Essays From The Master

In the lands of the Koga or Koka where the Komuso Ryu was founded as a part of the Koga Clan we find now the city of Koka which was once known as the city of medicine because they grew and knew the uses of Mugwort. Mugwort is used in medicine to heal and as a part of magick to bring out mystical visions and to kill depending on how it’s used, power is defined as the union of insight and the means to act and Mugwort shows this dual nature. The Koga believed in stopping war by killing one rather than by many dying, remove the cause of war and war ceases to be. The ninja are assumed to be assassins but that act and the martial arts are only one facet of what is actually a philosophy rather than a set of techniques. This philosophy is applicable through any martial art or means, because the core of the way is to endure and thus prevail through stealth. Often students of the Way start at one end of the spectrum or the other i.e. focused on healing or the other only to find that their lives demand the other aspects of the path. There is a time on the Path for each part and phase of the Path if it is walked truly and the most dangerous of warriors find cause to heal or the most open heart finds a cause worthy of defense to the point of fatal action. Moving between the extremes of the Path makes up the practice of many, but to fuse them is the way of the master which demands a rebirth.

To embrace the Path as a whole recalls the wiles of the fox leading to the emotive clarity of the viper which leads to the raven’s understanding of ritual and awareness of nature through the bat all of which are blended in the scorpion whose essence is venom and whose way is stealth. These five as one show the mastery of war as the tiger and the mastery of stealth as the cobra and when the tiger and the cobra are wed the dragon is revealed with its five claws. Armed as the dragon one flies to the moon finding that life and the Path are one making the arts of death into the means of defending life and the ways of life into means for the improvement of the life that has been defended. The same skills that would allow a ninja to understand its target enough so that it can get close enough to end are also the skills to understand someone to lead them to balance or aid them in understanding themselves. The same movements used in combat if used with the right focus can be used to build the body and promote not only health but harmony with nature also. If one can build weapons and tools of war one can make tools to preserve life and that promotes harmony with nature or with others. The same points struck to kill or maim if massaged heal and improve life or otherwise affect the consciousness of the one being touched. The same discipline that makes one a weapon can allow one to transcend attachment to ego and forgo offense.

A healthy person is content and able to deal with disruptions of life in ways that add to the lives of others without imposing his path on others. One who is or has enough is able to give without fear of not having all or to give so much that one is left lacking. One free of offense lacking attachment to the acceptance of others is not threatened by the views of or the advancement of others. Not needing acceptance one is able to give it at will and thus show that it is an option that is open to all. One able to act or respond or not has enough self control to perceive with some objectivity and is able to trust what one perceives. Having become a shadow through this Path one is shown that the substance of that shadow that one is the star that cast that shadow in the first place. This fusion of the ideas of the magickian or healer and the assassin or warrior leads to the monk of the void, a void of emptiness from which anything can be drawn to meet one’s needs or those of others.