The short treatise, translated into English, was on the nature of budō. It was written by a very senior exponent of classical koryu. I knew him. He was among the most erudite—and physically talented—budōka I’ve ever encountered. I have paid attention to every word he’s said and written. He made the point in the essay, one that was an overview of some of his opinions and beliefs, that in the end the ultimate goal of all traditional budō was to “establish peace.”

The notion is hardly unique, of course. We read it, we hear in the dōjō similar sentiments all the time. Curious about it though, I found the same essay online in the original Japanese. The same line in Japanese used the word junjo (順序) for what was translated as “peace.” Which is not at all the same thing. Junjo means “to put things in order.” And that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, makes all the difference.

The concept of peace is perhaps one of the more ubiquitous we encounter in discussing traditional Japanese arts. The etymologically inclined have broken down the kanji for “bu” (武) into two radicals that demonstrate how it actually means “to stop a spear,” implying that peace is indeed the righteous, lofty, and true goal of these cultural enterprises. Budō, the “Way of Martial Art,” we are reliably informed by dozens of writers on the subject, is really the Way of Peace. Martial arts writing and advertising is loaded, of course, with all manner of references to the ideal “peaceful warrior.” We are reminded again and again that the “true warrior” never has to draw his sword and that the greatest actualization of budō is in generating a kind of halcyon social order where conflict never arises or is addressed in a deeply humanitarian way.

Nor is budō alone among Japan’s pre-modern arts in this emphasis. The 45th headmaster of the Ikenobo school of flower arranging, Sen’ei Ikenobo, made a presentation a few years ago at the United Nations, a demonstration entitled “Peace Through Floral Expression.”

The previous headmaster of the Urasenke school of tea adopted the expression “peacefulness in a bowl of tea” as both a kind of personal motto and a statement of commission for his students worldwide. Of the four cardinal virtues of chadō, the first in fact, is wa, which is sometimes translated as “harmony,” but also as “peace.”

It is worthwhile in contemplating this phenomenon to consider a study done some years ago, an in-depth look at the motivations of chajin—practitioners of the tea ceremony. Both Western and Japanese students were interviewed. Both groups enthusiastically emphasized the idea of peacefulness and harmony as a primary reason they were involved and absorbed in the art.

Later, the researcher returned and dug a bit deeper. Exactly what, he wanted to know, do you mean by “peace?” Here, there was a marked contrast. Western students overwhelming described the peacefulness of the tea ceremony as the mental state they achieved within themselves. They felt more centred and calm, more able to deal with life’s stresses from a balanced connexion within, more apt to live with a placid sense of self. The process of chadō was, in part at least, a ritual of meditation for them, deeply personal and self-actualized. The Japanese students, however, explained that by “peace” they were referring to establishing and maintaining a sense of order within the group. They did not perceive it as a self-centred idea but rather as the foundation of a mutually beneficial matrix of others.

Same word, two largely different meanings. There should be a clue here for the serious practitioner of any traditional Japanese art. The reality is that “peace” does not readily translate as a concept nor are the implications of the word universal. This is particularly true in the case of Japanese culture.

The origins of these distinctively Japanese views of peace go very far back in the history of the country. Survival in a climate and region with limited opportunities for agriculture demanded group effort. The individual survived because the group survived. Order within the community was paramount. Individuality is not nearly so important as the ability to work within the group in a harmonious and predictable way. [NOTE: Let us revisit harmony, wa (和). If you consider the two radicals that comprise this character, you have a rice plant and a mouth: In other words, there’s enough rice for everyone to eat]. “Order” implied peace. Order was the fundamental concept that defined the potential for peace. Refuse to sublimate your ego and get along harmoniously, and you could go off by yourself and be thoroughly at peace, of course. That was an option. Until you froze or starved to death.

This is one reason Confucianism found such a welcome home in early Japan. Introduced in the 5th century, it exerted considerable influence but it wasn’t until much later, during the Tokugawa era, that the teachings of Confucius attained a near-religious aspect in Japanese society. The Tokugawa, incessantly preoccupied with maintaining control over the population, embraced Neo-Confucian ideas regarding one’s station in life. Recognise your station. Attend to its particular responsibilities. Fit in. The machine hums along quite nicely when all the cogs are in place. The purpose of the government is largely to oversee that all those cogs are kept rotating exactly as they are intended. The duty of the people is to obey and comply. Recognise this and there is harmony: peace. (It isn’t a coincidence that the word ran (乱) in Japanese carries simultaneous connotations: it can be interpreted as both “freedom” and “chaos.” Certainly to the mediaeval Japanese mind there would have been little difference between the two.)

Actually, the notion of control and order as an indispensable element of Japanese society goes back much further than the Tokugawa era and even further back beyond the 5th century introduction of Confucianism to Japan. It is no exaggeration to say that maintaining order is the impetus for the very creation of Japan as a civilisation. In the mythological account of Japan’s creation, the Kojiki, obeying the command of Heaven itself, the deities Izanagi and Izanami were given a jeweled spear and instructed to “repair and consolidate this drifting land.” This expression is critical. 修め理り固め成せ (“Osame riri katame nase”).  The abbreviated form of this concept, by which it is usually known, is 修理固成, Shurikosei—“to repair and consolidate.” The implication is that the world is in a state of disrepair and is not properly consolidated. According to the Kojiki, the land is “drifting.” Things need fixing. And we Japanese, by the mandate of Heaven itself, are just the folks to address that.

