 Shorinji
Kempo. The ancient art of Kempo traces it origin to India, almost
five thousand years ago. By the time of the founding of Buddhism,
Indian Kempo had already been organized and formulated into a standardized
art. It is said that Buddha, who practiced it, was so impressed
with Kempo as an effective method of unifying the mind and the body
that Kempo was incorporated into Buddhism. Its later development,
however, was completely independent. Though Buddhism itself was
transmited to China, probably by the Later Han Dinasty (A.D.25 -
200), it was many years later that Kempo entered China. But it is
said that the form of Buddhism which entered at that time was quite
different from the Indian Buddhism. The traditional 28o patriarch
of Buddhism, Daruma (Boddhidharma), disparing at the factionalism
and loss of true faith in China attempted to transmit the true teaching
of Buddha to China in the early sixth century. Boddhidharma traveled
to the kongdom of Wei and ultimately settle at Shorinji (Shaolin-ssu),
a monastery located where is now the Honan Province. The Buddhism
taught at this monastery eventually came to be known as Ch'an, or
Zen in its Japanese reading. Along with Zazen (Seated Zen meditation),
Boddhidharma also taught Ekkingyo(techniques) during his stay at
the Shorinji temple.  These
disciplines were widely used by Buddhist devotees, and they formed
the basis for the techniques of the martial arts which spread throughout
China. Modern Shorinji Kempo is the work of Doshin So, who, before
the Second World War traveled in China and studied the scattered
remnants of Chinese Kempo. In Pekin, Doshin So studied under Wen-Lanshi,
the head of the North Shorinji Ihermen-Thuen. The institution preserved
Kempo in a form closest to the orthodox North Shorinji line. At
a cerimony held at the Shorinji, Doshin So became Wen-Lanshi's official
derect successor. At the end of Japan's War in China, in 1945, Kaiso
experienced firsthand the chaos in post-war northeastern China (up
to then a part of the Japanese Empire). He realized that the destruction
and suffering of those times was natural result of the cruelty and
injustice which had been done before. His elalization that is individuals
who make things happen abd shape events became the basis for his
teachings tha the course of human affairs depends on the quality
of the people themselves. He said: "The person, the person!
Everything depends on the quality of the person. If the course of
human events depends entirely upon the actions of people, then in
order to establish the peace that we all long for, the only way
is to develop as many people as possible with mercy, courage, and
a sense of justice!" In june of 1946 Kaiso returned at last
to hos beloved Japan. Though he had dreamed of returning to his
homeland, what he found upon his return fit none of those dreams.
Amidst the chaos which followed utter defeat, he saw a world in
which people had forgotten the morality and compassion which was
the fabric of his fondest memories of Japan. It was a world in which
each fought for his own gain anc chose to ignore the sufferings
of others. Injustice and violence prevailed as if morality, law
and order had never existed. Most of the country's youth had forgotten
or given up their dreams and hopes for the future and were trying
to hide themselves in a world of pleasure and instant gratification.
It was a world in which people had forgotten to consider or help
each other, a world in which the future held threats but no promises
for the young. Kaiso determined to do what he could to rebuild the
foundations of his country, to teach its youth what the future could
hold, and to re-establish the credibility of the Japanese in the
eyes of the world. In his own words:"For the restoration of
my country, I'll devote the remaining half of my life to training
young people with courage, strenght, mercy and a sense of justice."
In the town of Tadotsu (Kagawa Prefecture, in Shikoku Island), he
founded a dojo, a training hall where he began teaching people how
to live up their potential, based on the philosophy taught by Buddha.
Kaiso not only instructed people in the skills of Kempo, but he
used the opportunities of practice ans his role as teacher to teach
a way of self-developmente based on Buddha's framework of development
through self-inquiry. Thus he made a way for people to learn to
establish mutual trust and cooperation to found the core of a peaceful
and prosperous society where there had been war, starvation, and
the law of the stronger. |