The Seven Virtues of Bushido – Respect
一、空手道は礼に始まり礼に終る事を忘るな.
Karate-do begins and ends with bowing.
– The first precept from Gichin Funakoshi (founder of Shotokan), and his Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate
The virtue of Respect can be considered the focal point of social intercourse. Consider an average daily routine, and how often respect plays into it. Do you perform your preparatory tasks quietly in the morning, to not wake those still snoozing? Did you signal your lane merge on the highway? Did you make a new pot of coffee in the office kitchen after pouring the last drop? Do you sanitize the equipment at the gym when finished with it? Do you keep the volume down at your backyard BBQ after 10:00PM?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we will touch upon Inazo Nitobe and his work, yet again. His 1899 publication Bushido, the Soul of Japan examines in intellectual detail how samurai virtues exist in contemporary society, both in his home of Japan and in the west (with comparison to medieval European chivalry). Underneath the sea of electric light and colour and of modern commerce and industry exists an ancestral dignity. Amongst the Japanese, no virtue of Bushido is so immediately apparent as respect and politeness.
Recall the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan. The devastation of towns and villages, the desperation of people without water or mobile communication, the threat of radioactive fallout. In some parts of the world, such conditions would elicit anarchic behaviour, but in a land where the code of bushido lives on in the spirit of their society, people conducted themselves with patient regard for order and conformity. Government and military resources weren’t as necessary in places because of such social cohesion, and lineups in front of aid stations were not hordes, but single file formations snaking around the perimeter. That is the consequence of a culture that traditionally practices things like chado (the way of tea), in which no table feature is inclined incorrectly or hand gesture unintended. It is an example of how training in formality and respect can lead to useful practicality.
Respect permeates everything we do, and is closely related to rectitude in how one is to conduct themselves. It not only dictates behaviour in social situations, but how we treat ourselves, as is implied in the saying “your body is a temple” and in the personal quality of self-esteem. It is the material of countless self-help sources that to have others respect you, you must first respect yourself.
Practically and martial-artistically, respect is always present. A sense of personal space and time, of seniority, of emotion, even! The termof sensei, literally translated, is “person born before another”. A dojo sensei is not necessarily going to literally be older than all of his/her students, but in a sensei’s school, nobody has been training in that very discipline longer…that is why they are called sensei, or “someone who has come before”. In Japan, teachers, mentors, and professionals alike are known as sensei. It is proper and just to address a sensei as no other title but that. They are not called their first name by their adherents, just as one wouldn’t call their doctor, a follower of the doctrine of medicine, by their given name. To ignore using such an honorific is egotistical, and not in keeping with the humility that classical budo is made of.
While in the dojo, one cannot overlook or prioritize over another the myriad etiquettes. As mentioned upon in our post on shoshin, one must be as carefully abiding to respectful behaviour in the dojo as they were when first nervously walking in. The ten-thousandth bow into the dojo must have the same spirit as the first, why would it change?
Respect is earned. It’s an effort in setting just principles and precepts, following through on them, and doing so in a constructive manner. It’s built over time, and has to be carefully nurtured through diligence in one’s own thoughts, words, and actions…manifesting in an admirable character.
Next week, we promise you will read a post on the next virtue of Bushido, honesty.
Until next time,