Bjorn Säw
Nov 3 · 17 min read

In Dialogue with Ellis Amdur.

11–17–2011, Bjorn posted:

‘How to defeat a Samurai’

(from The Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622–1693)

“Once, after Bankei had given a talk at the Korin-ji, a samurai proud of his skill in the fighting arts approached him for an interview.

“I trained for many years in the art of duelling,” he said. “Once I had it mastered, my arms moved in perfect accord with my mind. Now, if I face an opponent, my blade will split his skull before his weapon even moves. It’s just like you possessing the Dharma eye.”

“You say you have perfected your skill in your art,” Bankei said. “Try to strike me!”

The samurai hesitated for an instant.

“My blow has already fallen,” said Bankei.

The man’s jaw sagged. “I’m astonished,” he sighed. “Your stroke is swifter than the spark off a flint. My head rolls at my feet. Please, master, teach me the essentials of Zen.”

11–19–2011, 01:11 PM Ellis wrote:

Which means that Nobunaga was clearly enlightened. Just ask all the monks of Hieizan, Nagashima, Echizen, and Hoganji. 10,000s of them roasted on fires and spitted in spears. Because, Nobunaga never hesitated.

Quote:

Ellis

Fast forward four years.

12/2/2015 Bjorn wrote:

Thank you Ellis,

I’m just recently looking into the internal aspects of my Aikido practice and am finding much information to digest and to translate into my experience. I’m looking forward reading some of your books when I’m available again.

Best regards,

Bjorn

8/3/15 Bjorn wrote:

Dear Ellis,

I wanted to run this by you as I have recently thought about the last couple of years new-born interest in the internal systems and its existence or non-existence in Aikido. Your book Hidden in Plain Sight (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1937439321/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Cl.UDbGBRYWZ6) will give me a much deeper appreciation of it I’m sure. I think I got the gist already so feel confident to ask you some questions even though I haven’t finished it yet. I have been peripherally aware of Dan Harden’s outspoken comments about teachers lack of real understanding and ability. I have no competitive martial background but began training traditional Iwama Aikido age eleven in Stockholm under Tomita Sensei, a student himself under Saito Morihiro Sensei of Iwama. Later I spent two and a half years in Iwama as uchideshi and sotodeshi with Saito Sensei (1987–1993). I have run my own dojo here in London since 2002 and I had some earlier teaching experience while still in Sweden. Only recently, in the last few years, do I feel more at home in my own understanding and practice of Aiki, largely due to my experience of teaching, as it have made me make it my own with no one else to rely on. Of course I pick up material and knowledge all over the place, but since Saito Sensei died in 2002 I haven’t had any other direct teacher, being happy to pursue my own line of investigation and research. A big and fundamental addition to my traditional Aikido learning came from being part of a spiritual community run by American teacher Andrew Cohen for 12 years. My meeting him in 1991 transformed my life and since then I’ve had to incorporate my Aikido to suit my new perspective. This has slowly led me to grasp a few principles of non-resistance and internal energy (Ki) flow and which fuels my own training. I’m feeling quite confident teaching a larger perspective to my students but when I think of your questions of having real street cred I hesitate to claim anything of the kind. I’ve never been a fighter or combative nor do I look toward that challenge. I’m aware that I miss an opportunity to spar with the best (or at my level, fifth or sixth best 🙂) but I do not make much of it.

I am quite certain that MMA and UFC sort the boys from the men, with the usual bloody result. Game on, and all that. Good for them, they push their skill beyond what has gone before, maybe even including the Chinese combat tournaments of the past? I’ve met one master that may be included in this criteria; Peter Ralston, a well-rounded martial artist with ‘street cred’ ability and internal strength prowess. He is also incorporating his spiritual insights into his holistic approach of Cheng Hsing. A training fanatic like all the greats, he can rightly be called a master of Martial arts. But is that the criteria we must lay on a Aikido teacher? Sure, internal power and understanding kokyu-ryoku and Ki flow etc. are part and parcel of a true understanding of Aikido, but so is a deep spiritual understanding as well, based on personal experience and realisation, which is quite a tall order for most. So why is Dan Harden and others so adamant to scathe the Aikido community knowing very well he himself has years of MMA background and such. These are combative, competitive blood sports, far from O Sensei’s lofty claims of Oneness and Love of mankind.

