This is a Buddhist temple, the inner sanctum of a new fighting art.
There are now more than a million people who follow its teachings and train in its formidable skills.
These young men have come here to study, training to be masters and missionaries for the
sect. The temple complex where they live is large, a modern version of the traditional layout.
The huge halls are only filled by followers on special days. During most of the year the
40 students and staff use only a small fraction of the space for prayers and fighting practice.
The temple is built on Shikoku, a large island about 400 miles south of Tokyo.
The students lead disciplined lives. After the dorm prayers their days divided between
practicing fighting techniques and studying the Shorinji Kempo teachings on Buddhism.
They attempt to return to what they think the Buddha actually taught rather than the
beliefs that succeeding generations have added. The religious instruction is by a Buddhist monk,
Master Suzuki.
There are two instructors of fighting at the temple.
Master Arai and his senior Master Yamasaki. As well as teaching the students,
they themselves practice, always working out new fighting sequences using the most advanced
techniques. Shorinji Kempo teaches that this sort of fighting practice is a form of prayer.
This mixture of fighting and religion existed for centuries at the Shaolin temple in China.
There the Buddhist monks practice fighting and their techniques are still to be seen in Chinese
fighting systems. This new Japanese system is inspired by those monks. In fact, its name,
Shorinji Kempo translated from Japanese means the fifth way of Shaolin temple.
The founder of Shorinji Kempo, Doshin So, based his fighting system on what he believed to be
the way that the Chinese monks fought. He also added many techniques from other systems,
especially Aikido, Judo and karate. The result is a potent fighting art.
Most of the students are university graduates who have also studied Shorinji Kempo intensely.
They spend one or two years at the temple and at the end of that time they emerge as
fully qualified instructors. They are not permitted to make instructing a profitable career,
so are expected to earn their living in other ways. They pay fees to study here. Many of them
work part-time on the premises doing office work. Others take jobs in the local town,
often working in restaurants in the evening. Most of the students are Japanese and all of them must
have black belts in Shorinji Kempo before they enter the temple. When they've warmed up,
they try short sequences of fighting moves with a partner. The Indian style of peaceful
salutation reminds them that they must not injure each other. No contact is permitted in practice,
but they must strike as close to their partner as they can. The fighting system, the religious
beliefs and the rules still governing the lives of his followers were all laid down by Doshinso
before he died in 1981. His memorial statue looks out over the vineyards and rice fields
of the island of Shikoku. It was important to Doshinso that his headquarters should be far
away from the centers of sophisticated life. He felt that anyone who wanted to share the
experience of the temple should be prepared to make a pilgrimage to it. He also planned that the
students should cut themselves off entirely from their previous lives. Their time at the temple
should be dedicated to living the complete Shorinji Kempo philosophy and this would be easier for them
in the simple country society of Shikoku. The governor of the island sympathized with these
ideas and made it possible for enough land to be given to Doshinso to provide a site for the temple.
The local community was also pleased since it created work and income for them. The willing
performance of humble tasks is part of the teaching in Buddhism that the students are given. They do
all the menial work at the temple. They give up everything to serve the organization, behaving as
acolytes, humbled before their seniors. Not only must they do their work, they must do it perfectly.
Not even a leaf must be allowed to escape. Every day the students spend about two hours keeping the
temple clean, about three hours in fighting training and about the same studying the theory
and practice of Buddhism. As well as Buddhism they study the life story
of Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who according to legend went to the Shaolin temple and there
taught the Chinese monks fighting techniques. Doshinso first saw the great wall paintings at
the Shaolin temple during the 1930s. He was working as an intelligence agent for Japan,
studying Chinese martial arts as part of his cover. These paintings of Indian and Chinese monks
practicing fighting techniques inspired him to try to create again both a system of fighting
and the lifestyle of the monks. Doshinso studied the paintings and copied techniques from them.
He also used the ancient Hindu symbol of fruitfulness that Hitler perverted as the swastika. The mural
shows that besides using ways of striking, the Shaolin monks were taught that by twisting and
jerking the hand, wrist or arm a man could be thrown. Even if he didn't hit the ground,
an attacker could be kept at bay by putting a lock on. The mural was painted in the 18th
century, about a thousand years later than the legendary teachings of the Chinese by Indians.
As far as possible, the life shown in the Shaolin temple mural has been recreated for the students.
