PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6

>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (2/27/1971)
Part One

If Yoshida Kotaro were living today, he would be anywhere between the ages of ninety-six to one-hundred years old. There are no records on him because he was a master spy. He was a man who lived simply, like most zen men, and had few possessions. Others, not knowing any better, might feel sorry for him, thinking he had a poor life, but he was rich in spirit. He taught only those people with whom he got along. When Mr. Kim last saw him, he was about eighty-two years old.

When Yoshida was thirteen years old, he went to a shrine every day to meditate. He did this for one hundred days. On the ninety-ninth or one hundredth day he was kneeling down, just about ready to get up and ring the shrine bell signifying the end of the period of meditation, when he dozed off. Someone was calling his name. He woke up and saw an old man standing in front of him. The man looked very old and had a white beard. He was dressed all in white with a medal I-Ching symbol sewn on his clothes. He was armed with a stick.

The old man knelt down on one knee in front of Yoshida, holding the stick vertically in one hand with the hand about eight inches from the top. He told Yoshida to attack him any way he could. (At this point in his life Yoshida’s hair was not yet worn in the samurai style of having part of the head shaved and the rest tied back. Hair was not worn that way until you became a man by killing another man.) Yoshida drew his sword and tried to attack the old man, but when he did, the tsuba (the top eight inches of the stick representing the hilt of a sword) would grow in size closing the opening. The tsuba grew in size until he could hardly see the old man behind it. Finally, the old man said ‘enough, that’s very good’. He told Yoshida to think about what he saw.

Then Yoshida’s mother called him. She had a meal all prepared at home to celebrate his one hundred day feat. When they got home, he asked for his father’s sword, which was very famous. He took it out of the sheath and examined it, then put it back. He held the sheathed sword in his left hand, up against his side, and asked his mother to attack him. (Being a Martial Arts family, the mother had some training also.)

His mother said that there were two ways that she could attack him. One would be to attack his head and the other was to attack the hand that was holding the sword. What would be attacked in a fight would depend on the attacker’s particular style of fencing.

Yoshida said that that was the way his father had died. Then he asked, ‘suppose the tsuba grew so that it was several feet long, then you wouldn’t be able to attack’. His mother said that was right. (His father had been killed before he could draw his sword.)

Yoshida’s father thought that all the training in the use of the sword was a joke, not to be taken seriously. He studied it only because he belonged to a Martial Arts family and it was expected of him. He felt that because of the new contact with the west, and the subsequential effect on Japan’s culture and way of life, dependency on the sword as a way of life was coming to an end. He was more of a scholar than a martial artist.

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One night the father went to a party where he ate and drank a lot and had several women. When the party was over, the host sent a servant to escort him half way home, as was the custom of the time. By the time the two had reached approximately half way, which was near the edge of the forest, mist was forming along the ground. Off in the mist, the father saw what he thought was his servant standing in the middle of the road with his arms folded, so he dismissed his host’s servant and went on ahead.

Getting closer to the man, he saw that the man’s clothing was tied back with string in the manner of one about to fight. Then he realized that he had made a mistake. The man was a stranger whom he had never seen before. When the father tried to go around the man (Nitta Dengoro), the stranger stepped in front of him blocking his way. When he tried again, the same thing happened. It was then that the father saw the sword in the man’s right hand that had been hidden by the folded arms. Finally, realizing that the man intended to attack him, the father made a mistake in strategy. He ran for the forest thinking that when he reached it, his rear would be safe and he would be able to hold off his attacker until his servant arrived. When he reached the forest, another man (Sakagami Shuzen) jumped out in front of him and cut his arm off, and then, giving a big kiai, cut him in the head.

The host’s servant and his own, hearing the shout, ran to where he lay. He was able to tell them what happened before he died. Yoshida was thirteen at this time and this was the reason for his one hundred days of meditation.
Yoshida decided to try to find a spy school to study at. This was not an easy thing to do, for while every town has a least one Martial Arts school, there are few spy schools, and they don’t advertise. Eventually, he found Takedo Sokaku’s school which taught Daito-Ryu Aiki Jujitsu, including the art of being a spy. Sokaku agreed to accept Yoshida as a student. When he heard Yoshida’s story about his father’s death, he told him that the man who did it must have been very skillful because of the kind of stroke that he used. Sokaku also told him to forget about his revenge for the present.

Takeda Sokaku taught Yoshida principles rather than techniques, because a technique will only work under certain conditions whereas a principle can be applied to many different situations.

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Yoshida had to learn to press out with his ki in order to be able to compete with the man who killed his father. The first thing that must be mastered for this is breath control. You must breathe in such a manner that if the teacher held a feather in front of your nose, it would not be moved by your breath. You must breathe with these syllables: a, um, aum. When you breathe in this manner, a certain part of the cosmic rays that are always penetrating your body can be absorbed and their energy sent to the skin. Being able to do this results in some physical changes to your body. These changes start from the marrow of your bones and proceeds outwards. The first change is an increase in the density of your bones.

