The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation

The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation PDF Author: Robert E. Carter
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791479285
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is through the practice of the arts, and not through rules or theory that moral and spiritual values are taught in Japan. Author Robert E. Carter examines five arts (or "ways" in Japan): the martial art of aikido, Zen landscape gardening, the Way of Tea, the Way of Flowers, and pottery making. Each art is more than a mere craft, for each takes as its goal not just the teaching of ethics but the formation of the ethical individual. Transformation is the result of diligent practice and each art recognizes the importance of the body. Training the mind as well as the body results in important insights, habits, and attitudes that involve the whole person, both body and mind. This fascinating book features the author's interviews with masters of the arts in Japan and his own experiences with the arts, along with background on the arts and ethics from Japanese philosophy and religion. Ultimately, the Japanese arts emerge as a deep cultural repository of ideal attitudes and behavior, which lead to enlightenment itself.

The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation

The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation PDF Author: Robert E. Carter
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791479285
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is through the practice of the arts, and not through rules or theory that moral and spiritual values are taught in Japan. Author Robert E. Carter examines five arts (or "ways" in Japan): the martial art of aikido, Zen landscape gardening, the Way of Tea, the Way of Flowers, and pottery making. Each art is more than a mere craft, for each takes as its goal not just the teaching of ethics but the formation of the ethical individual. Transformation is the result of diligent practice and each art recognizes the importance of the body. Training the mind as well as the body results in important insights, habits, and attitudes that involve the whole person, both body and mind. This fascinating book features the author's interviews with masters of the arts in Japan and his own experiences with the arts, along with background on the arts and ethics from Japanese philosophy and religion. Ultimately, the Japanese arts emerge as a deep cultural repository of ideal attitudes and behavior, which lead to enlightenment itself.

The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation

The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation PDF Author: Robert Edgar Carter
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791472545
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores how spiritual values are learned and mind and body developed through the practice of the Japanese arts.

Encounter with Enlightenment

Encounter with Enlightenment PDF Author: Robert E. Carter
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 0791490300
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Encounter with Enlightenment, Robert E. Carter puts forth the East, and specifically Japan, as a source of possible solutions to the world's social, economic, and environmental problems. Not only is the book a sustained scholarly analysis of both the religious and philosophical roots of Japan's distinctive ethical approach to life, but it also provides the Western reader with a context for understanding Eastern values—values that although familiar to the West tend to be deemphasized. Encounter with Enlightenment begins a horizontal fusion between East and West, and establishes a common ground for mutual understanding and for working toward an ethical approach that could resolve some of the earth's difficulties.

Armed Martial Arts of Japan

Armed Martial Arts of Japan PDF Author: G Hurst I
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300116748
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Get Book Here

Book Description
This unique history of Japanese armed martial arts--the only comprehensive treatment of the subject in English--focuses on traditions of swordsmanship and archery from ancient times to the present. G. Cameron Hurst III provides an overview of martial arts in Japanese history and culture, then closely examines the transformation of these fighting skills into sports. He discusses the influence of the Western athletic tradition on the armed martial arts as well as the ways the martial arts have remained distinctly Japanese. During the Tokugawa era (1600-1867), swordsmanship and archery developed from fighting systems into martial arts, transformed by the powerful social forces of peace, urbanization, literacy, and professionalized instruction in art forms. Hurst investigates the changes that occurred as military skills that were no longer necessary took on new purposes: physical fitness, spiritual composure, character development, and sport. He also considers Western misperceptions of Japanese traditional martial arts and argues that, contrary to common views in the West, Zen Buddhism is associated with the martial arts in only a limited way. The author concludes by exploring the modern organization, teaching, ritual, and philosophy of archery and swordsmanship; relating these martial arts to other art forms and placing them in the broader context of Japanese culture.

Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge

Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge PDF Author: D. S. Farrer
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438439687
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book Here

Book Description
This landmark work provides a wide-ranging scholarly consideration of the traditional Asian martial arts. Most of the contributors to the volume are practitioners of the martial arts, and all are keenly aware that these traditions now exist in a transnational context. The book's cutting-edge research includes ethnography and approaches from film, literature, performance, and theater studies. Three central aspects emerge from this book: martial arts as embodied fantasy, as a culturally embedded form of self-cultivation, and as a continuous process of identity formation. Contributors explore several popular and highbrow cultural considerations, including the career of Bruce Lee, Chinese wuxia films, and Don DeLillo's novel Running Dog. Ethnographies explored describe how the social body trains in martial arts and how martial arts are constructed in transnational training. Ultimately, this academic study of martial arts offers a focal point for new understandings of cultural and social beliefs and of practice and agency.

Overcoming Modernity

Overcoming Modernity PDF Author: Yasuo Yuasa
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079147867X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Overcoming Modernity, which contains the last writings from Yuasa, the prominent Japanese scholar reconsiders the modern Western paradigm of thinking and in its place proposes a more holistic worldview. A wide range of topics are examined, including the relationships between language, being, psychology, and logic; Jung's concept of synchronicity; the Yijing (Book of Changes); paranormal phenomena; physics and metaphysics; mind and body; and teleology. Through these explorations, engaging a wide range of Western and East Asian thought, Yuasa offers an alternative to the scientific worldview inherited from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This new paradigm involves the integration of space-and-time and mind-and-body, thematics brought together through what Yuasa calls "image-thinking," a mode of thinking that incorporates image-experience.

The Essence of Budo

The Essence of Budo PDF Author: Dave Lowry
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 083482213X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
A guide to the practice, history, and etiquette of budo, the study of Japanese martial arts for self-cultivation—written by an American martial arts master The study of budo, or the Japanese martial arts for self-cultivation, is a lifelong path toward perfection of character. Here, Dave Lowry, a sword master who has practiced and taught budo for over forty years, addresses the myriad issues, vagaries, and inconsistencies that arise for students of karate-do, judo, kendo, kenjutsu, aikido, and iaido as their training develops. He examines such questions as: • What is the relationship between the student and teacher, and what should one expect from the other? • What does rank really mean? • How do you correctly and sensitively practice with someone less experienced than you? • What does practice look like as one ages? • Why do budo arts put such an emphasis on etiquette? • And many others Lowry also gives practical advice for beginning and advanced students on improving structural integrity in posture and movement, focusing under stress, stances and preparatory actions before engaging with an opponent, and recognizing a good teacher from a bad one.

Teaching and Learning Japanese Martial Arts: Scholarly Perspectives, Vol. 2

Teaching and Learning Japanese Martial Arts: Scholarly Perspectives, Vol. 2 PDF Author: Michael DeMarco
Publisher: Via Media Publishing
ISBN: 1544823096
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book Here