The Shorinji Khenpo temple is set on a hill above the small town of Tadotsu. At the end of the
war, when Japanese society collapsed, the gangsters of the black market terrorized towns like this.
Doshinso also lived by trading in the black market, but without violence against the general public.
He led teams of vigilantes against the gangsters and cleaned up a number of towns. In the process,
he tested and refined his fighting system and got involved in politics. It was in Tadotsu that he
first started teaching Shorinji Khenpo. His first big dojo is still in use in the town. There,
the townspeople and their children train regularly with the students from the temple.
In the beginning, Doshinso did not plan to create a large organization. He intended to be a teacher
of his interpretation of Buddhism. However, he found he could attract young followers by teaching
them fighting and then move on to philosophy. His first dojo was a small room in his house,
with just enough space to teach one student while the others watched through the doorway.
He taught a vigorous Buddhism, encouraging his followers to stand up for themselves and fight
back, a very attractive message at a time of post-war humiliation. The movement has also been
a financial success, helped by the fact that in Japan, a religious organization is exempt from
taxes. The untaxed income from over a million followers is substantial.
The children learn under the same rigorous discipline the same basic techniques as the
adults. Although the children don't use much force on each other, many experts
disapprove of twisting young wrists or applying any pressure to growing joints.
In memory of Doshinso's death, each month the staff and students meet to pray in the room
where he died. When he was 17, he went to China on military service, which developed into his
intelligence work for the Japanese government. It was in China from 1928 to 1945. After the war,
he married, and his wife remembers how he preferred a modest lifestyle.
When Doshinso died in 1981 at the age of 70, it was important for the Japanese government
to find a successor to lead Shorinji Kempo. The committee running the organization chose
his 22-year-old daughter, although she doesn't practice the fighting techniques due to an
injury when she was young. She took her father's title of kancho. As a child, she was always close
to her father, and when she grew up, she traveled with him into China.
She relies heavily upon her father's memory for her credibility as leader. The sect is in the
process of making a cult of Doshinso to try and fill the vacuum left by his death.
He himself believed that what he taught was more important than any individual,
but to his followers, he is the founder of a new Buddhist sect. So now at the temple,
there is a museum of personal effects connected with his life.
As we are showing here, I am a monk. This is a Chinese monk and a
student of theер
探偵囫図
ご覧のように私は坊主でございます。
これは中国でなった坊主でして 一生政策坊主で、
日本のような儀式坊主や 草umber坊主ではないのでございまして。
東京の頭は昔から経過坊主の方が通っておりまして。
道場という言葉もこれが本来が仏教のような道の場と書きましてね。
本当の仏教というものは決して今のように死んだ人を伴ったり、
おまじなりをしたり、病気を治したり、そんなものではなかったと思うんです。
人間が人間として生きるためにどうしたらいいかということを基本にして、
人間尊重を中心に生きた人に対する教えであったはずなのにだ。
いつの間にかどこかで在来のシャーマニズムの影響で逸脱してしまったと思うのです。
見すぎませんうちに私顔役になったわけ。
悪い奴が勝手なことをしてるね。
弱い奴は泣き寝するというのはもう我慢ならんたちだから。
じゃあまずはじめは警戒に強くなることから。
警戒に強くなるというのも言いたいことを言う。
自分を守るということが前提でなければね。これは生きていけませんよ。
やっぱり人間にしたいということになります。
そうですね。特に戦争中日本人の悪い傾向ね。
精神力精神力というけどね、これは嘘でしてね。
精神力もこれは必要だけども、肉体も必要。
ただしバカではしようありませんからね。
そうですね。ということは小人事剣法っていうのは私たちはどういう風に受け止めたらいいんですか?
体と心と共に鍛える一つの方法と考えていただいたらいいと思いますね。
私たちはそれを知っている。 私たちはそれを知っている。
日本人の悪い傾向
今の日、小人事剣法の重要性が発表されました。
自分の努力、戦争技術、練習者の意識、ミッションの意識が日本人の社会によると、
自分の機会が日本人の中での力を持つことができるかを確認しました。
日本人の戦争技術
多分、この参加者の一番重要な方法は、
佐々木さんです。
彼は日本で一番力強い人の一人です。
彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、
彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、 彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、
彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、
彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、 彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、
彼は、8万人のメンバーの一人で、