To illustrate this, Mr. Kim told the following story: In 1948, an incident occurred to Mr. Kim which resulted in him being cut to the bone by a two foot bread knife. The doctors who examined him were amazed when they heard the story of what had happened because a normal man’s bone would have been cut throughout, but his was merely nicked. Further tests revealed that his bones were on the average of three times denser than other men his age.

The following incident concerning Mr. Kim and Yoshida occurred in the winter of 1953. It had been snowing and the tree in Mr. Kim’s courtyard was barren of leaves. It had five branches pointing up at the sky like fingers of a hand. When Yoshida saw this, he said that it was good luck and that they should go out and practice catching the cosmic rays. After a while they went inside and Mr. Kim was pressing a 220 pound barbell to see if he could use the cosmic energy to help lift the weight. As he was pressing the weight several times, his second wife’s mother entered the room and when she saw what he was doing, she commented on what would happen to the floor if the weight fell. Mr. Kim lost his concentration and, not being a weightlifter per se, dropped the weight. It didn’t hit the floor, but was suspended above the floor by Yoshida. When his mother-in-law saw that, she was no longer a skeptic.

>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (3/6/1971)
Part Two

On Yoshida Kotaro...
When Yoshida was eighteen, he developed a sophisticated theory of values. (He had kufusuru at this age.) Simply, Yoshida’s theory is as follows: Of the three great sufferings of mankind, namely desire, disease and death, desire comes first. Yoshida answered the question: Do you live to eat or eat to live? The man who works nine to five, five days a week, at a job he hates to do, to earn money to buy material things he desires and food to eat, lives to eat. The free man one who works if he wishes, at a job he likes and doesn’t have many desires for material things, eats in order to stay alive.

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Yoshida decided that the “ultimate” that everybody seeks is happiness. According to him, happiness has three prongs: gain, beauty, and love. Gain consists of material things, while beauty is the sensual pleasure derived from your gain, i.e. enjoyment of gourmet food or of a beautiful woman. Gain and beauty lie in the material world. Love is in the spiritual world and is your sharing of your gain and beauty with someone else. Few people can love. You must love to be able to protect yourself.

You must relax when you fight or else your muscles and tendons lock up the skeletal system with their tenseness. This will impede your strength. To relax you must relax your stomach and then your joints. This gives you true strength so that when attacked, you can explode from your stomach.

When you breathe out, imagine that the breath settles down to your stomach and that any excess goes down to your big toe. Then when you hit, at the moment of impact, you explode, relaxing immediately. In the kata you explode into the movements and relax between them.

All the above is what he developed at the age of eighteen years.

At the age of eighteen Yoshida was training in the mountains when he was approached by two men dressed in common clothes. One of them stood off to his left side while the one in front said, “Hey, boy! We notice by your dress that you are a samurai. Give us some money.”

The man then applied nami-jujishime to Yoshida. (At this time in Japan’s history, samurai were forbidden to carry their two swords because the Emperor feared they were likely to use them, which he didn’t want. However, most samurai ignored the order and carried at least a knife in their waistband. Yoshida, who was dressed in fine samurai clothes, had on a silk waistband in which he carried a small knife.) As soon as the hold was applied to Yoshida’s neck, he used the Daito-ryu escape of pushing the elbow to the ear and shoved the man to the side. Then, as he was shoving the man, he drew his knife and slashed his stomach. Slashing the first man and turning in one movement, he attacked and killed the second man to his side.

At first, Yoshida experienced a terrible feeling, for it was the first time he had killed, but soon there was an exaltation for he had killed in seconds two men who were going to rob him. His exaltation was short-lived, however, for when he dragged their bodies to the bushes at the side of the road, he was shocked to discover that the wooden swords they were carrying had extra long hilts like his. He thought that he was the first to discover that style.
Yoshida decided to stop for the night as it was getting late. He was near a farmhouse so he approached the gate and handed the attendant his letter of introduction. The letter, besides stating who he was and asking for hospitality, said that he had developed a completely different sword style. Although the farmer, his son, and his daughter had never heard of him, they decided to let him in because it was a dangerous area (mountain bandits).
When they saw him, they were shocked to find him so young. They wanted to know if his style worked and asked him if he had ever killed anyone. Yoshida replied that he had (the two he killed that morning). They then told him of the danger of being robbed by the mountain bandits in the area. It was then that Yoshida told them the story of what had happened earlier that day. They turned pale when they heard the description and the style of sword found on their bodies. It was a notorious gang and the farmer knew that they would seek revenge, so he rounded up all the outlying small farmers and stationed them in his compound.

