On Wed, Nov 27, 2002 at 04:20:30PM -0800, Steven Brust <skzb at dreamcafe.com> wrote: > Rubbish. Anyone who has even studied Japanese karate knows that there is > belief in, and certainly reverence for, superhuman powers in > Buddhism. Indeed, Buddhism, more than any other region that comes to mind, > is all *about* supernatural powers, revering them, and how to get them for > yourself. I suspect you are conflating certain polluting factors in Japanese religion generally with Buddhism specifically. Buddhism in its original form is relatively free of supernatural powers; it deals with "enlightenment" which does not necessarily grant any special powers, but rather is a product of your own understanding. The conception of ki and its broad influence on the practice of martial arts appears to exist independent of Buddhism. Now, if you were instead referring to the ritualized respect for the founding sensei (as found in Aikido, where each practice session in many dojos is opened with a Shinto-Buddhist ceremony to placate the spirits and show respect for the founder), that's a more religious aspect to be sure, but it's a corruption from Japanese traditions of spirit-worship and ancestor-worship rather than a part of Buddhism. Unless the sensei is claimed to have been a incarnation of Buddha (the term for which I can never spell properly), in which case you're looking at a corruption from other sources; original Buddhism did not contain reverence for Buddha-as-divine, though it was added very early. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp