Although it is important to study and train for skill in techniques, for the man who wishes to truly accomplish the way of budo, it is important to makehis whole life in training and therefore not aiming for skill and strength alone, but also for spiritual attainment.
Interpretation
True mastery in budo requires not just physical skill but also spiritual growth and a lifestyle dedicated to training.
Mas Oyama emphasizes that true accomplishment in the way of budo transcends physical techniques and strength. Instead, it entails a holistic approach to training that integrates one's entire life with the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, indicating that the journey is as important as the destination.
In practice
In a martial arts class discussing the deeper meaning of practice.
Karate is not a game. It is not a sport. It is not even a system of self-defense. Karate is half physical exercise and half spiritual. The karateist who has given the necessary years of exercise and meditation is a tranquil person. He is unafraid. He can even be calm in a burning building.
Karate is Budo and if Budo is removed from Karate it is nothing more than sport karate, show karate, or even fashion karate-the idea of training merely to be fashionable.
Sice Karate exists for cultivating the spirit and training the body, it must be a moral way surpassing mere techniques.
One becomes a beginner after 1000 days of training. One becomes a master after 10,000 days of practice.
The path of Martial Arts begins and ends with courtesy. So be genuinely polite on every occasion.
As in a Russian doll, however, the outer layers always contain an inner core. Instead of evolution having replaced simpler forms of empathy with more advanced ones, the latter are merely elaborations on the former and remain dependent on them. This also means that empathy comes naturally to us. It is not something we only learn later in life, or that is culturally constructed.
Those who talk of the bible as a monument of English prose are merely admiring it as a monument over the grave of Christianity.
There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.
The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind. It destroys communities and makes humanity impossible. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers... In winning our freedom, we will so appeal to you heart and conscience that we will win you in the process.
In the West, we have been withdrawing from our tradition-, religion-, and even nation-centred cultures.
Thats what I love about serving God. In His eyes, there are no little people...because there are no big people. We are all on the same playing field
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