Omori Sogen

by Hosokowa Dogen

  Atsumi Sensei was from Hikone in Shiga prefecture. From high school, he went to Kyoto University to study German law, but he didn’t study law at all. He persistently looked for and read books on philosophy and Western history. In the end, though he was at the university for four years, he did not graduate.

  He was interested in life and society’s problems. He read extensively on Christianity, Shinshu, and Zen, but he found no inner peace and continued to meditate seriously. He said that quite unexpectedly all of his doubts were resolved with the one word mikoto from the Kojiki, (Japan’s oldest book recording events from the mythical past), and he became a new man. According to Atsumi Sensei, mikoto means to know how to use one’s life. I was deeply influenced by Atsumi Sensei’s “seimei soku shimei”) “the way to use one’s life”).

  When I met Atsumi Sensei, his philosophy was to combine the cultures of East and West and to create a new culture which was unrelated to narrow-minded nationalism. During 1928, the last year of his life, Atsumi Sensei travelled for fifty days from spring to summer on a lecture tour. I was with him the whole time. This was for me my “virgin voyage” on the lecture circuit. I was twenty-four. I was jeered terribly and had to give my lecture during the intervals between the jeering. I didn’t leave until I said all that I had to say. Atsumi Sensei then said to me with enthusiasm, “You did very well. If you had tried to leave the platform before you said all that you were supposed to, I was prepared to knock you down with all my might.”

  One time in Osaka I made all the preparations for the lecture, but I encountered a very big problem. When I went to the police station to discuss the lecture, they told me to bring the document of consent from the lecture hall. When I went to the lecture hall, they told me that I needed the approval of the police. There was nothing I could do so I returned to our lodging.

  We were staying with one of Astumi Sensei’s students who was a public prosecutor. Atsumi Sensei was leisurely playing go with his student. When he saw me, he asked, “You returned before completing your work, didn’t you?” Then he yelled, “How could you return before finishing your task? It’s like showing your back to the enemy!” This was the Atsumi style of training.

  Pretending, I said, “I just returned for a short break,” and set out again. I was at wit’s end, but I could not retreat. I mustered my courage, gave up any thought of failure, and went back to the lecture hall. I said, “The police have given their consent. The official papers will be delivered later,” and borrowed the lecture hall arbitrarily. I paid the fee for the hall, went to the police with the receipt, and finally received official approval. This became a wonderful lesson for me. Atsumi Sensei taught me the spirit of how to cut through any difficulty with resolution.15

  Yokoyama Setsudo

  By travelling and lecturing with Atsumi Sensei throughout Japan, Omori Roshi’s field of activity enlarged to encompass not only the martial arts but also politics. Through Atsumi, in 1927 or 1928, Omori Roshi became close to Yokoyama Setsudo, a teacher of Japanese calligraphy. Omori Roshi relates his training with him.

  When I first met him, Yokoyama Sensei was in his 40’s, about 20 years older than me. He was a librarian at Tokyo University. I wondered what kind of work a librarian did and went to see him. Sensei was sitting on a small stand in the entrance of the library doing zazen. The students who passed by were saying, “This old fellow climbed a persimmon tree when he was little and fell. Since then, he has been strange.” Listening to their comments, he feigned ignorance and continued to do zazen.

  When he was about 20, Yokoyama Sensei went to a temple of the Soto sect in Yamagata Prefecture and became the student of the priest there. His priestly name at that time was Setsudo. He then came to Tokyo and had a job lighting the gas street lamps. From around this time he started to let his hair grow. When I met him, his hair was tied in a pony tail with a purple cord; he looked very dashing, like a masterless samurai.

  When asked why he let his hair grow, he answered, “In the beginning, I did it because I wanted to look different from others, but after it had grown long, I found it convenient. When the weather was hot or cold, I didn’t need a hat; the hair protected my head. It’s very convenient.”

