Where did the SKH stuff come from?

Senin

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This is kinda an off-shoot of the other thread, but I would like this question addressed. Where did SKH get the stuff he put in his books-- especially the 6 book series he did? I know some of it is his own interpretation of ninjutsu and his attempt to systemitize it-- godai. But what about all the mental/spiritual stuff? The Observer meditation. The feelings section of the godai? If this is not from Soke, then where did it come? And why would he put it in his "ninjutsu" book if it wasn't from Soke (ie, from ninjutsu)?
 

Dale Seago

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Merchandising.

The more commonly used term today is "Branding" -- means essentially the same thing.
 
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Senin

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Perhaps Mr Hayes is trying to merge his training with Soke with what he had studied about ninpo. Hence the heavy emphasis on mikkyo. Could it therefore be said that Soke is not usually teaching ninpo but rather ninjutsu (mostly taijutsu but also weapons work)?

If Soke doesn't teach ninpo, is anyone else really qualified? It would seem that Mr Hayes is trying to teach ninpo and I believe the Genbukan (spelling?) is also trying to teach it.
 

Don Roley

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Senin said:
Perhaps Mr Hayes is trying to merge his training with Soke with what he had studied about ninpo.

Where the heck could he have learned about ninpo outside of Hatsumi?

Mikkyo is not ninpo. There are of course ties, but one does not equal the other. I could easily talk about the ties between classical Noh drama and ninpo. There is a connection. But to say you study Noh does not mean that you have the slightest idea of what ninpo is all about.
 

Fallen Ninja

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Senin,

Although you questions are well intentioned... They probably should be answered by Hayes Shihan himself.

There are other boards out there that have more answers than we would. It just seems like you are trying to discredit a Shihan of the Bujinkan. We do not practice putting down any Shihan that Soke deems worthy enough to wear the orange and green patch!

That being said... if your questions are sincere which they seem to be... we really don't know honestly, enough, why things are done that way.

:ninja:
FN
 
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Senin

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Fallen Ninja said:
Senin,

Although you questions are well intentioned... They probably should be answered by Hayes Shihan himself.

There are other boards out there that have more answers than we would. It just seems like you are trying to discredit a Shihan of the Bujinkan. We do not practice putting down any Shihan that Soke deems worthy enough to wear the orange and green patch!

That being said... if your questions are sincere which they seem to be... we really don't know honestly, enough, why things are done that way.

:ninja:
FN

Thanks for the reply, Fallen. But this is a Discussion board about Mr Hayes and his art. It seems like a question like that would seem fair game on such a discussion board.

By the way, I have tremendous respect for Mr Hayes. I just wonder what is what. The things that Mr Hayes wrote about does not seem to be part of Soke's circulum. Maybe it is, or was, or only for a select few.
 

eyebeams

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I'm interested in an answer to the original topic. Where do the godai techniques come from? Are they invented, or reorganized from the Bujinkan curriculum?
 

Fallen Ninja

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Senin said:
Thanks for the reply, Fallen. But this is a Discussion board about Mr Hayes and his art. It seems like a question like that would seem fair game on such a discussion board.

By the way, I have tremendous respect for Mr Hayes. I just wonder what is what. The things that Mr Hayes wrote about does not seem to be part of Soke's circulum. Maybe it is, or was, or only for a select few.
Fair enough... but remember there is no one qualified to answer your questons. So if you want real answers here would not be the place to get them. Unless a personal student came on. I think Hayes is a priest of mikkyo or something to that effect. I heard somewhere that he took the go gyo and expounded on it from his mikkyo practices. I really don't know and now I'm just gossiping! ;)

:ninja:
FN
 

Deaf

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Fallen Ninja is right. You need to go to Hayes and ask that question. I'm sure you know his web site to where you can get his email to ask the question.

Anything else is really just speculation however to clarify FN's mentioning, Hayes is an ordained teacher of japanese vajrayana meditation tradition. Whether or not that means he is a priest or something, I have no idea. And whether or not he incorporated the Godai from those concepts...again, you are better off asking Hayes himself.

Too bad there really are not a lot of Toshindo people who come to this board to be able to help you out.