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The gang decided to attack that night rather than wait. There were fourteen of them, including their leader. They approached the front gate of the compound very late at night. Nine of them scaled the wall and crept up to the main house where they found the lights out and the door open and apparently unguarded. They decided that one man at a time would sneak in at three minute intervals. The first man entered and three minutes went by without a sound uttered except for a small hiss like a man breathing heavily. So the second man entered. Same thing. No sound except for the hiss. Finally, all had entered except the subleader in charge. After a while, he got very suspicious because there was no sounds of fighting nor any light or signal. He went up to the door and smelled. He could smell blood in the air but no fear, so he ran out and told the leader that something was funny. The leader didn’t think it too strange. He said they must have killed someone and were probably enjoying themselves with the women. He told the subleader to go inside and check on them.

He went back to the door but got a very strange feeling so he didn’t enter but instead felt the floor inside the door with his sword. There was a large hole just inside the door. He ran out to report it. (Yoshida had removed several floorboards just inside the door forming a deep pit. He stood to the side and cut the heads off the gang members as they entered and fell into the pit). As the subleader reached the wall, he was met by Yoshida standing in front of it with his sword in his sash and his left hand on the sheath. The subleader cut for his left arm and Yoshida blocked with the extra long hilt knocking the subleader’s sword to the side and in one continuous motion drawing his sword with his palm (right) underneath and cutting the subleader’s stomach.

Yoshida put on the subleader’s clothes and went outside where he surprised the leader and his men, killing three of the remaining five, including the leader. The other two escaped (to fight another day) and spread the story of his skill.

The farmer invited Yoshida to stay a while, probably hoping to marry off his daughter to such a skilful man, but Yoshida had things to do.

The most important thing is complete relaxation before any exertion. There are two steps: (1) relaxation and softness, then bursting out from softness (explosion); (2) subconscious – if you tighten up your subconscious won’t come out.

You must face your opponent as if you were in the gym practising. In the gym you know you won’t get hurt so you are relaxed. Then the moment you go into action, your subconscious will come out.

Yoshida eventually killed Sagakama Shuzen, but not Nitta Dengoro, because he was Nitta and was blown up while trying to sabotage a train.

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On Doihara Kenji...
Doihara Kenji was one of the greatest spies of all times. Unfortunately he was captured and executed by the Chinese.

Mr. Kim met his Chinese teacher in Shanghai. On Avenue Road directly across the street from the Marine barracks (Japanese) was the estate of Edward Hotung. All foreigners were interned except those on the Hotung estate because they were wealthy and paid not to be. The front gates of both the barracks and the estate faced each other so that the guard at the Marine gate was able to watch the estate also. However, after a while money turned his head away and they were free to come and go.

One day, while visiting the barracks with his brother-in-law who was the Japanese secret police, Mr. Kim observed Edward Hotung walking out the gate. Mr. Hotung had two wooden legs. When asked, his brother-in-law told Mr. Kim about them. Mr. Kim later became friends with Hotung’s son, Eric, who told him about a Chinese man who was able to do incredible feats. Mr. Kim was skeptical when he first heard about the man, but his brother-in-law confirmed it. Mr. Kim promised Eric a pass if he would introduce him to the man which he later did.

Mr. Kim saw the following feats himself: The man push a boulder from a distance without physically touching it. He stood in a position similar to that of one in the soft form with his palms facing out straight ahead in front of his chest. When he moved his palms forward the boulder moved an equal distance. Another feat was killing mosquitoes. The man took off his upper garments and sat in a lotus position with his fist touching each other in front of his plexus. After meditating a while, he placed his palms together in the same position and “called” the mosquitoes to him. They swarmed all over him and bit him. After biting him they dropped down dead. The man ate a lot of arsenic compounds and was able to release into his bloodstream sufficient quantities to kill the mosquitoes without killing himself.

On Friends. ..
Once there was a stag who got very sick. So sick that he couldn’t forage for food. He found a very green pasture that had running water so that he wouldn’t have to move. When his friends heard about his infirmary, they all decided to visit him. As each one visited, they ate a little of his grass until soon he didn’t have any more and he starved to death. Moral: Only a friend can trap you.

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>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (3/13/1971)
Part Three

To explain the statement: You must be able to love in order to protect yourself.

Why is a man aggressive? Society made him aggressive when it taught him the relationships that exist between men in society. Without these set relationships there can be no aggression. Witness animals. They don’t kill except for food to eat. When they do fight, the loser usually runs away and without pursuit. Only man kills the loser. In modern society, aggression is represented by keeping up and surpassing the “Joneses” or by being “top dog”, etc. Aggression provides the drive to win or to be the best.

