Essays From The Master

Komuso Nin Do Combat Cosmology
 

It is said that if one would know the cosmos one must study one’s self as a universe within that cosmos and the reverse is also true. In the first verse of the Komuso mantra it states that, “Stealth is our discipline and illusion our way of life”, our way of life is illusion because the visible, the real world is an amalgam of what is sensed by the body and believed in by the mind making the “real” world more perception than actuality. This makes the real indeed an illusion or Maya as the lore of Buddhism says. Beneath and behind the illusion of the real is the actual, the ground of being. So we have the illusion, what lies beneath the illusion and now we come to the last aspect of Komuso cosmology, the reality of the illusion.

 

The final aspect acknowledges the fact that the reality of the individual is real to that individual and to the degree the reality of the individual agrees with that of the masses the reality of the individual can be proven to others and supported by them. The illusion of reality corresponds to the Ku aspect of the Kokoro and the actual reality corresponds to the Wu. The reality of the illusion corresponds to the concept of the inner or personal reality that is the individual’s link to that of mass consensus. This makes the final element of cosmology the Ki as it is that which enforces the reality of the individual. In total we have the Kokoro as Wu and Ku and the Ki of the individual that create, sustain and manipulate reality. The comprehension of the nature of reality in total is called Shuken or dominion. It should be noted that both Ku and Wu as energy is Chi, the external form and flow of energy and Ki is the inner form and flow of energy the inner form of the Kokoro.

 

Between the Kokoro and the Ki there are the sentient projections of the Kokoro that men call spirits, Kami, demons, gods and the rest. These sentient avatars create the many realms- heavens or hells that men are aware of. Kokoro animates these avatars as by these means the Kokoro may be understood by the finite mind. In that way the Kami, gods and so on are like Jung’s concept of the archetype but are more than that because they have an independent life within the realities that they inhabit. For the Komuso Ninja all myths are true within there context for those who invest in them. These then are the Komuso Ninja’s principles of shadow and substance.

 

With these principles the Ninja learns to control the reality of his target, mission or opponent through the Ninja’s control of his own “reality” and his interaction with that of his subject. To know that the world is a dream and that the individual dream is but one facet there of creates the path that lies between the individual and the masses that we term in the Komuso Ryu as the Getsumi No Michi or the moonlit path. The path of the moon is it’s shadow as it shines by night. The moonlit path is not a path of light in darkness but rather a path of darkness that compels one’s inner light to shine forth making one a shadow in the “dreams” or lives of others a shadow that has substance.