One of the interesting things I discovered in training is that this art is about war, not only at a physical level, but also mental and spiritual. Desires are a form of war; you want something from life or people (money, resources, time) or from yourself (improvements) and you sometimes find that there is an easy way to get you want from you or them, but there you got ethics and try to impose yourself what is right. Is the same you wrote before; is falls low on your response list. Power, money or resources are a temptation.
Almost none of that makes sense, to desire is to conflict, but to progress is a distraction? If you are so deeply involved in avoiding both conflict and progression, why train at all?
Sorry, i thought you were telling me to go, nah, i think if the dude has his heart set, he should jump into it, but he should be aware that it has a bad rep for a reason, but if it works for him, all the best.
I hope that progress could mean to have less desires, the conflict starts in ourselves. You confront to defend and protect what you value most, but there you have it, is always necessary to maintain the things we got? I train to be a better person, in all the ways this word could mean.
A master is about that. In Bujinkan we are disciples of our sensei, Hatsumi. We feel him as a guide, or at least in our dojo.
Sounds too much like a matter of faith to me, using a dead person to guide me through my life though their teachings, having never met or spoken to them, if it works for you great, but it is too much like a religion for me. Combined with the lack of pressure testing, taking faith in the theories of the founder to the point of avoiding conflict in a context of training, seems too far a leap of faith for me to make with the goal of being able to defend myself capably, call me a child of the modern era, but i can't believe the hype.
Maybe. Devotion is important to be persistent, as well as physical improvement, believing in something gives you confidence. Is part of our initial salutation, shikin haramitsu daikoumyo.
You sound like a true believer and you know you are not joining a religion. Seriously though my advice is be careful not to put your "shihan" on a pedestal and take some responsibility for your own training. However, it sounds like it may be too late.
Thank you for your advice. Is my choice, and my experience, I could be wrong of course. I don't feel him as a god, is a good guide, and simply feel great appreciation for what he does. About responsibility, happens that up to now, all these things suit well for me, and I feel I am going ok, for now as a newcomer. And I will have no problem to change my shihan for another, I have already done this in the past.
Well good luck then and make sure he is teaching you something of value in regards to the arts themselves and hopefully you have some measurable physical skills to show for it in the end. If you want a spiritual adviser there are better places to find one than the martial arts.
A lot of people will express various opinions of the bujinkan and these will range from it's awesome to it's awful When you add the fact that there is a wide spectrum of ability across the instructor population then really the only way is to go and watch a class or give it a go I speak from direct experience in the bujinkan and other arts
I decided to share a little bit what I meant. When a person tells you something, you work on it and you got it, and then those things save your life, I can tell you that, after all, you do not want to stop progressing in those things. So, when death is inevitable, you have two choices: one, stay quiet and prepare to die, or two, assume and say "Ok, it's over, it would be what it have to", and maybe there is a chance to continue living. The idea of accepting things as they come and feeling the instinct of survival, that sense you can't think about, you just feel it. That is what I remember in that motorbike accident before the crash, and thankfully I only broke my arm, and can now write with one hand. I hope I can fully recover and return to training. So, can I say that you can progress spiritually with this art? Absolutely, and Hatsumi confirms this. You can progress at any of the 3 aspects (physical, mental or spiritual), and that is what counts most, that is why I said I train to be a better person.
I found this video that explains better what I said, and hope one day could pass it. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfpIwjtJL0I"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfpIwjtJL0I[/ame]