There seems to be a paradox between a Buddhist’s professed passivism and his ability to kill. However this can be explained. The martial artist seeks truth. But what is the truth? Is a woman who is forty but who says she is thirty-two telling the truth? Yes! She is telling the truth because her reason for saying it is true – she doesn’t want to get older. What is true passivism? Is it the Quaker who tries to reason with a man who enters his house and starts breaking it up? No! The truly passive man is able to receive the energy exuding from the other and kill him with it – his own energy. It is passive because it is merciful.

You must know loss to know victory. You must be like water. If you pour water on the ground, it seeks the lowest level. If you can receive your opponent’s energy (his suki), he becomes the lower level and the energy goes back in a circle and kills him. Like water flowing back to the lowest level, the ki flows back to him.

When you do the push and pull exercise, stand firm (brace) with the back leg. Step back if you are overpowered (his seven units to your three). In stepping back one step you are able to do anything to him because you are receiving his energy (his seven units become yours so that you have ten units momentarily). So in the exercise stand firm. The harder your opponent pushes, the harder you push. Take one step back if you must, then stand firm again.

Yoshida’s philosophy at age thirty:
You have nine orifices: the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, rectum, and the urethra. That is your physical relationship with the external world (not counting the mind). It’s sensory. These are called the external gates. To protect the external gates you use your appendages. Imagine a circle with a dot inside. The circle represents the body and the dot represents the mind (not the mind of thought but the original mind). The mind is the internal gate. This gate also has a protector – the intellect. The intellect is the protector that prevents you from knowing your original mind. The intellect identifies with the external gates. You must get through to the mind (samadhi). The mind is in internal turmoil except in samadhi when it is calm and the body is detached. In the sate of samadhi you see clearly, and everything is as it is. That is detachment – seeing everything in its proper perspective without colouring by the intellect. The intellect has as its ally the deluded mind. One result of the deluded mind would be when you see three women walking down the street and give a value to the one in the middle by saying that she is the prettiest. The man in samadhi would just see three women.

If you are fighting a person because of an argument in a bar, or because you are jumped in an alley, you are not detached but are instead emotionally involved. In the gym, you are detached because there is no animosity. You must fight as if you were in the gym.

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A little later in his life (after thirty):
Everybody lives in his own world. In your own world you know best. Your world is for you. (When you love, you share your gain and beauty with another – you share your world.) You might have certain things in common with others – goals, hobbies, etc. However, everybody has at least two things in common: the ultimate desire – which is happiness – and the fear of death. (Because of the fear of death religions were formed.)
The only exaltation a martial artist may find in life is when he kills somebody who is trying to kill him.

A battle for Yoshida...
Sometime between the ages of thirty and thirty-three, Yoshida went to Manchuria where he developed these theories: there are many degrees (levels) of consciousness – sleep is a low level and being awake is a higher level.

While he was there, he was captured by Manchurian bandits. Accompanying him was another Japanese who worked for the Manchurian railway. He was a spy, as were most of the workers. The bandits observed Yoshida’s stick and also his knife hidden in his waistband. In talking with one of his captors, Yoshida mentioned that he wasn’t a spy. His captors said that that was too bad for, unfortunately for him, they killed all their prisoners.

Yoshida, being familiar with the bandit’s customs, issued a challenge to them. If he won, he would be freed. The bandits accepted the challenge to them and agreed to a match to the death with one of their men. They kept him there for a week while they looked for their best men. Finally, after three weeks had gone by, their Chinese expert with the two broadswords arrived.

Yoshida had a week to prepare for the match in which they would only let him use the stick he had on him when he was captured. As he watched the expert practice whirling the two swords, he did his best to think of a defense... to no avail. He tried everything he had ever heard of doing to prepare himself: ate the right food, no drinking or women, standing on his head, etc.

Finally, he decided to practice what he preached and rely on his philosophy. He felt that it all came down to ‘sitting’. Sitting, meaning not the physical act but having no thoughts in the mind, is the true essence of meditation. No thought means the eyes, the ears, everything flows with the air. When you are breathing, you are flowing with your environment. You must enjoy everything to the limit as if you are going to die at any time. If you are doing everything to its fullest, you “receive.”

Seeing the expert practice, he decided that he must think of death as his friend (all your troubles and worries are over when you are dead) and he must not be worried about going inside the expert’s reach. So when the time for the match came, he stood with the stick in his left hand. He decided that he must strike at the solar plexus with all his might (total concentration – no fear of death, it was his friend). He tightened up his rectum, took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then took a step back with his right foot, still holding the stick in his left hand at his side. When the expert came within range (he was coming down at Yoshida’s head with one of the swords), he lunged forward with his right foot and poked him in the solar plexus deep, then twisted the stick and came down and out into a gedan kamai. The expert was dead.

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Miscellaneous insights...
A woman can receive better than a man because she is more passive. That is why the Japanese don’t like to see women in the Martial Arts. Through your breath and mind you can send your own vibration (using your thought waves) – everyone’s vibration is different. You must hit samadhi to do it.

