Back to Main Index

Back to issue #6 Index

 

Zanshin: Lingering Spirit

The young man returned from the war, only to encounter his sworn enemy in his own parents' home. What did he do? He dedicated his life to global peace and cultural transmission through his family art and business.

It was the latter months of 1945, after Japan's surrender. The convulsions of war had finally ended, and with it the hostilities that brought out the worst inhumanity of its participants. American General Douglas MacArthur and his staff had descended, like a conquering shogun army, upon the sacred soil of the Japanese homeland, and the disarmament of the Imperial Japanese military had begun.

The young naval recruit had tears in his eyes while he looked out from the train at the country's devastated cities. How could Japan have lost? Not even the all-devouring Mongols succeeded in conquering Japan's warriors. But the unbelievable had indeed happened.

As he stared out of the dusty window of the train, he recalled his leavetaking. His father had given him a small lacquered box, filled with tea ceremony utensils and had taught him a new version of a chabako tea ceremony that could be performed on board ships, with a minimum of utensils. That was his father's parting gift to a son that was not expected to return. For although the propaganda broadcasts declared victory after victory over the decadent Americans, one had to only look outside the window to see the famine and devastation that years of war had brought back to Japan. Being called into service was like being given a death sentence.

Alighting from the train at Kyoto station, the young survivor walked the final steps of his journey to his family's property in northern Kyoto, just off Horikawa Street.
He crossed a familiar canal, paused as his hands rubbed an ancient wooden post, breathed in the scents and sounds of a place he dared not dream he would ever return to.

When he stepped through the doorway, he was greeted by a student of his father's, whose eyes glistened at the corners with tears of happiness. The Young Master had returned! The student informed him that his father was awaiting him in the family's main room, with guests, and that he should join them immediately.

When the Young Master entered the main room, he was shocked at the sight. His father, Tantansai, was serving tea to American military officers who were among the first wave of the occupation forces. Just a few weeks ago, they were his sworn enemies!

That Young Master, now in his autumn years, was Sen Shoshitsu, the current Oiemoto (family head) of the Urasenke tradition of chanoyu, or as we call it, "tea ceremony."

"Here was the enemy, and my father was making them a bowl of tea, as if they were honored guests!" Sen said to me in an interview conducted some years ago. Then he realized the stupidity of war, and how people who could kill and slaughter each other one day could turn around and partake of tea the other. Sen, as did millions of Japanese of his generation, realized that Japan had reaped the whirlwind, and that the Occupation under the United States military would be a fruitful one only if they turned away from imperialistic arrogance. In the years to follow, Soshitsu grew to admire the generally fair administration of his country by the American occupiers.
--But why did it have to take a war for this friendship to blossom between Japan and the United States? Sen was no politician, but he felt that he had to help the cause of peace in the world so that future wars could be avoided. How could he accomplish this?

Encouraged by his family and especially by his older sister, Sen went to college in Hawaii, learning English and the customs of the Americans. He traveled through the United States, visited Europe, journied through Asia, marveling at the depth and breadth of culture of the lands beyond the Japans. He learned to be outgoing, to speak frankly and honestly, and to become, as they say, an internationalist; kokusaiteki.

When he eventually accepted the mantle of grandmaster, Sen continued his father's great vision of opening chanoyu to more and more people. In medieval times, chanoyu was the exclusive domain of samurai, nobility and those merchants rich enough to afford the luxury of training, study and accumulation of expensive tea utensils. Tantansai was among the first tea masters to license women as tea teachers. Hounsai Oiemoto Sen Soshitsu became the first grandmaster of the three major Sen family houses (Urasenke, Omotesenke, Mushakoji-senke) to actively seek and promote foreigners to high teaching levels.

"I realized that all of us are human beings, no matter what our uniforms or nationality were," Sen said. "I vowed in my own way to spread peace in the world. For me, it was to spread peace in a bowl of tea."

Some 50 years later, Japan and America is locked again in an embrace. . . This time it's not in battle, but in economic and cultural exchange. Whether some of our politicians (Japanese and American) like it or not, Japan and America are inextricably bound to each other. We may buy Japanese video cameras and cars, but the Japanese gobble up our Levi's jeans, computers and entertainment products. Who's the biggest entertainment stars in downtown Tokyo? People with names like Sly Stallone, Arnold, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson. Walk down Harajuku and you'll see Japanese kids decked out in American jeans. American videos and CD music blare out all over Akihabara.

And the last time I was in Japan, foreigners were as common as English loan-words. I even saw a Caucasian construction worker hanging out with his Japanese blue-collar buddies, the crack of his butt hanging out of his jeans. Ah, just like in the States!

But what does it mean for us American budoka? Budo is no longer an exotic, mysterious ancient Eastern mumbo jumbo art anymore. There are neighborhood kuh-rott-ee schools in shopping malls, taught by Billy Joe Bob or his sister. And oftentimes, their connection to Japanese culture is as superficial as the American connection of those thousands of jeans-clad Tokyo teenyboppers I saw in Harajuku who were Yankee wannabees.

Yet, at its deepest, most philosophical heart, the budo by their nature are bound up in the cultures of their parent country, and in most instances this is for the better. The culture enriches the budo, gives it a deeper, more spiritual meaning, and allows us a glimpse into the way a different tradition looked at universally human concerns of life, death, honor and loyalty.

I think you can be Christian and do koryu (ancient) budo, even though the Japanese koryu schools are heavily influenced by Shinto and esoteric Buddhism, just as I think you can be Buddhist and still appreciate Handel's Messiah. Culture goes beyond ethnicity and nationality. It is something that grows and endures only by sharing. We Americans, of all people, should know this, because we are a polyglot of ethnicities and cultures.

In other words, by learning not only the techniques but the history and philosophy behind the budo, you should develop tolerance. And compassion. Not exactly things you could use in a fight in a bar or in a self-defense situation, but they will stand you in good stead in your daily life.

That sharing of culture, of bridging differences, was what Sen Soshitsu hoped that the internationalization of chanoyu could bring to his own country's tea practitioners. And his vision breathed a wind of fresh purpose into his school. Tea would bind peoples of many countries together, make them friends. An old art had achieved new purposes.

The ancient arts of budo, as well, once arose out of ancient combative traditions. But perhaps one of the great positives it can imbue us with is that it can be a contributor not towards fighting, but for binding people together. We are able to bridge cultural gaps whenever we interact with Japanese, Chinese, Korean--or whatever--fellow travelers on the path of budo.

Those who travel on this high road, no matter their style or affiliation, are our budo brothers and sisters, not our adversaries. To shut out people because they are a different skin color, age, religion, sex or culture is to reduce the martial arts. The only criterion should be the student's earnestness and willingness to train.

So while I make fun of some elements of our "martial arts" world in America, what I am really saying is that I just don't agree with the way they approach budo as a way to beat up people or as only a way to get into the movies. There's got to be more to it than that. For me, budo is a way to develop wa (harmony); wa within ourselves and wa with others. Sure, the budo can be a way to learn self-defense, or to do "moving meditation," or to develop a healthy mind and fit body. But it also is a way to bring people together, and a path to mend your own soul.

Fifty years ago, Sen Soshitsu shared peace in a bowl of tea with former enemies, and established a bridge of peace. Today, can we do no less with the budo, which were once arts of warriors, and now should be the arts of peacemakers?