Essays From The Master

While there are nine types of movement in combat with the final type being a throw a throw can come from any of the eight other movement types. Each of the eight movement types can be applied from any of the eight directions in the circle of combat north, east, south, west and the cross quarters of those directions. As should be obvious these eight movements relate to eight of the nine elements of nature and to the eight trigrams of the I-Ching. Just as the eight trigrams combine to form the 64 hexagrams so do the eight movement types combine to form 64 techniques. Each of the bodies of lore that goes with each trigram serves as matter for meditation or incantory speech for each technique. One is not limited to the I-Ching as a model and source of lore to combine the movement types any work of 64 chapters or verses will serve and each adept should use what bests attunes them to the void as understood in the Kuroi Kaze body of lore. In the Mandala of the Black Lotus one can see two eight-rayed lotus flowers born of the interlocking of nine circles. In these two designs we can see the head, arms and legs of the humanoid form in various states of tension. Both flowers, like the 64 hexagrams, are meant to suggest a form rather than a limiting order.
The petals of the two flowers can be seen as over arching currents of external life force or Chi that the Ki or internal personal power can manipulate. The same currents of Chi can also be found in the body of the humanoid form showing how the outer world is a mirror for the inner world of the self. The lines in the Black Lotus Mandala represent the flow of Ki energy that results from the ebb, flow and refinement of Chi energy within the adept and projected outward directed by the will. The lines also represent strike movements while the curves represent blocks or throws. By applying rightly charged Ki or Chi as needed one can aid or disrupt the flow in others or in the environment. With that logic in mind the petals of the Black Lotus Mandala can be transformed into blades of a sort or other tools. A feint in combat can lead to a fall and is thus a kind of throw or a hold can be turned into a block as it arrests the flow or action of the target. No two sentient beings have the same ebb and flow of Chi and Ki but Chi and Ki are Chi and Ki and by knowing the cycle in one’s self one can sense the cycle in others as a disharmony in the presence of one’s own harmony or aura.
The aim in this conceptual framework is to be as fluid as silk or as hard as iron as needed by one’s will informed by circumstance. To have a strong will is a great and needful thing but not at the cost of the ability to adapt to what is only by dealing with what is can one impose one’s will and make what is into what one would will it to be. The Lotus with its two sets of petals represents the observable motion in the void that in turn creates the Kuroi Kaze or Black Wind. The truth of the motion in the void cannot be seen though its results when applied can be seen. It can be fully only felt in that place within where the senses merge, that bridge between the personal and the transpersonal that the ninja understands as the Getsumi no Michi or the moonlit path. At the core there are no arms, legs or head only Ki moving Chi becoming what it must to impose one’s will upon the objective world. This is one meaning of the maxim “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”

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