Below you will find essays on the history and philosophy of Daoism, esoteric Buddhism, Shugendō (修験道) and mountain asceticism, especially as they relate to martial culture from China and Japan.
Articles and Essays
July 2026
Early Shinkage-ryū densho show a change in theme where lines under Ogasawara's transmission of the art begin referring to enpi with the character for circle and including a concept of ensō. This might at first glance be a reference to the Zen circle. Later in some lines it becomes just that. But during the 17th century, it is explicitly a reference to the *endonkai* precepts of Tendai.
July 2026
Some information on Edo period martial traditions inspired by the religious complex on Mt. Kurama, where Yoshitsune is supposed to have learned from Tengu from the Gekiken Sōdan.
July 2026
Comparing Shugendō register Fudō/Monju wisdom-blade against Yagyū katsuninken — with godai-centered iconography as an attesting example.
July 2026
A small textual diversion: a matching-rhyme quatrain, brushed on a slip and bound into the front matter of the 1898 Takuan Zenshū, that turns on the Zen topos of drifting with conditions and remaining untouched by the world's dust.
July 2026
A companion to 'A-Un, Gogyō, Godai and Beyond.' A five-phase seasonal-apportionment chart in a Shugendō ritual manual, surfaced while searching the esoteric stratum behind Yagyū Jūbei's Tsuki no Shō, and what it shows about three easily-conflated cosmologies: five phases (gogyō), the great elements (godai/shidai), and directional-body (shishin/gotai) schemes.
June 2026
A short description of Kukishin-ryū history and its provenance, which is described as relating to Shugendō but is contested.
June 2026
Ming Chinese master of Taisha-ryū and Shugendō practitioner. Some contrasts between Hiko Shugendō and Dewa Shugendō and a digression to a famous school of sword smiths.
June 2026
The famous poem on the three mountain pilgrimage of Dewa Sanzan
June 2026
Dewa area bujutsu and the Shugendō connections of the original iai ryūha. Tengu-related origins as told in several martial traditions, contrasting them based on their period of development and social perspectives. How attitudes towards China affected origin tales over time.
May 2026
Some details on the Shugendō of Udo in Kyushu and how it might relate to the founding of Aisu Kage-ryū and the later influence of Shugendō on Shinkage-ryū.
May 2026
Last in a series. We examine a seal of transmission of self-protective methods dated 1675 and compare it against a different line of transmission from 1812.
May 2026
A brief discussion of the seasonal mappings of kata in Jikishinkage-ryū kenjutsu and how those relate to Daoist complementarity, five phase theory, and partially to Mikkyō concepts.
May 2026
Tracing the threads from the legendary Kyō Hachi Ryū and Kiichi Hōgen at Kurama, through the tengu pantheon of Mt. Atago, Kōyasan and Kotohira, to the eight cipher-names Sekishūsai used to hide the Yagyū Shinkage-ryū Tengushō kata in his picture catalog.
April 2025
Last year I began additional training in the union of Yoga and Buddhism offered through Tibet House. As part of this training, an essay comparing the Astanga (8-limbs) of Patanjali with the Buddhist Noble Eightfold path.
July 2017
Some notes on Japanese mountain religion from the Tōhoku region of Japan and its importance to practitioners of arts derived from the teachings of Takeda Sōkaku.
