Kano Society website revamp

Great revamp to the Kano Society website: http://www.kanosociety.org

Nice historic article!

What can you tell about the DVDs?

Www.dial-media.com and other links seem dead. Contact link doesn't work.

' Martial Arts and Zen
Zen Titles

Sword and mind
The flowers of the heart
Judo for life
The soft and the hard
The Stone sermon
Tips and icebergs '

Are all the above Trevor Legget's papers or lectures?

Thanks for the note.

NBK wrote:Nice historic article!

What can you tell about the DVDs?

Www.dial-media.com and other links seem dead.  Contact link doesn't work.

' Martial Arts and Zen
Zen Titles

Sword and mind
The flowers of the heart
Judo for life
The soft and the hard
The Stone sermon
Tips and icebergs  '

Are all the above Trevor Legget's papers or lectures?

Thanks for the note.

Let me check it out.

TPL wrote a lot on Zen:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zen-Ways-Trevor-Leggett/dp/0804815240

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragon-Stories-Tradition-Special-interest/dp/187457216X

Nice ideas and texts about traditional judo in Kano Society website.

Good for sharing and propagation in world of judo ...

Trevor Leggett speaks and writes often like a Daoist, without knowing Daoism.

Maybe because Zen is more Zhuangzi Daoism than Buddhism, and the Daoist texts like Laozi and Zhuangzi were not well known, when Leggett was in Japan.


The Power of Formlessness

http://www.leggett-zen.com/teaching_points/formlessness.htm

A parallel Story written in the Zhuangzi 12 (Heaven and Earth), 4.:


"Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor) had reached the northern end of the Red River

when he climbed to the top of one of the hills in the Kun Lun mountains and looked southward. He realized that somewhere on his return trip he'd lost his precious dark pearl. He sent Knowledge to search for it, but he couldn't find it. He sent Li Zhu (a legendary person with such acute eyesight that he could see the tip of a feather and spot a needle in a haystack) to search for it, but he couldn't find it. He sent Chi Gou (Inquisitive Speaker) to search for it, but he couldn't find it.

It was only when he sent Xiang Wang (shape/form lost) that Xiang Wang found it.

Huang Di said: "Isn't it strange that Xiang Wang (formless) was the only one who was able to find it?"


note: the "dark pearl" (xuan zhu) symbolizes the Dao.



Another parallel in Laozi 43:

"What is of all things most yielding
Can overwhelm that which is of all things most hard.
Being formless it can enter even where is no space;
..."


Refering to the Dao:

Laozi 14:

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
...



If we go back to the 6th century BCE to the military strategist Sun Tzu:

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”



.

Anatol wrote:Trevor Leggett speaks and writes often like a Daoist, without knowing Daoism.

Maybe because Zen is more Zhuangzi Daoism than Buddhism, and the Daoist texts like Laozi and Zhuangzi were not well known, when Leggett was in Japan.

The Power of Formlessness
http://www.leggett-zen.com/teaching_points/formlessness.htm

A parallel Story written in the Zhuangzi 12 (Heaven and Earth), 4.:
"Huang Di (the Yellow Emperor) had reached the northern end of the Red River when he climbed to the top of one of the hills in the Kun Lun mountains and looked southward. He realized that somewhere on his return trip he'd lost his precious dark pearl. He sent Knowledge to search for it, but he couldn't find it. He sent Li Zhu (a legendary person with such acute eyesight that he could see the tip of a feather and spot a needle in a haystack) to search for it, but he couldn't find it. He sent Chi Gou (Inquisitive Speaker) to search for it, but he couldn't find it.

It was only when he sent Xiang Wang (shape/form lost) that Xiang Wang found it.

Huang Di said: "Isn't it strange that Xiang Wang (formless) was the only one who was able to find it?"

note: the "dark pearl" (xuan zhu) symbolizes the Dao.
......

Thanks for pointing that out. Sometimes wonder if the writings of certain Westerners of TP Leggett's generation mixed up different traditions, making them all the harder to decipher. There were only limited numbers of translations and Western language commentaries of these very difficult to read source documents available, most not all that good.

Another interpretation points out: Xiang Wang is a fictitious character. His name can be literally translated as "Non-seeker / image of that which should not be done".