If you can make your body vibrate, your blood vessels vibrate also and in so doing they clean themselves out (it takes about half an hour of vibration).

Yoshida’s saying: A mouth has no virtue. The tongue has no bones.

>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (3/20/1971)
Part Four

Another battle...
After winning the match with the bandit’s champion, Yoshida was released. It was at this time that he started to form his theory of the ‘cosmic circle’ (whirling). It took him seventeen years to perfect it. During the Russo-Japanese war, he had either 105 or 111 matches to the death and he won them all. He felt that he was getting the whirl. Then he kufusurued while working on the cosmic circle and got the message.

Yoshida went back to Japan for a short time and while there, he saw his mother. When he told her about his discovery of the cosmic circle, she remarked that he had really seen life during his travels and that she was glad he had finally discovered the secret of whirling. She picked up a six foot naginata and told him to go out into the garden with her so that she could test him. They faced each other and she said lets see what you can do. She attacked with a downward blow to the head which he blocked. When the sticks met, she stepped back, switching hands as she did, and went into a left hosso kamai from which she immediately stepped forward with her rear leg and struck at his knee with all her might (a technique which no one had ever been able to block). He blocked it. His mother said to him, ‘just a little more; you must perfect your cosmic circle’.

Yoshida went back to Manchuria. The Black Dragon Society found out about it and decided that they didn’t want a magician to be there at this time (they considered Yoshida to be a magician) so they got the best man they could find, a champion, and sent him to Manchuria to challenge Yoshida to an old-fashioned duel with the sword. The match took place in autumn near the Korean border. When the two faced each other, Yoshida felt the ki and knew what he had to do. In his mind’s eye, he saw how the challenger would die. The challenger was standing in a right hosso position when suddenly he stepped forward and gave a blow to Yoshida’s head. By the time the blow was completed, he was dead. Yoshida had stepped forward and to the side of the downward directed blow, deflecting the sword arm with his right hand (which was holding a small knife) and pressing it further down as he kept going around to the rear of the challenger by stepping with his rear leg. As he did so, he brought up his right hand to the neck of the challenger and cut his throat as he circled behind him. This easy defeat of so good an opponent shocked Toyomo Mitsuro who had watched the match (and was connected with the Black Dragon Society), so he had Yoshida sent back to Japan where he then met with his most terrifying experience.

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Yoshida was walking through a forest just outside of Tokyo to practice the sword when he heard the sound of a fast approaching horse. When the horse was close to him, although he felt that it was crowding him (forcing him off the road), he didn’t look back. He felt nothing from the rider (no ki). He didn’t want to look behind, though he thought that Toyomo had possibly sent him. The horse was almost on him and still he felt no force from the rider. As the horse passed him and nothing happened, Yoshida noticed that the rider was riding Mongolian style (no saddle) so he grabbed the rider’s leg and pushed up to see what he would do. The rider jumped up as soon as his leg was touched, leaping over Yoshida and drawing his sword as he did, cutting Yoshida on the shoulder. Without thinking Yoshida also drew his sword and cut the rider on the hip while he was still in the air. When the rider landed, he immediately ran into the forest, limping as he did. Throughout the incident Yoshida hadn’t felt anything from the man. He told his mother about it and she said that it could have been either an Igo or Koga man and that he must have met a magician. (Yoshida hadn’t hit satori yet.)

Years later, Yoshida found his own cosmic circle. He had forgotten Shuzen Kakagami. There was a revival in Martial Arts after the invasion of China and the government was sending its men, including Yoshida, around the countryside to encourage its growth (they were twisting its philosophy in order to get people to fight China). Yoshida came across a village one day while on this mission at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. He was broke, so he went to the tea shop to ask if there were any martial artists in the village (it was the custom for one martial artist to ‘entertain’ another who was on the road – and between meals). The proprietor of the shop told Yoshida that the greatest martial artist of them all was living there, that he was better than even the famous Yoshida Kotaro and that his name was Kashiwagi Tenta of Shinkage-ryu.

So Yoshida went to pay a visit to Tenta’s home and when Tenta answered the door, he introduced himself. Tenta said that he had heard of Yoshida (although he hadn’t met him) and invited him in. After they were seated and drinking saki, with the formalities over, Yoshida asked Tenta why he wasn’t teaching. Tenta told him that he had had a terrifying experience one day while riding through the forest, and went on to tell about a magician, who without any warning, grabbed his leg and pushed as he was riding by. Yoshida said that it was him and showed Tenta the scar, telling him that he thought it was somebody sent to assassinate him. They both had a good laugh over the incident and then got drunk together. (Tenta experienced a small satore from the incident.)

