Bun Bu Roku A Chronicle of Pen and Sword

About the Book

‘Budo’ is a Japanese term which may be interpreted as “The way of governance.”A precept of the Japanese culture of governance is ‘Bun Bu Ryo Doh;’ “Pen and sword – both ways.” This is an admonition recommending the pursuit of a balanced integrity of reason and force, governed by empathy and manifest in conscience. The author’s life has been a reflection of this precept in study, training, and practice. Bun Bu Roku reflects the emotional context in which these pursuits have proceeded across that life. ‘Ichiya,’ meaning “All night,” is the pen name of Karasuma Kantaro, author of Igensho The Book of Dignity General Principles of Martial Art.

About the Author

The author’s father was a special operator for the U.S. Navy. He was trained in “silent killing tactics” by former world heavyweight champion Lieutenant Jack Dempsey during the Second World War. The author’s mother was a teacher of English and a lover of literature. They were both driven, well-meaning neurotics whose relationship might be termed “co dependent.” The author was subjected by them from childhood to a continual state of fear, confusion, and pressure punctuated by frequent shifts from mollycoddling to intense emotional and physical violence. The physical and spiritual disciplines of martial art, and the anodynes of literature, music, and philosophy became his refuge and means of self-control, self-cultivation, and self-development. He evinced an interest in martial art while looking through old training manuals from his father’s time in a Navy Commando unit. His father however, refused to teach him any fighting skills. The boy learned later that this was due to the influence of his mother, who encouraged him to read and to write. Denied access to formal training by his parents until high school graduation, he researched martial art surreptitiously as best he could by means of the very limited resources then available. By his senior year, he had contrived a crude level of skill and was recruited by the headmaster of the school to conduct a class which included students and teachers from the first to the twelfth grades. In the year following his graduation, he was asked to return as a member of the teaching staff. He then embarked on formal training at a school of martial art near his parents’ New York City apartment. Subsequently, he spent eight years studying and training in Japan, where he became an authorized instructor and married. On returning to America, the author continued a life of study, training, and practice. At the age of thirty-eight, after some twenty years of formal training, he was authorized by several of his instructors to teach on his own responsibility. From fourteen years of age, he had kept a journal whose contents yielded eventually the text of Igensho. During that time and subsequently, he wrote poems reflecting his experience.