The essence of Budo Karate cannot readily be depicted by reading a few paragraphs; Budo must be experienced.  However, one can get a glimpse of its meaning by looking at the origin of the martial arts and its relationship with Eastern philosophies, and by examining the words "Karate" and "Budo" themselves.

Kyokushin karate, like most martial arts, can trace its

origin to Bodhidharma (Daruma

in Japanese),

an Indian prince and Buddhist priest who traveled to the Shaolin temple in China in the early sixth century.  There, he developed the Chan, or "Intuitive" school of Mahayana Buddhism.  Under the Chan philosophy, enlightenment was sought through meditation, rather than by the practice of rituals or the study of religious texts.  According to legend, Bodhidharma sat facing the wall in the Shaolin temple for nine years, until he achieved enlightenment.  (Other legends have him sitting and facing a wall in a cave for nine years.)  Bodhidharma also developed martial arts as a physical regimen to accompany the mental discipline of the meditation.  During the

following centuries, the Chan (or Zen

in Japanese) philosophy spread to

Okinawa and then to Japan, accompanied with martial arts.  Over time, Zen and martial arts became intermingled with each other and deeply ingrained in Japanese society.

Karate

The modern definition of the word Karate is "Empty Hand", which is spelled with the following Kanji characters:

		Kara  meaning "Empty", and
		Te  meaning "Hand".

However, the "Empty Hand" definition not been in use for much more than 100 years.

Martial arts in Okinawa were originally known simply as Te

meaning "Hand"

locations where they were practiced:  Shurite

(pronounced Suidi in

Okinawan) in the old capital city of Shuri;  Nahate

(Nafadi) in the

Naha area;  and Tomarite

(Tumaidi) in the village of Tomari.

Because of the influence Chinese kempo, Okinawan martial arts over time became known as "China Hand", spoken as Toute, Toudi or Toude, and spelled with the following Kanji characters:

		Tou  meaning "China", and
		Te  meaning "Hand".

The Kanji character Tou can also be pronounced as Kara, so the word for "China Hand" was sometimes spoken as Karate.

At some point in time, the Kanji character for Kara meaning "China" was changed to the character meaning "Empty".  (The "Empty" character Kara is also pronounced Ku, as in Kanku.)  The earliest known written designation of Karate using the "Empty" character was by the Okinawan master Chomo

Hanashiro (1869-1945) in Karate Shoushuu Hen

(also known

as Karate Kumite

), which was first published in 1905.

"Empty Hand" did not immediately gain acceptance, and "China Hand" was still used for the next few decades, especially in Okinawa.  Gichin Funakoshi, the Okinawan master who brought karate to Japan and developed what is now known as Shotokan karate (one of the styles from which Kyokushin was derived), used the "China Hand" characters in his first book, Ryukyu Kempo

Toude

, published in 1922.  Funakoshi later used the

"Empty Hand" ones in the 1935 book Karatedo Kyouhan

.

Kara character from "China"

to "Empty"

.

Gichin Funakoshi believed that "Empty Hand" better described the meaning of Karate:

The Kara that means "empty" is definitely the more appropriate. For one thing, it symbolizes the obvious fact that this art of self-defense makes use of no weapons, only bare feet and empty hands.  Further, students of Karatedo aim not only toward perfecting their chosen art but also toward emptying heart and mind of all earthly desire and vanity.  Reading Buddhist scriptures, we come across such statements as "Shikisokuzeku" and "Kusokuzeshiki" , which literally mean "Matter is void" and "All is vanity."  The character Ku , which appears in both admonitions and may be pronounced Kara, is in itself truth.

Budo

The word Budo is derived from the words:

		Bu  meaning "Martial" or "Combat", and
		Dou  meaning "Way".

Budo, the "Martial Way", is a Japanese term for arts that use peaceful combat

as a means of perfecting the self.  The word Dou

comes from the Chinese

word Tao and the philosophy of Taoism.  Dou does not mean the "way" or method of learning something, such as the learning the techniques of karate, but rather it is the path of life whereby what is learned is transcended into wisdom.

Dou and Zen are complementary.  Zen

seeks self-perfection through

passive means, such as meditation.  Dou seeks self-perfection through active means, such as the training itself.  In fact, the practice of kata is sometimes

referred to as Douzen

, or "Moving Meditation".  That which is gained

through Budi is much more than just the techniques and applications of the martial arts, and it transforms all aspects of life.

Karate and Budo are sometimes combined as Karatedo

, or the

"Empty Hand Way".

The word Dojo

, or training hall, literally means the "Way Place", and it

is also the name of the room used for meditation in a Buddhist temple.  A karate dojo is not a gym, even though the training is physically demanding and a lot of sweat is shed in a Kyokushin dojo.  It is a sacred a place of learning, and as such, it is treated with respect.  Karateka (karate practitioners) bow before entering or leaving the dojo.  Shoes are not worn in the dojo not only to keep the

dojo clean, but to keep the "outside world" out.  Mokuso

(meditation) is

sometimes done before training to clear the mind and depart from the "outside world", and after training to clear the mind again in order to return to the "outside world".

A karate uniform is called a Dogi

(or Gi for short), and the word literally

means "Way Clothes".  Just as a dojo is not a gym, a karate dogi is not just clothes in which to train.  A dogi is what a karateka wears on the path toward self-perfection.  It should always be kept clean and in good repair.  According to Mas Oyama, "to repair a torn uniform is no disgrace, but to wear a torn or dirty

one is."  However, the Obi

(belt) should never be washed.  Over time, it

becomes frayed and stained with the sweat and blood of hard training.  An old, worn and stained obi reflects the karateka's unique experience of training, which should not be washed away.

Budo

developed from Bushido

(the "Way of the Warrior"), the

code of moral conduct and way of life of the Samurai.  At the time, the extent of a warrior's skills and ability often determined whether he lived or died.  According to the karate master Gogen Yamaguchi:

Budo did not originate in a peaceful atmosphere.  It was necessary to protect one's life at the time, and to learn how to use Budo as a weapon and achieve one's responsibility as a warrior.  It was the warrior's duty to develop spirit. ... It was necessary to obtain a technique to protect oneself, and one had to have a strong spirit to correspond to that.  When one could overcome a conception of death, there was an improvement of a human being as a Samurai.  When it was developed, karatedo was used in place of weapons and studied that way, so that the spirit of the Samurai was needed at the beginning of its conception to learn karate.

For the most part, this is not the situation today (although some martial arts can be used effectively for self-defense).  Yamaguchi continues:

Now there are rules, but the techniques and elements have not changed. ... Now, karate is the battle against one's self and a means of the Way of one's life, not to defeat others or to die.  This solitary fight is to know one's own spirit and the desire to the naught that is superior to the limitation of the body.

Mas Oyama fully understood the nature of Kyokushin Karate as Budo Karate, a path toward self-perfection though the practice of the martial art:

Karate is the most Zen-like of all the Martial Arts.  It has abandoned the sword.  This means that it transcends the idea of winning and losing to become a way of thinking and living for the sake of other people in accordance with the way of Heaven.  Its meanings, therefore, reach the profoundest levels of human thought.

For a long time, I have emphasized that karate is Budo, and if the Budo is removed from karate, it is nothing more than sport karate, show karate or even fashion karate – the idea of training merely to be fashionable.

Karate that has discarded Budo has no substance.  It is nothing more than a barbaric method of fighting or a promotional tool for the purpose of profit.  No matter how popular it becomes, it is meaningless.

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