Yoshida’s philosophies...
Religion is based on two main things: The desire for happiness and the fear of death. Religions fall into two main groups: The first will give you happiness, but in a different world (heaven) It is escapist. Why go to another world? Why not have it here? The second says that happiness is a state of mind.

Martial arts philosophy says that it is bad to do good. It hurts both you and the person you are doing it for. (Mr. Kim then gave an example of what happened when he had helped somebody.)

When the martial artist feels pain, that is his hell; when he feels great in doing something well (ie. killing somebody who is trying to take your life), that is his heaven.

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An act of aggression is when you make somebody feel inferior, not killing someone who is trying to kill you. A man who is enlightened lives in a different world, not on the plane of normal man.

If you believe in a beginning to the universe, you will stay in the finite world and will never reach satori. The martial artist does not believe in a soul, per se. Life and death are two sides of a coin, you must live life now or you are the loser.

>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (4/10/1971)
Part Five

On Mercy...
After leaving Kashiwagi Tenta’s house, Yoshida was feeling good due to their drinking together. He went to a bar where he ordered some beer. As he was sitting quietly and enjoying his beer, a loud-mouthed racist military man entered and started raising hell over Japan’s recent victory in its fight with Russia. The man was a racist who thought that because Japan beat Russia they could beat the whole white race. Yoshida realized that the man was potentially very dangerous to Japan’s future and that he should do something. Yoshida caught his eye so the man walked over to where he was sitting and asked him what he was drinking. Yoshida replied beer. The man then asked the bartender what kind of beer he served to Yoshida and was furious to learn that it was a foreign brand. He called to Yoshida, asking ‘don’t you know that we just beat the blue-eyed devils?’ Yoshida answered him by asking what was the matter with him. The man said that he felt like beating him up. Yoshida told him to go ahead. The man proceeded to beat up Yoshida until his nose bled, at which point the man stopped. Yoshida then asked if he felt better now. Then he left the bar. Yoshida was perfectly able to kill the man but instead gave him mercy. The man committed suicide several months later.

More of Yoshida’s philosophy (developed through satori):
Love has an opposite – hate. Man is dichotomous by nature. If he loves, he also hates. They are two sides of the same coin.

Mercy in the Buddhist sense: Only mercy has no opposite; its the whole and encompasses all.

Mercy in the Christian sense: Mercy equals love.
Everyone has the Buddha nature; it just has to be developed by meditation (finding one’s true self).

Everyone lives in his own world. If you impart love, you also hate. But not mercy. If you can impart mercy, you took a big step (since it is pure and has no opposite).

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Yoshida went back to Manchuria for a while after he had kufusurued again and was carrying a small stick (cane-sized), he happened to come across another man on the same path as himself. What he saw coming towards him was just an old man carrying the same kind of stick that he was carrying. But he felt a strong ki radiating from him and knew that this old man was somebody, so he stepped aside and was going to attack him with his favorite technique, the dragon tail form. The old man never stopped walking and simply held his stick out in front of himself in a gedan position. Yoshida waited until he was closer but found that he couldn’t move when he wanted to attack. He thought to himself that maybe he wasn’t close enough. By then the old man was right next to him and simply pushed Yoshida’s stick moving him aside and then kept right on walking.

Yoshida went back to his mother and told her what had happened. His mother took out her naginata and told Yoshida to attack her with his sword. He attacked his mother who dodged or avoided all his blows. Finally, she asked him if the man did this and proceeded to overwhelm Yoshida as if her ki were water overflowing a dam (not a bomb bursting). When he replied yes, she said that the man must have been Asari Matashichiro as he was the only person she knew who could do it. Yoshida wanted to know when he would be able to do it, but his mother said only when he finished his revenge mission because it was holding him back.

Yoshida later developed that ability and called it his second principle (the first being that you must relax, then burst out like a bomb exploding). This principle being that you overwhelm your opponent with your ki like water overflowing a dam. Yoshida said that everyone could develop this principle as everyone has the innate capacity.
Yoshida also said that man is dichotomous in that both violence and tranquility exist in him, no matter who he is. To overcome that violence you must know it and know the violence in you. (The two schools of thought are: The Christian or Sun Tzu school which believes that man is basically evil and the Helena or Buddha school which believes that man is basically good). The people who use the most violence are the people who don’t know what violence is. The martial artist starts from the premise ‘I can kill’ and goes from there.

Fable – Story of the crows:
Once a year, the crows held a council whose function was to administer a test for manhood. This particular year, there were three would-be man-crows to take the test. The test was to answer the following questions: What is the most dangerous thing to a crow?

The first crow said; “An arrow is the most dangerous thing for it strikes without warning, silently.” Everybody clapped at this wonderful answer and the council awarded the crow his manhood. There was much excitement among the crows for already one crow won his manhood this year.