My point is, Ellis, we, most of us, will never be branded “Master”, maybe ‘skilled and wonderful’ will do, but we can all come to taste the intricate workings of internal Ki power and flow, and we can all come to a clear understanding of non-violence and unity in our practice that will be a true reflection of our being in our daily normal lives. O Sensei’s Aikido is not beyond most practitioners if we really put our hand to discover it, but to become a super master is reserved for the few and far between. And my biggest point is, how can a so-called master speak of real combat skills when O Sensei put that notion to bed long time ago? I do not mean to diminish the power and skill these guys have; they are truly awesome, but have they cracked the secret of O Sensei spiritual insights beyond the martial realm? Have they? This is were I get my confidence, not in the ring, but in the presence of understanding that is manifested in life as you and me, simple real human beings that have no need to raise a hand to prove a point. Because as you somehow misunderstood Zen-master Bankei’s reply to the samurai, that his hesitation of lashing out at Bankei resulted in Bankei’s swift blow. The point of the story was in fact of the futility of having a combative mindset. Once the combative mindset is gone, we meet anew, with our skill intact, with our Ki-power, understanding and knowing it is all fools gold.

Yet don’t get me wrong, I love this learning of the subtle Aiki powers and hope my remaining years will open up many more secrets to me. Your book for sure is a step in the right direction.

Thanks for reading my rant,

Bjorn

8/3/15 Ellis wrote:

Let me respond here to a couple of points. I must disagree with you re O-sensei’s insights. He was never a man of peace, per se, not in the way we in the West see it, any more than Islam is a “religion of peace,” in the way we see it. He was a right-wing believer until his dying day (he hid assassins at Iwama AFTER WWII, to keep them safe from GHQ). (I find myself really cramped writing in this tiny box, so my thoughts aren’t flowing) – my thought is this: Think of music. Once upon a time there were pianos in almost every middle-class home, and people played for pleasure, many at a very high level. And a few people, then and now, were virtuosos. I’ve nothing against the hobbyist whatsoever. But I raise my eyebrows when the hobbyist feels criticised when the virtuoso questions either their skill level or their understanding. Aikido (and it’s complicated, ever debatable message) would never exist were it not for Ueshiba’s martial virtue, his fearsome power. I do not see Ueshiba as ever “putting the notion of combat skills” to bed. Happy to engage in more dialogue – but please, read my book, and use that as a jumping off point.

Ellis

8/3/15

Hi Ellis,

Just a quick reference to Bankei here: www.aikiweb.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-20543.html

Cheers, Bjorn

8/3/15

OK, now I see the reference. I have never been impressed with such stories. Here’s why:

The reason the samurai failed is he LACKED the combative mindset, because at that moment, he saw himself not as facing an ‘opponent‘ (which is how he postulated it). He was a gentleman, and when asked by a non-combatant to hit him, he hesitated. Which leads to the Zenist conclusion that the man of “no-mind” would not hesitate, and that was the ideological buttress of WWII, where almost all the Zen roshi of any note promised Japanese soldiers that they would incur no karma if they cut down an innocent, because they would be helping on the unfortunate on to their karma.

There’s also a counter-story where a monk, sitting on the veranda of a temple, points out to a samurai how his unsettled mind leaves him unbalanced. At which point, the samurai pushes him off the veranda.

And by the way, there is a koan/sword teaching called Hirosawa Pond,

‘The moon has no intent to cast its shadow anywhere,

nor does the pond design to lodge the moon.

How serene the water of Hirosawa!’

the gist of which is instantaneous spontaneous action, like the moon reflected in the water. The samurai in the initial story was ‘challenged’ to attack a non-opponent. From the ideological underpinnings of his own discipline, the question would really be if he would have cut Bankei down were he even to have had the intent to attack. (And yes, I am aware that there are teachings – I have trained in them – see Arak-ryu sankyoku AKA ‘sake serving’ – to obliterate intent to attack while attacking – but all this leaves the exchange between samurai and Bankei as “Wow, if you had meant to kill me while having achieved the perfect ability to conceal such intent, I would have been vulnerable” which then leads to the conclusion that he should have cut him down having perceived the imperceptible, whether it was there or not.)

