Sice Karate exists for cultivating the spirit and training the body, it must be a moral way surpassing mere techniques.
Interpretation
Karate is more than just physical techniques; it also involves moral and spiritual growth.
Mas Oyama emphasizes that the practice of Karate is not solely about mastering physical techniques but is also a path to cultivate one's spirit and develop moral character. This understanding elevates the practice beyond a mere sport and into a discipline that promotes personal growth and ethical conduct.
In practice
In a dojo where students are encouraged to focus on personal growth alongside their skill development.
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.
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.
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.
There are some people, who place enormous value on their home and feel that it defines them, that a stain on the carpet is a personal defilement. There are others, and I think I am one of them, who are entirely indifferent to where they live.
Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.
My father, a bookkeeper who never earned more than $11,000 a year in his life, sat there, writing out a $25 check to the NAACP. When I asked him why, he said discrimination against anyone is discrimination against us all. And I never forgot that. Indeed, his philanthropy was a gift, not just to that organization, but to me.
God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone.
The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.
For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment
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