  Yokoyama Sensei invited me to his house on Sundays to learn calligraphy, but before beginning to write, he made me do zazen for the duration of three sticks of incense (one stick burns for about 45 minutes). I dozed during the first sitting. When I thought the sitting should be ending, I opened my eyes only to see Yokoyama Sensei lighting another incense stick. I thought, “We will sit for the duration of another stick.” Though my legs hurt, I sat through the second one. After the second one, Mrs. Yokoyama got up to prepare lunch. I was very envious of her. When I saw Yokoyama Sensei lighting another stick of incense, I got irritated and thought, “What is this old man doing? He should stop already. Why does he have to light three? I’d like to punch him!” I was so irritated. I couldn’t sit well during the third stick of incense. Only after that did we begin to draw.

  Yokoyama Sensei’s school of calligraphy was called Jubokudo. He had been the student of a man called Chodo Ryuzen. Chodo Ryuzen was a priest of the Tendai Sect and was teaching Jubokudo at a place called the Ryuzen Association. Although I was not really a student of the student of Chodo, through Yokoyama Sensei’s recommendation I was able to receive my teacher’s certificate as Chodo’s direct student. If we hadn’t done that, people could have said that I was not qualified to teach.

  Yokoyama-sensei in his study.

  In the beginning, we didn’t write as we do now. We wrote more quickly and lightly. After awhile, many students from the Kendo division of Hitotsubashi University began to study with Yokoyama Sensei. Because he was also studying the Hojo at the University, gradually the spirit of Kendo and calligraphy naturally mixed. Slowly Hitsuzendo (the Way of the Brush) took shape.

  Every year during his summer vacation, Yokoyama Sensei would shut himself in a cave near Mt. Akagi’s Fudo Waterfall for 40 days. I asked Sensei if I could go too, and so, twice I spent time in that cave. I have many memories of those times. Once he said to me, “I am 40 already, but even now, I dream of my English and mathematics tests and groan.” That is how poorly he did in English and mathematics. He said that he worked and studied at the same time, finally graduating from school when he was 28.

  Another time he said, “All you do is martial arts so you don’t know how to relax. You must develop a feeling for the fine arts. I will teach you a pack-horse driver’s song!” He made me sing, but only after doing zazen in the cave for one or two hours. He said to project my voice from the bottom of my abdomen. Then he made me pronounce the sound, “O” from the beginning of the pack-horse driver’s song which goes, ”Oshoro takashima.”

  “Oooooo”

  “No. No. No good.” He made me do this for about a week. “You’re no good. You are tone deaf. Let’s quit,” he said, and I was expelled from the singing lessons.

  Later both Yokoyama Sensei and I studied voice from an expert on popular singing called Mishima who had gone to France to study voice correctly. Mishima said, “Yokoyama Sensei is truly tone deaf. His musical scales are mixed up. You are more correct.” The more correct one had been expelled. This is the kind of thing that happened on Mt. Akagi.

  Because Yokoyama Sensei’s character and mine are exact opposites, there were many things that we didn’t like about each other, but there were many things that drew us together. To Yokoyama Sensei, who was not a man of quick wit, I seemed a very dangerous and rowdy man of talent. I studied calligraphy with him, and he commented on it in detail. He would say, “An unsheathed sword will wound by itself; put it back into its scabbard. Cultivate virtue; not showing one’s talent is superb.” He would praise and criticize me. He criticized my intelligence often. Personally I didn’t think that I was particulary intelligent. He would also scold me, saying, “You have a tendency to surround the other person on four sides so that he cannot escape. You draw him to you, and then you kill hi
m.”

  I detested the criticism, “You have talent.” It bothered me so much that I consulted a physiognomist. I asked him, “I have been told by someone that I have talent and that I should hide that talent. What should I do?”

  That physiognomist was kind enough to say, “Your talent was given to you by the heavens to use in this world. If you don’t use it, don’t you think that the treasure will rot? I won’t say to throw your talent away as Yokoyama Sensei has said. I would like to say that you should use your talent to the fullest.”

  When I heard that, I was no longer bothered by the words, “You have talent.” I became more relaxed. Whether I had talent or not didn’t matter. I began to feel that it was all right to be just how I was. If I showed talent in my calligraphy, however, I thought that I had to erase it somehow. It became my lifelong task. Thankfully, the critique I received after I became 50 was, “Your talent has gradually disappeared.” It is all thanks to Yokoyama Sensei.