Anyway, O-sensei had a psychedelic experience (without drugs, I’m sure), but he in no way conformed to anything I understand as enlightenment. He was a demanding child, in a sense, to his students, quite entitled, and grandiose. He was, politically, exceedingly right wing (not necessarily a bad thing, in my view, but bad or good, he supported Emperor worship to his dying day). He gave lip service to peace and harmony, but it was the harmony of the spheres, heaven and earth united through the agency of avatars like himself, and our aikido was essentially to be “spiritual fuel,” so he could do that vital work. I am, in fact, fascinated and admire O-sensei. He was a great man – but not, I believe, in the way many others do.

On 3/8/15, 2:23 PM Bjorn wrote:

Hi Ellis,

In regards to the Bankei story, yes the samurai was a gentleman in Bankei’s presence but was without a doubt a serious combatant by his own admission. We can easily assume so and we can easily assume he stood his own as a warrior. Bankei points to the folly of a combative mindset among non-combatants and so the samurai acknowledges. He realises his vocation and skill are for the battlefield. But moreover Bankei shows how a natural response, a perfect response also exists in the non-combatives lives. He demonstrates the inherent function of our inherent Buddha nature (as he describes it). Bankei is demonstrating that context is everything. Situation dictates our action and make evident our choices.

I’ll send a further response when I’ll have some time soon.

All the best,

Bjorn

On 8 Mar 2015, at 21:56, Ellis Amdur wrote:

I’m stuck on my computer all day – I’m preparing a presentation on the psychological profile of spree killers for a conference in another state. (Interesting juxtaposition).

Actually, I think the samurai demonstrated the appreciation of context better, and then Bankei unproductively confuses him. Confronted by a harmless priest who says, “Cut me down,” the samurai hesitates, the same way one would hesitate if, after stating one is hungry, is offered garbage, and hesitates to eat it. The story ends with Bankei colluding with the samurai in his seeking wisdom when he already had it – ‘oh, you cut me down.’ And implicitly, “Yes, I did.”

I’m sure you’ve read Terry Dobson’s “train story.” I had almost the exact same interchange with a man who wanted to fight me on a train in Tokyo, and I certainly recalled that story – Terry was my teacher. The man softened, and he said, “You are a good man. I can’t believe I wanted to fight you. You treated me with respect. Why don’t you and I go get drunk and rape a couple of girls.” (To this day, I’ve honestly wondered if I should have agreed, followed him off the train and shoved him onto the tracks in front of the next train).

I read the Bankei story and I’m still not impressed. What would the story mean if it was Ueshiba, who said, “Do not look in the eyes of your opponent, because you will see him as he was as a child and be unable to cut him down?” In other words, extinguish the humanity of the other so you can murder him. Bankei would have had a smacked skull, or be dead. But then again, that would be as Buddha nature as anything else.

I could see many people reading this story and getting the insight that the goal is to “get beyond love and grief,” in other words, once non-attached to morality, to artificial constructs, one achieves a freedom, and in that, one would never be smacked by a roshi. In fact, one would be free to simply walk up while the priest was sipping a latte and kill him at will.

I have friends, police, who maintain a combat mindset 24 hours a day. And they are not tense or paranoid. I think the illusion here is the idea that there is a distinction between a combative and a non-combative mindset. The mindset I would like is that of a skateboarder – he relaxes into the curves, and when a car backs out, either relaxes MORE and slides around, or stomps on the back of his board, and comes to a dead stop. The true combative mind is that of a cat – and at least in metaphor, this means a fluid adaptation to context.

Ellis

On 3/8/15, 3:10 PM, Bjorn wrote:

Yes agreed and Bankei was that skateboarder right there and then.

Bjorn

Sunday, 8 March 2015, 22:21 Ellis Amdur wrote:

Only if this wasn’t just a glib trick and he was absolutely willing to die. If all he did was some applied psychology – a respectful man inquiring of a priest will not want to hit same – then it was a trick. If he accepted to the core of his bone marrow that the samurai, with no fear of future consequences, karma or moral qualms, might cut him in twain, then yes.