Book Description
In contrast to the overabundance of writings about martial arts that are often promotional and misinformative, there are rare works by scholars that are praiseworthy for their sincere, unbiased approach to writing. This is the very definition of “scholarly.” This two-volume anthology brings together the best scholarly works published in the Journal of Asian Martial Arts on the topic of teaching and learning Japanese martial arts. In this second volume, you’ll find eight chapters that dive deep into Japanese martial traditions, combining aspects of history and culture that explain how teaching methods developed and evolved. Chapter one asks: What defines and gives meaning to the practice of karate? The Dr. Wingate looks to the ideology of karate as presented in the writings of founder Ginchin Funakoshi and traditional Japanese martial arts as “ways” of self-cultivation. This ideology is often greatly different from the ideology held by modern practitioners. This chapter explores the differences. Next, Dr. Donohue comments on the ideological complex surrounding training in the Japanese martial traditions. These systems, while remaining relatively uniform through time, have, in fact, been subject to considerable philosophical interpretation and emphasis. Why many practice martial artists has little to do with the essential nature of these arts. Dr. Grossman presents a thesis in his chapter that we can arrive at a deeper understanding of any martial arts—using aikido as an example—if we consider it to be a symbolic form of communication, as well as a martial art, and utilize the science of semiotics to translate the “message” encoded in the “body language” of aikido techniques. A photographic technical section illustrates this process. The next chapter by Sakuyama Yoshinaga discusses the potential growth for learning in children. How can adults provide the best learning environment? The author believes that inspiration comes through subtle emotions of the human heart, influencing others. The theory is found in ancient samurai traditions and applied by the author in teaching Shorinji Kempo. Chapter five by Dr. Dykhuizen point out how Asian martial arts are being practiced in cultures other than those within which they originated. Specific information concerning how practitioners from different cultures understand them becomes increasingly useful to martial artists and martial arts scholars. This chapter summarizes findings of an investigation among aikido practitioners. The Japanese Imperial family is said to have been given three symbols of authority by the gods: a mirror, a jewel, and a sword. Dr. Donohue uses this symbolic structure to discuss varying perspectives on the Japanese martial arts. Each aid in our understanding and appreciation of the multifaceted dimensions of the martial arts. In his chapter, Dr. Edinborough examines how Japanese martial arts, specifically the approach developed by Inaba Minoru, can be functionally understood as a form of art. Through referring to the aesthetic theories, the article examines budo as a means of organizing experience, recognizable alongside painting, dance, theater, and literature. The final chapter by Marvin Labbate looks close at the training hall. Dressed in a uniform, students line up in a ready position, come to attention, sit, meditate, and bow. This ritualized pattern is performed at the beginning, during, and at the end of each class, but what does it mean? In this chapter, each element of the ritualized pattern will be discussed to provide a clear understanding of its original intent. If you are interested in Japanese martial traditions, you will find much in these eight chapters that clarify why the arts are taught according to a longstanding tradition—and also why there have been evolutionary changes in the instructional methods. There is sound logic for the old traditions, as well as for the changes. The scholarly research presented in this anthology will improve a teacher’s way of instructing and help a student understand what to expect out of his or her studies.

Budo Mind and Body

Budo Mind and Body PDF Author: Nicklaus Suino
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834805731
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book Here

Book Description
A no-nonsense guide to the mind-body training necessary for budo, the study of traditional Japanese martial arts for self-cultivation—from a sixth-degree black belt and iaido teacher Budo is about learning more than how to fight; true budo is a way of seeking and uncovering meaning in life. Here, Nicklaus Suino, one of the leading iaido teachers in North America, gives expert advice on how to get the most from training in traditional Japanese martial arts such as iaido, kendo, aikido, judo, kyudo, and karate-do. He reveals the essential components of budo training, including how to: • determine the principles behind techniques • develop physical strength, technical strength and strength of character • discipline your mind to really focus and be in the present moment

The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy

The Body, Self-Cultivation, and Ki-Energy PDF Author: Yasuo Yuasa
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438424698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is an inquiry into ki-energy, its role within Eastern mind-body theory, and its implications for our contemporary Western understanding of the body. Yuasa examines the concept of ki-energy as it has been used in such areas as acupuncture, Buddhist and Taoist meditation, and the martial arts. To explain the achievement of mind-body oneness in these traditions he offers an innovative schematization of the lived body. His approach is interdisciplinary and cross-cultural, offering insights into Western philosophy, religion, medical science, depth psychology, parapsychology, theater, and physical education. To substantiate the relationship that ki-energy forms between the human body and its environment, Yuasa introduces contemporary scientific research on ki-energy in China and Japan, as well as evidence from acupuncture medicine and from the experience of meditators and martial arts practitioners. This evidence requires not only a rethinking of the living human body and of the mind-body and mind-matter relation, but also calls into question the adequacy of the existing scientific paradigm. Yuasa calls for an epistemological critique of modern science and explores the issue of the relation of teleology to science.