The second crow then got up and gave this answer: “I think that the most dangerous thing is not the arrow, but the man behind the arrow with the bow because if he is an expert shot, you are in trouble!” At this, a tremendous clapping took place for such a marvellous answer. He, too, was awarded manhood. Everyone was hushed as the third and final crow got up to give his answer, for surely nothing could top the first two answers.

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Then the third crow gave his answer: “Nonsense! The most dangerous thing to a crow isn’t an arrow or an expert shot, its the greenhorn. When the bow of the expert goes twang, you know the arrow is coming straight at you and you can dodge, swerve, or duck out of the way, but when the bow of the greenhorn goes twang, you don’t know what in hell to expect!” At this tumultuous whistling and cheering occurred and the crow was not only awarded manhood but was made chief.

>> Yoshida Kotaro Lecture by Richard Kim (4/17/1971)
Part Six

On Satori...
Mr. Kim met Yoshida in 1943. At that time Yoshida told him certain things that have just now been verified by western science (see Time Magazine, April 24 issue, “Man into Superman”). One of the ideas proposed in the article above was that the memory may be transmitted through eating the flesh of the animal (can be man?) in question. It is for this reason that yogis don’t eat meat.

For everything that you study you must first have, ie. algebra for calculus. For reaching satori, you must know your body, from your big toe to your little finger. You start with your physical body, then go to your astral body and then, finally, to your cosmic energy.

Karate training is very authoritarian for a reason, that being that you can reach kufusuru that way. (Everybody has intuition. You can tell by your intuition that a particular student will stay with you.)

There was a man who achieved continuous satori. His name was either Dokyo or Dokuyo Eton and was the teacher of one of the most famous Rinzai sect (zen) monks by the name of Hakuin. Hakuin stayed with him only eight months before reaching satori. Eton was able to stay in the state of satori because every night he stayed in a cemetery meditating. At this time in his area there was a shortage of food and there were many wolves roaming about that would eat anything, dead or living, they were so famished. They would go up to Eton and sniff and lick his neck and body but were unable to do anything else to him.

If you try to find the purpose for life, you must go inside yourself, not outside. What you try to find is the truth. In satori you find your true self.

Fable: A jackdaw was watching an eagle foraging for food when all of a sudden the eagle swooped down and grabbed a lamb in its claws and carried it away. The jackdaw said to himself, “I’m an eagle. I can do it too!” When he tried it, his claws got stuck in the lamb’s wool and he couldn’t get free or lift the lamb. The farmer saw him and captured him, bringing him home. When the farmer got home, his son asked him what kind of bird it was. The farmer replied that if you ask the bird, he’ll tell you he’s an eagle, but we know him for what he is - a stupid jackdaw.
Moral? Don’t be false, know who and what you are and live in reality.

The following is a true story that took place during Tokugawa Iemitsu’s reign as shogun and is a major factor why women are discouraged to learn the Martial Arts (they have a greater capacity). Ii Naoto was the son of a high class samurai and was also due to to be married to a woman named Osada (it was an arranged marriage made by their parents). Then he discovered the joy of sexual intercourse and from that time spent most of his time in the red light district drinking and whoring. When he was married, he received a large dowry which he promptly spent in the red light district even though his wife was very attractive. He then told her to go to her father and bow to him, asking for more money. He said his girlfriend was waiting and it was her duty as a wife to satisfy her husband. So Osda went to her father and pleaded for money but her father refused. He heard the rumors concerning his son-in-law’s behavior. Instead, he brought out a sword which he told his daughter had never been beaten in a fight. It was very famous and valuable. He told Osada to think about why he gave her the sword. She did.

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When she returned home with the sword, Ii’s eyes bugged out. He thought to himself about the money he would receive if he pawned it. But Osada said that she knew what was going through his mind and that there was a condition to his receiving the sword. The condition was that he had to beat her in a fight in which she would use the sword, then it was his. Ii agreed and they both went outside into the garden where they stood in their Kamai. Ii was thinking to himself that although she may be his equal (she was from a good school), she was after all only a woman and he would be able to wear her down eventually. So he attacked but she easily blocked and parried all his movements, forcing him further and further back until he lost his footing and fell in the pond. He was furious and started berating her for showing such disrespect towards him, her husband. Finally he up and left, going to the school of Yagyu Munenori where he studied the sword for a year. In all that time Osada never heard from him until one day he showed up and told her to get the sword and they would have a match.

Again they fought and again he was pushed back until he fell into the pond. His anger knew no bounds. He went back to Yagyu and studied approximately three more years until one day Yagyu told him that there was no more he could teach him. Yagyu said he wasn’t even sure if he could hold his own against Ii and that Ii was probably the best around at that time. So again Ii went back but this time when he asked for a match against the sword, Osada told him that she had returned the sword and that now he was her equal. They were never beaten.