So it should not be surprising to see the expression shurikosei appearing in pre-war Japan, in the 1937 publication of the Kokutai no hongo, the “Cardinal Principles of the National Policy.” Written by a consortium of Japanese professors at the behest of the Imperial Government, the paper contains this passage:

Martial spirit…[exists] for the sake of peace…. Our martial spirit does not have for it the objective the killing of men but the giving of life to men. War in this sense is not by any means intended for the destruction, overpowering, or the subjugation of others; and it should be for bringing about great harmony, that is peace, doing the work of creation by following the Way.

Eons after Izanagi and Izanami had swirled that spear, the “work of creation” was to be an ongoing process for Japan. What that meant is that anything that stood in the way of creation, of repairing and consolidating, needed to be addressed. Which it was, as we all know. The other nations of Asia needed to be brought into the “Great Harmony,” and the most expeditious way to accomplish this was both necessary and morally justified. It wasn’t about “subjugating” Malaysia or China or any of the Far East. It was about bringing them into harmony with a greater good.

This may seem fatuous. From our perspective, the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” or the Hakko Ichi, the “Eight Corners of the East Under One Roof” sound like a disgusting rationalization for colonial horror and slavery. But the concept behind these ideas was part of a very real mentality in pre-war Japan, and the ideals it expressed were deeply internalized there. They were, indeed, consistent with the concept of wa, of harmony, of the need for a civilisation that valued the “peaceful” running of a system that demanded conformity.

If asked in the West what is the antonym of “peace,” a common answer would be “war.” In examining the bulk of Japanese cultural and social context, the opposite of peace is “chaos.” Understand this and you can understand much about the way things work in a traditional dōjō.

One of the more frustrating experiences for foreigners in Japan involved with traditional arts has been dealing with what are obviously (to Western sensibilities) dysfunctional situations within the group. A student will be behaving in a manner that is annoying to others. In some cases, this behaviour, as in the budō dōjō, can actually represent a serious physical threat. The student is a bully. He’s inflicted injuries. And yet the teacher appears not even to be aware of this. Sometimes the situation becomes so outrageous that the non-Japanese student confronts his teacher, asking why nothing is being done.

The results of these confrontations are inevitably frustrating. “Yes, yes,” Sensei says, “Suzuki-kun can be very naughty sometimes. But he’s young and he’s got good intentions you see and . . .” And the complaining student is thinking, “Are you freaking kidding me? Suzuki’s sent two other students to the emergency ward in the last month!”

Stories like this are a part of the after-training bar repartee of nearly every non-Japanese budōka living and training in Japan. The listener is left with the mystery of why instructors are so apparently clueless or ethically impaired to see what’s going on and step up to address it.

These situations are certainly not confined to the dōjō. I was once approached by Megan, a student of a tea ceremony teacher who confided in me that the current situation she faced in the tea group was becoming unsustainable for her. Another student was engaging in all kinds of underhanded attempts to make life miserable for Megan. She would deliberately hide tea implements, for instance, knowing the teacher would request Megan to fetch it. When Megan couldn’t find it, the other student would sigh dramatically and go off and “find” it, making Megan look stupid. This was an ongoing misery for Megan, not in the least part because the teacher seemed utterly clueless about it. Megan was actually in tears, hysterics, really, when she confided all this to me.

Within the dōjō or in the tea hut, there is a common denominator. To be sure, in both cases described above, it is possible the sensei really is just clueless. Or malicious. But more often, it is because while the behaviour is troubling and causing friction within the group, to call out the transgressor would risk an even greater threat: it would risk compromising the established order of things. And that could easily slide into chaos.

In the case of the chadō group, I knew the teacher very well. I knew that she cared deeply for all her students. I faced the challenge of trying to explain the situation to Megan. This was not an easy task, slightly beside the point of our exercise here but it does detail the complexity of the subject. In trying to explain this preoccupation with order I could sound as if I’m just trying to use “culture” as an excuse for destructive, abusive activities.

In this instance, I advised Megan of a few factors I thought she should consider. One, the Way of Tea, like any other enterprise I noted, was a human invention and had all the flaws inherent to our species. Put another way, there are jerks everywhere. Chadō does not offer a respite from daily life; it is a distillation of life, reduced to essentials meant to refine us and that is not, by definition, an easy job. I explained that the response or non-response of her sensei was, for better or worse, consistent with an important aspect of how Japanese culture has traditionally organised itself and that basically, if she wanted to play the game, she would be faced with some rules and behaviours she might not like. And I concluded with the admonition that she would eventually have to find a way to live with this situation or she would have to leave and that the key element here was her sense of integrity. Was enduring the frustration worth the goal? Could her sense of self persevere and benefit or would it be endangered?

I have been fortunate—blessed—to have met with comparatively little of these sorts of egregious behaviours in my own path of budō. Some teeth-gritting to be sure, or “eating cold rice” as the Japanese expression would have it. That said, however, there have been a couple of instances where I faced what I believed were insurmountable obstacles to maintaining my own integrity and I acted accordingly, and I was able to continue on. “Peace” is important. Integrity is even more so.

No one, save the idiot or the ideologue (the distinction becomes passingly problematic in today’s world), will conclude that given the historical and cultural context here, that the modern Japanese does not comprehend “peace” as it is accepted and understood in the West. The point is simply this: Cultures can and do differ significantly. When we make the effort to penetrate into one different from our own, we are undertaking a daunting task, nowhere as easy as some would have it. We will do well to be very careful when confronting translations of concepts, to be sure we are not being exposed to the translator’s preconceptions or to comparisons that sound good but which are potentially misleading.

We, as non-Japanese, can plumb the depths of our art just as deeply and as thoroughly as any Japanese, just as they can grasp the elements of Western thought. If I did not believe this, if my sensei had not insisted upon it unequivocally, I would have abandoned budō long, long ago. It is only that as I pursue these matters, I work to be very careful where and how I step in the path and how much effort I put into trying to understand the nature of the course.