~Deaf~
 

Don Roley

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Gina Jordan said:
Check out this link in reference to the origin of the Godai.

http://www.quest-l.com/collection/godai.php

Interesting part of the above article.

I worked to grasp the deeper meaning of the go-dai by means of late evening talks with Dr. Hatsumi, and much exploration with two of the seniors at that time (these two men have since gone their own way and no longer train with the Bujinkan Dojo, so it would be disrespectful to list their names here). Everyone else at the dojo assured me that the five elements were just a device for counting as far as they were concerned. Convinced that there had to be more, I continued my cultural detective work. I sought out descendants of the monks and mountain priests allied with the roots of ninjutsu who referred to the five elements in the form of mandala graphics that described like blueprints the human psyche. As the years of study went by, the meaning of the go-dai five elements became more and more clear to me.

First of all, it would seem that aside from Hayes, Hatsumi has never said anything about the godai being what Hayes says it is. Ben Cole just wrote in another thread that he was surprised to find out that even today Hayes speaks only elementary school level Japanese. So it would be very difficult for him to understand these talks between himself and any Japanese at the time. And it would be very easy to misinterpept what was being said.

And the second part where he says that he sought out monks and mountain priests kind of shows that what he got was not from the Bujinkan.

There is a problem that many people deeling with a foriegn language and cultrure tend to make. That is, they don't realize that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes there are deeper meanings, but most times there are not.

Take for example the fact that most people in America would avoid being married on friday the 13th. Why is that day so bad? Well, it is said that a long time ago a great man met with his 12 students on what is now called Good Friday. And we know what happened to him.

So someone from outside the culture might think that people avoiding that day for important things are devout Christians. But even atheists tend to avoid having important things on friday the 13th.

Hayes made a lot, I mean a lot, of mistakes in the beggining. He did not have the background, the abilities or the experience that many of us now do. It should not be surprising that he tried his best to seek out answers for his questions with as many sources as he could, nor that he still made a heck of a lot of mistakes anyways.
 

Gina Jordan

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Take for example the fact that most people in America would avoid being married on friday the 13th. Why is that day so bad? Well, it is said that a long time ago a great man met with his 12 students on what is now called Good Friday. And we know what happened to him.

Sorry, not trying to be facetious or anything, but i thought the knightsd templer were executed on Friday the 13th.

Are you Gary Arthur or Gina Jordan?

I thought this had been sorted out and the name on the posts changed. The post shoulf read Gary Arthur. If a moderator will change this for me I would be very obblidged. When I attempt to open an account in my name I cannot get on.

Gary Arthur
www.toshindo.co.uk
 

heretic888

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Don Roley said:
First of all, it would seem that aside from Hayes, Hatsumi has never said anything about the godai being what Hayes says it is.

Another problem here is that Hayes' presentation of the godai is not how it is actually taught in the Buddhist Vajrayana and Tantrayana traditions (which in Japan became the Tendai-shu and Shingon-shu). This godai largely seems to be Hayes' own invention.

Ignoring for a second that there are actually six elements (rokudai) in Buddhist philosophy and not the simple five Hayes writes about...

As far back as Hayes' first Ohara publication (Ninja, Vol. 1: Spirit of the Shadow Warrior), he presented his conception of the godai and implicity correlated them with the chakra system of traditional Indian Tantra (re: base center, abdomen center, solar plexus center, heart center, throat center). From this, one might gather that Hayes presented the concepts as hierarchical levels of awareness or levels of training (which is basically how they are understood in Tantra). With the possible exception of Void, Hayes does not seem to do this and maintains none of the elements are "better", "higher", more "advanced", or more "developed" than the others. Instead, for him, they refer to emotional "moods" or "feelings" that we fluctuate through moment-to-moment in daily life.

In the Tantrayana and Vajrayana traditions, by contrast, the elements are viewed as hierarchically nested both ontologically and psychologically. They are symbols of distinctive stages of awareness and development (albeit there are disagreements from tradition to tradition). They do not refer to our "moods" or "attitudes" from moment-to-moment. There are hints of such a hierarchy in Miyamoto Musashi's classic Go Rin No Sho.

