Essays From The Master

In the Komuso Ryu the Kokoro containing the Tao of this world and its reflex, the heart of all things, is represented by a black dragon beneath the sea of infinity. The dragon is said to have on its scales the 72 glyphs of the I Ching, eight trigrams and 64 hexagrams, whose movement influences the island of the world. The I Ching glyphs are drawn from the patterns that happen when cattle bones were cast on fire and these patterns were later related to the designs on the shell of a turtle. The island of the world is often linked to a turtle while the dragon is a symbol of the divine realm; these two are one in the dragon turtle of Chinese myth which is one of the four celestial creatures. The dragon turtle shows a unity of divine or heaven, the dragon, and earth, the turtle, which gives clarity to the design of the Kokoro. The concept of the dragon turtle shows divinity in the mundane and the mundane in divinity doing away with the division found in many forms of Buddhism learning more toward Taoism and Shugendo. This vision of the Kokoro as the dragon turtle points out, through the nine elements, an underlying unity which is a tenth element which is the whole. The tenth element that is the underlying whole is the present in which free willed individuals exist pointing to the will of the individual as the deciding factor between the divine realm and the mundane or Heaven and Earth. This body of lore shows how that while many things influence the present and the individual what occurs depends on the action or lack of, of the individual.

In terms of martial arts this body of lore speaks of the need of the individual to prepare him and be aware of his environment so that he can adapt to it. By being aware of the environment the individual becomes aware of the influence of the actions or the inaction of others making a part of self preparation coming to understand the agendas of others. In terms of spirituality or philosophy this body of knowledge implies a unifying all life through consciousness because the dragon turtle is alive. This same idea goes to why the environment is in flux because if the world has any type of consciousness it is alive and therefore in flux, where there is no change there is no life. This body of lore drawing on both the martial and the esoteric shows why the personal chi or life force that is refined into Ki or personal power resonates more so with an outer type of chi manifest in one of the elements. By knowing one’s own element and the traits that go with it and how that element interacts with all other elements one can learn what is foreshadowed in others. This same body of lore is what is embodied in such disciplines as astrology and geomancy which is why such lore is given space in the Art of War and the Book of Five Rings. It is not that these outer things control what occur rather these echo processes that can be observed through them.

Understanding the dragon turtle as the Kokoro puts the power of the moment in one’s own hands balanced against one’s preparation and one’s awareness of others. Understanding of others should not be confused with being the same as having sympathy or empathy for others. All people have the five visible behavior types and the four hidden aspects that stem from the interaction of those five. For all of the commonality in people no two are alike because of the balance between the outer elements and the choices those with will make with the power that they have. By the movement of eight elements one sees the ninth and from the interaction of the nine one sees the tenth and thus from many things one sees the one. This one element is best understood as being the point from which the spiritual and the mundane emerge and at which they cease to contend.