again and again that the “true warrior” never has to draw his sword and that the greatest actualization of budō is in generating a kind of halcyon social order where conflict never arises or is addressed in a deeply humanitarian way.

Nor is budō alone among Japan’s pre-modern arts in this emphasis. The 45^th headmaster of the Ikenobo school of flower arranging, Sen’ei Ikenobo, made a presentation a few years ago at the United Nations, a demonstration entitled “Peace Through Floral Expression.”

The previous headmaster of the Urasenke school of tea adopted the expression “peacefulness in a bowl of tea” as both a kind of personal motto and a statement of commission for his students worldwide. Of the four cardinal virtues of chadō, the first in fact, is wa, which is sometimes translated as “harmony,” but also as “peace.”

It is worthwhile in contemplating this phenomenon to consider a study done some years ago, an in-depth look at the motivations of chajin—practitioners of the tea ceremony. Both Western and Japanese students were interviewed. Both groups enthusiastically emphasized the idea of peacefulness and harmony as a primary reason they were involved and absorbed in the art.

Later, the researcher returned and dug a bit deeper. Exactly what, he wanted to know, do you mean by “peace?” Here, there was a marked contrast. Western students overwhelming described the peacefulness of the tea ceremony as the mental state they achieved within themselves. They felt more centred and calm, more able to deal with life’s stresses from a balanced connexion within, more apt to live with a placid sense of self. The process of chadō was, in part at least, a ritual of meditation for them, deeply personal and self-actualized. The Japanese students, however, explained that by “peace” they were referring to establishing and maintaining a sense of order within the group. They did not perceive it as a self-centred idea but rather as the foundation of a mutually beneficial matrix of others.

Same word, two largely different meanings. There should be a clue here for the serious practitioner of any traditional Japanese art. The reality is that “peace” does not readily translate as a concept nor are the implications of the word universal. This is particularly true in the case of Japanese culture.