Hide Article Text (OCR)
DEVELOPMENT OF OUR Of)’ the oplen to ask-ition the itton Ightsueryfour-tentseverrV1' t»lowsware1 hisvordurcehlohig-*ntaltitu-tl orrial.ioa-ver-11»lt; 11ofthetheit u—•otn-thisTiedH8,“nteroralHtU-ich-art-A*8endtosonuckMRS. S .TAKAH ASH I, National Organizer.NOTICE •To the many subscribers, readers of Trlbune-Iudependent and the general public:Owing to the vast number persons who are circulating “Five Guiding Principles of Development of Our Own,” we are calling to your attention the fact that unless the same contain theCopyright number granted by theLibrary of Congress, they are not true copies, and is in violation of the Act granting such Copyright.Persons having knowledge of any one selling said Five GuidingPrinciples of the Development ofOur Own. without the Copyright number, are requested to report the same toMrs. S. K. Taknhashl,421C Brush St., Apt, 4 ******Nulu? THU ItKAHSRItTION OF JA-f'ANKSK KTATK J»|1Y, whichin t\ ci'rluln Junnncric' Mitga*zlrin.A nation-will* uplritunl movement,torv. and unless he Is acquainted with the social and moral aspect of Japanese life. Kodo 1h not justnationalism, or Imperialism, or fascism or anything of that sort, though it Is related to all of them,for the simple reason that the human heart is the same every here. Mv old friend General Tinge, the Manrhukuo minister In Tokio told me a few days ago. “In Europe ♦hev can not understand the Man-chukuo problem. because they i think it is a political question.! whereas really It is a question of oriental philosophy.*’ Now I will endeavor to explain my point of view and I beg you to take it for such and nothing more.Many thousands of yenrs ago a monument of human thought both metaphysical and rational appeared In the Far East It is called the “Yi King’’ of the “Book of Changes Thi« creation does not belong to the brush of a man, hut to the genius of a race, just as moat probably was the case of the Iliad In Greece, the Scandinavian Kalevaln. or the Indian Mahaharts. Taoism and Confusclanlsm are Chinese interpretations. one metaphysical theother moral, which came from the same principal root-work. In Japan this developed In the form of Shintoism, mixed with the* ?inclent inindsm and hero-w'orship, which have proved to he the primitive creeds of the Turanian race. Traces of these are still to be found In Tibet and Central Asia, from which regions their influence permeated ••round the* basin of the Yellow or China sea. Do not forget that themake-* *trotiKly for the eri-atlon of a nt*w Hdi'tnl on.I polite ul order and tho »lt;-e 'nipllsiiuo nt of Its principal task !h urlt;£i ntly Contemplated; the consummation of th«* Ideal of Kodo politics.Introduced by S K. TitkuhashlITS•16EUROPE AND MODERN JAPAN■gTTt |on sthe•in leintre-itntl Hie vie■dt rvodeecial)en-hisas-A Lecture Delivered At The Nippon (lilt lira I Federation(Continued from last week)Frc in these few words you will gather, ladies anti gentlemen, that, in approaching the burning question of modern Japan, the Japan of 1934, which many people accuse of imperialism, militarism, fascism, Socialistic nationalism or other “isms drawn from foreign dlction-iuiperlallsm. militarism, fascism, ning the standpoint that the particular fr nr the present government has tak« i for the past three, four or ten years makes absolutely no difference as long as it fulfils the noblest aspirations of the people's heart. Furthermore, it makes no TfTTrgr *wtr I ’m ■ij■ far from democratizing the* masses as doesevery government lending toward demagogy, it develops In the citizen, In* active dlt; ire to work and live for the welfare of the community, and also as long as it breeds in them higher ideals than economic prosptrity, military strength, and political hegemony. I am indiff re nt to the rest. Standing in he sacred place, before the ing In the sacred place, before the precious metal of the vase, but the holy ashes it contains.Speaking on the subject of modern Japan means commenting onthe Shown Renovation movement and expounding the doctrine of • Kodo” or the “Kingly Way.’ Here is’ tin* key to the understanding of today's Japan. The figures in her budget, the size of her army anti navy, and the statistics of her eot-ton-goods trades are only exernalsymptoms.Now it Is not easy for a foreignerwnuh now Hwuy* tho wlmie nation, jpaR|t. i,0oks of Shintoism werecompiled from memory In the 18th rent in y, A. D, or much more than a thousand years after Laotzu and King Fu Tzeii commented on the Kings, which were then considered to he books of ancient wisdom.The fundamental idea of the YI ! King, as you all know Is the Inyo-do. meaning that in every manifested object there are presented positive or masculine and negative or feminine principle—the Yang and the Yin. The wisdom of the Yi King is the science of the various groupings of those forces, of the doublepolarization of all phenomena andof the way toward their harmony and equilibrium. Therefore, the“Way.” the “Road.” the “Do, the “Tao.“ which is the keystone of all oriental philosophy, is a tendency toward harmony.I shall not comment longer on this Weltanschauung” of the ancient wisdom of the Far East or on all the ramifications it has had in science, such as in medicine), in religion, in esthetics, in philosophy or social morals. 