I’m preparing a film for the United States Concealed Carry Association, a 2,000,000 strong insurance group that provides insurance to gun owners. If you shoot someone, they will provide up to a million dollars in legal defence fees (it’s an ingenious business model. There are actually so few shootings, particularly among the kind of citizen who would join such an organisation, that the money just pours in. Sort of like making an insurance for damages from polio). Anyway, our joking title of my film is “shoot with your lips, not from your hip” and it’s about verbal de-escalation tactics for the armed citizen. One point I make is that a) if you choose to carry a weapon b) you are trying to de-escalate a situation, it is necessary that you have practiced your skills of drawing your weapon and killing to a degree that you have no fears that you will fail if that is necessary. If you are not distracted by concerns about how to draw and fire your weapon because, with 10,000 repetitions, it is a “pseudo-instinct,” then your threat assessment skills and verbal de-escalation tactics will flow. If you have “two minds,” you will stumble over your words as well as fumble your draw.

Ellis

On 3/9/15, 6:50 AM, Bjorn Saw wrote:

Dear Ellis

Interestingly, Bankei was asked at the end of his life how his natural response was so exact, so direct and perfect each time. His senior student asked knowing himself the teachings very well. Bankei said it was because he had wanted it so greatly to begin with. The gist being; the more you put in the more you get out.

Yes I also agree with you that O Sensei never parted with his martial ability and yes that it was his chosen/given path, demonstrating the internal powers of Aiki. Yet what I meant was that he also saw beyond the mere martial engagement to a social and universal engagement as non-combatants. Aikido as a way for anyone to taste the unification of mind and body, including deep knowledge of internal work, and but not the least, a deep understanding of a spiritual nature transcending a divisive (combative) mindset. To me, he was pointing beyond the mastery of Kokyu ryoku only towards the beautiful birth of Takemusu – qualities of valour embodied after years and years of training. I keep hammering this point because I know there can be mastery still filled with so much ego and self-glorification, if not a spiritual understanding have fundamentally touched the person. So in the end martial ability will always come second to human ability. Having said that, the internal mastery of O Sensei was that which made his art so successful and lasting (albeit watered down over the ages). And yes, it is for us individually to rediscover these secrets, to bring forward a complete understanding of Aiki.

Anyone coming to a full and profound realisation of themselves in a spiritual sense have and must surrender their hold on life. So death loses its hold over them. Then they might die in various ways and fall to the sword but since something fundamental has shifted inside them, they will face death with ease (of course depending on its circumstances). O Sensei was an eccentric old man with piercing eyes, and all of that stemmed from his internal psychic frame of mind, his spiritual vision, that allow awakened people to see that which is true and real as opposed to the superficial and pretentious. Now his vision which is universal and can be grasped by any mortal, allowed him to excel in his art because they follow the same natural movements. Bankei, as one among many other realised beings, expressed this freedom without the martial ability but nevertheless with the equal Katsu Hayabi function.

“There’s also a counter-story where a monk, sitting on the veranda of a temple, points out to a samurai how his unsettled mind leaves him unbalanced. At which point, the samurai pushes him off the veranda.”

This is a completely different scenario where the monk mistakenly infers that the samurais mind is unsettled, and thereby suffers the just push.

The point with the Bankei story is that the samurai inferred to know Bankeis realization which gave Bankei the ground to test him. All in good humour. The other stories I posted on the same Aiki Web page re tells a number of similar expressions of Bankei’s understanding of a living relationship existent in the “unborn Buddha mind”.

The Bankei story fits well into the full context of his life as described in the book; “The Unborn” The life and teachings of Bankei. I do not subscribe to, nor does Bankei, the mistaken Zen view that nothing matters, that there is no moral dimension within an absolute realisation. On the contrary, morality is an inherent part of a complete spiritual (Zen) understanding. I do agree with you though, that many culturally conditioned priests/people act within their narrow confines of their times including O Sensei. I hold no illusions about that, but I do understand spiritual revelation and the message it confers on people that receive them. Satori, or any of the spiritual realisations you may come across are never a “one-fix all”. It’s a learning curve and educative progress, within a conditioned vessel. I understand the notion of universal love that O Sensei describes, not from sentiment but from personal experience. But just because that is so, it doesn’t mean that O Sensei’s was free from his cultural and generational baggage, as you so well describe.

Interesting project you are writing about, and I completely agree with you about being fully behind your choices in order to enact them without hesitation or two-mindedness (for better or worse).

