Inner Dharma

Inner Dharma is a writing project that began in 2006 concerned with traditional martial arts and culture and grew into several longer projects that are now in print.

The writing is gathered under four subjects:

• Reflections on training: essays on practice, teaching and the internal martial arts.
• Shinkage Heihō: two books, with translations and analyses of densho from Shinkage-ryū and Kashima-shinden Jikishinkage-ryū, and additional analyses of classical writings.
• Shugendō: Shugendō and Heihō, with essays on Japanese mountain religion, Daoism, and Vajrayana Buddhism.
• Bakumatsu: From the Kōbusho to the Butokukai, with essays on the swordsmen and institutions of the last years of the Tokugawa shogunate.

Recent Entries:

• The Zoku Tokugawa Jikki and the Kōbusho, October 2026
• Finding Jikishinkage-ryū Swordsmen in the Bakufu Registers, October 2026
• Late Bakumatsu Military Units, September 2026

I want to thank all those who provided feedback and encouragement over the last twenty years. I continue my practice in the Pacific Northwest.

Mark Raugas
Seattle, WA