1 take it for grant* d that you know more about it than I do, hut I would like to justify in a few words my assertions as to the indebterness of Shintoism to the Inyo principle, because that is rather essential.I will leave aside all complicated details of the generation of celestial and terrestial gods, their sniggles and all the legends surrounding their deeds and thoir IIvs: that is a kind of naturalistic fink lore and henrlo epoch in which i it Jm plausible to distinguish between the symbols of celestialbodies, this led to the distinguishedI sinilogue Mr. J. Kdkfna’ ascribing this system to Habylonan astrology and even to suggest possible seme-tic borrowings) or to find traces of an homeric struggle between the two races of Yamato and fzumo the bright and the dark one, just as the Indian Ramayana. Leaving aside tin* heroic nd naturalistic aspects of Shiutoistlc traditions, we find enough in the Kojlki and Hlhongi to support the theory that the metaphysical foundation of Shinto was inspired by the LI King. At the very beginning when the world was still soaring In the heavens,to understand the spirit of “Kodo unless he is well versed in oriental there appeared out of the unknown philosophy and in Japanese his-1 the unspeakable, the undeterminedone.l Out of Amenomina-Kanushiradiated teo Knmu. tho High-Producing one and the Mysterious-^ Producing one, who have been identified by many 'schlnrs withKami-rogi and Kaml-romi, the male and female principles. This first celestial couple vanishes and others follow through five or seven generations, always in couples. Just like the descending “alons” of the Alexandrian Gnostics, who always generated In couples, called sizigiae.” The last celestial couple distinctly embodying the male and female principles, was Izanagl and Izunaml, who produce the ac-tul “demiouggol” of this valley of sorrows. It is true they were three in number, but wonderfully enough we never hear anything of the Moon-god, and the field of terrestrial activity Is cleared again onlyfor the male and female symbols, for Amaterasu and Susanowo. Introducing a triad would be against the metaphysical conception of the Far East, and this explains why Tsuklyomi was neglected. I may say. en passant, that there is something significant in the victory of Amaterasu over Susanowo, and his banishment to distant realms. It It was certainly the Goethe-like vlcory of the “ewing woibliche” which has made Japan the sweet country of beautiful art. gentle manners, clearliness, peaceful love of nature, self-sacrifice and deep mystic meditation. Even the soldier on the battlefield dies for his country with the same heart feeling as the mother who joyfully sacrifice« her life to give birth to a child. Now it seems to me that the fun-damenal cosmic and biological conception was instrumental treating a kind of dualism in the Japanessoul. I maintain that throughoutthe whole history of Japan, froru the distant days of the Emperor Jiminu Tenno down to the present day, you can follow tb* struggle between the masculine and feminine elements for supremacy. As a matter of fact, the whole Japanese civilization Is a product of those two adverse currents. A student of Japan who would readpoetical, lofty tankas or haikais; or who would admire Chikamatsu' love tragedies; or spend his days in museums looking at the Japa-nes school of painting—eighteenth century prints or ukiyo-ye life-painting of the Genroku period, in which every stroke is at the same time robust and tender or old paint ing of Musashi, Genshin and many others in which every poiut is a mere suggestion or all the classical painting in which lines are only symbols; a man who would study the emotional philosophy of Iionen Shrinran or Nichiren, where the Indian “bhaktl” and the Christian love are far surpassed in all embracing enthusiasm for the grace of Amida who presses to his fatherly bosom the most wicked of al-culprits—a tenderness to melt stones and dissolve universes; a man who would just go to one of many thousands of Buddhist remp-les and watch the crowd worship simply and silently putting theirweeping and bleeding hearts at thefeet of our Lord as if they were offering a humble meadow-flower on the altar of human sorrows— such a student of Japan would surely come to the conclusion that there is nowhere in the* world a more feminine soul. Tho Japanese woman Is a pure concentration of N ing. But auothcr man, who would stud- tho stoic firmness of the groat Japanese statesmen of bygone days, such as Yoritomo, No-buuaga, Ilideyoshi, Yoshltsune, etc. those Marcus Aurelius’ or Vespasian’s of the Far East: or who would get acquainted with the lives ofthe makers of modern Japan, the Genro of the Meiji era; a man who would have the chance of witnessing the manliness of the Japanese soldiers and suilors, their proverbial bravery and spartan endurance; or again a man who would come to know the steadiness which almost approaches obstinacy, with which Japanese struggle in #orderto attain their objective, the virile (Continued c,u Cage •)
Newspaper Details
The Tribune Independent Of Michigan
Detroit, Michigan, US
Sat, Oct 06, 1934
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
FL, USA 28 Nov 2021
Other Publications Near Detroit, Michigan
Romanul American
Detroit American Catholic Tribune
Detroit Times
Detroit Radnicka Borba Workers Struggle
Detroit Detroiter Abend Post