Thank you for the conversation,

Bjorn

Tuesday, 10 March 2015, 1:27 Ellis Amdur wrote:

Bjorn – You play for keeps! I’m glad I’m a good uke. A man needs a challenge. For me, one of the paradoxes is that there is, apparently, no connection between the moral attainments of O-sensei’s top students. Shirata was a consummate gentleman, Shioda was a nasty man, Tohei was a pompous narcissist, Saito countenanced a level of brutality against visitors that I find appalling, Hikitsuchi was a degenerate, Murashige was a killer in war, Aiki-Hoshi was a war criminal, Kobayashi Yasuo is a sweet man, Kuroiwa was a wonderful guy, and Nishio was so suave that he probably wouldn’t get soaked in the rain, and Chiba . . . .was Chiba. I once mentioned this to Terry Dobson and his reply was, “Think how worse those guys would have been if they hadn’t taken up aikido.

I could go on. You are, therefore, quite right that martial ability and morality are certainly not linked. The odd thing is that were it not for Kisshomaru, I don’t think aikido would have affected many people. I think it was Kisshomaru who pushed the moral metaphor to the fore, and this led the millions of ordinary folks, who want to become better people and not necessarily aiki-masters, to be drawn to the art.

If O-sensei was Jesus, it was Kisshomaru who was Paul. (and Moriteru who has become the pope)

Ellis

10/3/15 Bjorn wrote:

Cool, thanks. Glad I got that off my chest. Really, all of these budo martial ‘heroes’ are actual babies when it comes to spiritual understanding and therefore confuse the whole Aikido world when they begin to try to elucidate O Sensei’s spiritual achievements and realisations. We all would be so much better off if we’d look for guidance and help in authentic spirituality in order to understand his revelations. Actually we need to walk that path ourselves, gain those insights ourselves, and why not then follow O Sensei’s lead by hooking up with a realised master or someone as near as possible. Yes it’s fraught with danger but hey, life’s a bitch so go get!

I’m just saying..

Good to know you Ellis,

Bjorn

On 10 Mar 2015, at 07:18, Ellis Amdur wrote:

Good to know you too, Bjorn.

Being Jewish, I don’t look much with realised masters, though. Seriously, O-sensei had two very dangerous and troubled mentors (and Takeda was the less so). Deguchi was a brilliant guy, a lot like Rajneesh, who got his own people tortured and killed out of his grandiosity, and as I’ll write in my 2nd edition of Duelling with O-sensei, volunteered Ueshiba as the “bodyguard” to an assassin on a mission. One thing that you give short shrift to is that O-sensei had as much morally questionable history of many of the ‘negative’ examples I gave above. (At least now, I’m not going to go in detail about that). I see him far closer to a shaman than an enlightened being – in other words, he was a deeply flawed man who had the capacity to experience some paranormal experiences, and some deep insights associated with them. He continued to be a deeply flawed man throughout his life.

Anyway, I would follow a sage, but doing believe in realised masters. (Chiba is certified as having achieve kensho . . .). Among Zen priests, though, Robert Aitken is fine by me.

Ellis

10/3/15 Bjorn wrote:

Like I said, Chiba was somewhat deluded. You can’t have realisation and continue to hurt people. There is so much delusion in traditional zen. Kensho is but a little opening doing nothing much more than inflating his ego. Look I got a certificate! Ridiculous. Well, like the saying goes, the guru shows up when we’re ready. But with or without a guide we need to have first hand experience, deep and prolonged, matured and tested over years. Cross examined over the cultural borders not to get stuck in a cultural aboral niche like much of the Zen scene.

Deguchi was an equal eccentric fellow as O Sensei but nevertheless he was spiritually clued in and experienced. But here you see the garb of cultural drag in the extreme.

Bjorn

Two years later.

20/6/2017 Bjorn wrote:

Hi Ellis,

Hope you’re well. Just to keep you up to date 🙂. I’ve just done my second seminar with Dan Harden and I’m loving it. Such a nice man 😳. Really, we got along so well.

I’m crushed. Back to complete beginner 🙂.

All the best from England.

22/6/2017 Ellis wrote:

That’s good very good. Isn’t it grand to realise you still have an opportunity to learn?

22/6/2017 Bjorn wrote:

Wish I was twenty again.

    Bjorn Säw

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