November 8, 1942, China declared war against the United States. Japan, in order to show the Nan-king government that everything was going well, sent a travelling show around the part of China that they controlled. Besides entertainers, the show included various martial artists, sumo wrestlers, etc. The martial artists put on matches and while the show was in Peking, a man by the name of Nitta went to the top.

Yoshida heard about it and made some inquiries in such a way that a match was arranged between him and Nitta. As soon as they faced each other, Yoshida realized that Nitta was not too skilful, so he fought the match with just enough effort to beat Nitta. He won by incapacitating Nitta’s sword hand’s thumb with a strike. Nitta, being vain, was happy to be able to put up what he thought was a good contest. Yoshida became friendly with him and then asked him if his name was Nitta Dengoro, to which he replied ‘no’ and also to the question if he had any relatives by that name. Yoshida showed him a picture that he drew when he was eighteen of Dokagami Shugen. Nitta recognized him and told Yoshida that he thought the man was in Shanghai now. Yoshida then asked another person who had knowledge of Shanghai’s goings-on where Sakagami Shugen could be found and if he was still training. Yoshida learned that Sakagami was a spy for the Japanese government and that his style was Chugo-ryu. Armed with this new knowledge, Yoshida asked the person to accompany him to Shanghai.

Arriving in Shanghai, Yoshida went to where Sakagami practised and secretly watched him (he practised in the Japanese settlement which was across the Soochow river from the international settlement). As soon as he saw Sakagami, he intuitively knew how he would be attacked. Yoshida then arranged for a meeting with Sakagami who didn’t know who he was. As was the custom, Yoshida went to the police (in this case the Kempei-tai, sort of like the German Gestapo of old) and told them of his mission of revenge for his father’s death. They agreed to keep out of it.

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Yoshida arrived at Sakagami’s place wearing his long sword with the long tsuba and a short sword. He introduced himself to Sakagami and told him about that night long ago when his father was killed. Sakagami did not recall the incident since it had taken place several years earlier. However Sakagami did know he was going to have to fight for his life, so he made the first move. He jumped in close to Yoshida, who was standing with his left hand on the sheath of his sword tucked in his belt on the left side of his body, and placed his sword’s tsuba on top of Yoshida’s tsuba, while pressing down lightly. Sakagami had his left hand holding his sheath and his right hand holding his tsuba, while Yoshida had his right hand free and his left hand on his tsuba with his left thumb on the guard of his sword. Yoshida had foreseen the fact that he would be attacked in this manner.

This is what he saw in Sakagami’s mind: ‘In order to attack me my opponent must do one of three things. He can release his thumb from his guard; he can withdraw his sword; or he can use his right hand to draw away my sword in order to draw his own. In any event, I will attack with the dragon tail form when he makes his move.’

This is why Yoshida wore his short sword: When Sakagami placed his tsuba against Yoshida’s and his eyes went to Yoshida’s left thumb, Yoshida drew his short sword with his right hand and cut off Sakagami’s sword arm. “That was for my father’s arm,” he said. Sakagami, unable to fight, started whirling, but Yoshida, being familiar with Chugo-ryu techniques, was able to strike the back of Sakagami’s head killing him. (At this time, Sakagami was probably the most skillful man in technical excellence.)

Yoshida achieved satori three months later.

When Mr. Kim met Yoshida in 1943, Mr. Kim was attending a Jesuit University, St. John’s. He was one of two foreigners attending at that time and was working on his master’s thesis. Yoshida told him that it was so much toilet paper (degrees being useless – although Yoshida had a Ph.D from Tokyo University, one from Harvard, one from Princeton, and one another).

Yoshida said, what is the difference between modern man and man of, say, eight hundred years ago? The man of eight hundred years ago did not have the restriction caused by a strong intellect (not meaning intelligence, but ego). Technology and systematized knowledge (ie. that being taught in college) makes scientific proof satisfy the intellect but not the man ‘himself’ (your true self – your Buddha nature). The ancient man didn’t have this to distract his intellect and so could realize his Buddha nature easier.

Breathing:
There is a trick to breathing correctly. Let’s draw an imaginary circle and let it represent your total lung capacity. When you inhale, the circle fills completely. But when you exhale, there still is approximately one third of the circle filled. This is because of the nature of your lung tissue – that being it is made up of millions of tiny sacs that retain some air all the time. The normal person does not know how to breath how to use up all the available oxygen. Now when you inhale, you can’t fill the already filled one third.

The way to learn how to breathe correctly is to breathe in cadence. Your heart is the cadence counter. You inhale eight counts, swallow, and hold for thirty-two counts, then exhale for sixteen counts. (You can use 4-36-8 if you find the other too difficult.)

To control your orgasm:
When you feel the point of orgasm approach, suck in your stomach, grit your teeth (curling your tongue up and back), tighten your anus, and send your ki into your penis. You won’t orgasm and could service many women.

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