  I had trained under Seisetsu Roshi but I never received such criticism. He helped me with my koan and led me on the right path in Zen, but he never criticized my personal character or intelligence, nor did he teach me how to live or conduct myself in life. My calligraphy teacher taught me those things.

  Once there was an “Exposition of the Calligraphy of Contemporary Zen Priests” at a department store in Tokyo. Yokoyama Sensei’s critique of all the Zen priest’s calligraphy was published in a magazine in two installments. There was loud censure. From ancient times it has been said that if you criticize a Zen Master you will fall into Hell; yet, he criticized them mercilessly. I don’t think that there was one living Zen Master who was not scathingly denounced.

  Because his criticism was so severe, I suggested that he tone it down a little. He responded, “Aside from this, what do I have? Are you telling me to die?” Through calligraphy, he wanted to purify the world; he felt this was his mission.

  At one time I thought of terminating my lessons with him because he lacked common sense and because his criticism of my calligraphy was too severe. But as I grow older, I feel very thankful that he did that. Also, thanks to him, I have been able to develop an “eye” for calligraphy. I can look at my own calligrahy and judge it. That is why, in one way, I think that I was saved by Yokoyama Sensei.

  Yokoyama Sensei died in 1966 at the age of 83.16

  While Omori Roshi was absorbed in Kendo, zazen, and Hitsuzendo, a friend told him one day that Yamada Sensei had said, “Although Kendo alone is a great enterprise that cannot be mastered in a lifetime, Omori practices zazen and calligraphy. In the end, he will fail in all of them.” This disturbed Omori Roshi so he went to Seki Seisetsu to to ask him what he should do.

  Seisetsu Roshi didn’t say that it was good or bad. He said, “A man named Yamaoka Tesshu (1836–1888) got up at four in the morning and did Kendo. During the day, he practiced Shodo (calligraphy). At night, he did zazen. In this way, he was able to do zazen, Shodo and Kendo.”

  I said, “Well, I, too, will turn everything into zazen. Kendo will be zazen; Shodo will be zazen; I will do everything as if I were doing zazen.”

  Seisetsu Roshi replied, “Yes, that should do. Give it a try.” Even though Yamada Sensei told me to stop, I didn’t but did everything as if I were doing zazen. Standing zazen was Kendo. Holding the brush became writing zazen.17

  Zen, Kendo, and Hitsuzendo were the pillars of Omori Roshi’s shugyo. Shugyo refers to the deepest possible spiritual training. The Japanese language has six words to describe different levels of training: keiko, renshu, kunren, tanren, kufu, and shugyo. The first four of these perhaps can be translated as practice, training, discipline, and forging, but there are no English equivalents for kufu and shugyo. In Zen these two terms are closely linked. Daisetz Suzuki explains:

  The kufu is altogether personal and individualistic, it is to develop out of oneself, within one’s own inner life. Kufu literally means “to strive,” “to wrestle,” “to try to find the way out,” or, in Christian terms, “to pray incessantly for God’s help.” Psychologically speaking, it is to remove all the inhibitions there are, intellectual as well as affective or emotional, and to bring out what is stored in the unconscious and let it work itself out quite independently of any kind of interfering consciousness. The kufu, therefore, will be directed toward how to remove inhibitions, though not analytically. If such an expression is permissible, let us say the kufu is to be conatively carried out—a process involving one’s whole person; that is to say, it is to be totalistic, growing out of the depths of one’s own being.18

  Zen…generally uses the term kufu (kung-fu in Chinese) which is synonymous with “discipline” or “training” (shugyo; hsiu-hsing). Kufu…means “employing oneself assiduously to discover the way to the objective.”19

  It is one of the most significant words used in connection with Zen and also in the fields of mental and spiritual discipline. Generally, it means “to seek the way out of a dilemna,” or “to struggle to pass through a blind alley.” A dilemna or a blind alley may sound somewhat intellectual, but the fact is that this is where the intellect can go no further, having come to its limit, but an inner urge still pushes one somehow to go beyond. As the intellect is powerless, we may enlist the aid of the will; but mere will, however pressing, is unable to break through the impasse. The will is closer to fundamentals than the intellect, but it is still on the surface of consciousness. One must go deeper yet, but how? This “how” is kufu. No teaching, no help from the outside is of any use. The solution must come from the inmost. One must keep on knocking at the door until all that makes one feel an individual being crumbles away. That is, when the ego finally surrenders itself, it finds itself.20

  Through his shugyo in Zen, Kendo, and Hitsuzendo, Omori Roshi forged the strength of character which saw him through the turmoil of World War II and extreme hardships in its aftermath.