The relation that this elemental hierarchy can have to budo has been discussed before on another thread - Levels of Training.

Laterz.
 

eyebeams

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heretic888 said:
Another problem here is that Hayes' presentation of the godai is not how it is actually taught in the Buddhist Vajrayana and Tantrayana traditions (which in Japan became the Tendai-shu and Shingon-shu). This godai largely seems to be Hayes' own invention.

Ignoring for a second that there are actually six elements (rokudai) in Buddhist philosophy and not the simple five Hayes writes about...

As far back as Hayes' first Ohara publication (Ninja, Vol. 1: Spirit of the Shadow Warrior), he presented his conception of the godai and implicity correlated them with the chakra system of traditional Indian Tantra (re: base center, abdomen center, solar plexus center, heart center, throat center). From this, one might gather that Hayes presented the concepts as hierarchical levels of awareness or levels of training (which is basically how they are understood in Tantra). With the possible exception of Void, Hayes does not seem to do this and maintains none of the elements are "better", "higher", more "advanced", or more "developed" than the others. Instead, for him, they refer to emotional "moods" or "feelings" that we fluctuate through moment-to-moment in daily life.

In the Tantrayana and Vajrayana traditions, by contrast, the elements are viewed as hierarchically nested both ontologically and psychologically. They are symbols of distinctive stages of awareness and development (albeit there are disagreements from tradition to tradition). They do not refer to our "moods" or "attitudes" from moment-to-moment. There are hints of such a hierarchy in Miyamoto Musashi's classic Go Rin No Sho.

The relation that this elemental hierarchy can have to budo has been discussed before on another thread - Levels of Training.

Laterz.
That is true to an extent, but Vajrayana tradition does not necessarily exalt one over the other in terms of epistemological insight. The elements are in part related to the Hindu lokadhatu as seen through a Buddhist POV, so each element is associated with a particular "unskillfull" psychological state. One element may in some sense be "wiser" than another, but all of them reveal unskillfull fixations compared to the Buddha-nature. At the same time, Tantric thought does concentrate on the tranformation of such states into wisdom-acquiring dharmas. The confusing bit is that different sects and groups of laypeople are going to see this in different ways. The difference between clerical doctrine and folk traditions like Shugendo and Ryobu Shinto allows room to fold, spindle and "mutilate" (adapt, really) doctrinal sources. The divide between folk tradition and the Buddhist clergy is something you find throughout Asia, so I wouldn't be too quick to compare any manifestation in a folk source (like budo) with a core religious source and make off the cuff value judgments.
 

Shogun

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First of all, it would seem that aside from Hayes, Hatsumi has never said anything about the godai being what Hayes says it is. Ben Cole just wrote in another thread that he was surprised to find out that even today Hayes speaks only elementary school level Japanese. So it would be very difficult for him to understand these talks between himself and any Japanese at the time. And it would be very easy to misinterpept what was being said.
I guess he could have asked his wife, Rumiko. she speaks.

I have some of Hayes newest dvd's and he tells of how the Gogyo no kata are a listing device for the different levels of training. furthermore, he defines the difference between Godai and Go gyo no kata, and in his To-shindo course, the idea of using levels are present. In fact, his course is based on these levels. No mention of "feeling" present. He mentions more of an Elemental "motion" when relating to Gogyo and godai. He then tells of how the Godai come from indian philosphy and Gogyo from Japan.

hope this helps.
 

Bester

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Gary,
If your account is closed you need to contact the adminteam to reopen it. I believe that information is displayed when you log in with a closed account. Keep sharing accounts and everyone involved ends up banned, boycotted and parcel posted.


***PPPSSSSHHHHTTT***
I Varnish!!!!
 

Cryozombie

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Gina Jordan said:
The post shoulf read Gary Arthur. If a moderator will change this for me I would be very obblidged. When I attempt to open an account in my name I cannot get on.

Gary Arthur
www.toshindo.co.uk

Gary, bester is correct on this. If you could PM one of the Admins they can correct the problem with your account so you can post correctly, and not share an account with Gina.

Thank you.
 

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