  Chapter 2

  Renma

  Renma: Forging and Polishing One’s Character, Like Making Iron Ore into a Sword.

  1934–1945

  Jikishin Dojo

  In the 1920’s and 30’s social conditions throughout the world were very unstable. Within Japan, there was the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, the subsequent financial panic, and then the dispatch of troops to China. In 1929 the stock market crash in New York caused financial crises around the world. In Japan many Communists were arrested; Prime Minister Hamaguchi was assassinated and the agricultural depression, which became more and more serious, was accompanied by widespread anxiety.

  In 1931, there was the outbreak of the Manchurian Incident. The army made two unsuccessful coups d’etat in March and October, 1931. Prime Minister Inukai was assassinated in May, 1932. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1933. Political conditions within and without Japan became increasingly unstable. Whether he wanted to or not, Omori Roshi became caught up in the whirlwind and in July of 1933, was involved in the Shinpei Group Incident, another attempted coup d’etat. Omori Roshi recalls:

  One of the leaders of this incident, Mr. Suzuki, asked me to join them. But after listening to what he said, there were several points that I could not agree with. One of their targets was General Araki, a man that I respected. At that time, the army was divided into two factions. General Araki’s faction was trying to end the Manchurian Incident as soon as possible. The other faction planned to occupy northern China and wanted to force a less militaristic general like Araki to resign. Their aim was to replace him with General Hayashi, who was the commander in Northern China.

  The leader of the Shinpei Group was Maeda Torao. Maeda and I discussed this at an inn in front of the Meiji Shrine all night. This meant inevitable death. If I agreed, I’d die. If I didn’t go along, I’d surely be killed. The time from 7 p.m. till the next morning seemed like an instant. In the end our discussion fell apart. In the morning, Maeda said, “Let’s forget it all,” and left. He told me I could do what I wanted.

  I wondered why he did that and asked the other
s, “Can I really go home?” Then I got up and left. But the police were already looking for me as one of the top leaders in the affair. I was on the list of people to arrest. I had to hide, so I left for Nagoya with only the kimono I was wearing and my short sword.

  In Nagoya I was caught in a police cordon and was searched, but my sword was carefully hidden under my arm. The detective did not find it. He told me to show him all of my belongings. Feigning ignorance, I took out my towel and wallet. He asked me, “What’s your job?”

  “A newspaper journalist,” I replied.

  “What were you doing?”

  “I was playing go.” That is how I passed through the police cordon. From then, I went from place to place and hid. Kuroki Shosa had a summer house at the foot of Mt. Fuji so I stayed there awhile.1

  In 1934, when he was 30, Omori Roshi founded the Jikishin Dojo in Koishikawa. He describes the beginning of the Jikishin Dojo below.

  I was favored by Kuroki Shosa, whose dream was to create a utopia in central Asia. Kuroki told me, “Please develop the young men who will come with me.” That’s why I created the Jikishin Dojo. I built it with my own money, but Mr. Kuroki gave me tremendous support. Live-in students came and went, but there were always around 30. Due to illness, however, Kuroki died later that year and did not realize his dream. After Mr. Kuroki passed away, Shiga Naomasa and Kobayashi Junichiro supported the Dojo.

  When I created the Jikishin Dojo, I asked Ryusuke Sensei to be the chief advisor for our Dojo. He said, “I can never practice martial arts. But if you really want me as an advisor, please get my father’s approval since he is taking care of me.”

  I went to ask Toyama Mitsuru and explained the circumstances. He said just one thing, “My son’s body is sleeping, but his spirit is not.” I took it to be Mr. Toyama’s way of giving his approval and went to Ryusuke Sensei right away.