04/29/2026
PAGE 2 — Chapter 1: Overview (continued)
Section 3: House Precepts of the Orthodox Sōke of Musō Jikiden Eishin-ryū
Japanese:
当流の居合を学ばんとする者は、古来より伝承せられ以って今日に及ぶ当流の形に
聊かも私見を加うることなく、先師の遺された形を毫末も改変することなく、
正しく後人に伝うるの強き信念を以って錬磨せられんことを切望する。
心正しければ剣正し。心正しからざれば剣又正しからず。
剣を学ばんとするものは、技の末を追わずその根元を糾し、
技により己が心を治め、以って心の円成を期すべきである。
居合道は修正不退、全霊傾注の心術たるを心せよ。
以 上
林崎甚助源重信公 御詠 (永録四年)
千早振る神の勲我うけて
萬代までも伝え残さん
English:
Those who would learn the iai of this school: it is fervently desired that you
train and refine yourselves with the strong conviction of correctly transmitting
to those who come after — without adding the least personal opinion of your own
to the kata of this school as they have been handed down from ancient times to
the present day, and without altering by so much as a hair's breadth the kata
that the former masters have left to us.
If the heart is correct, the sword is correct. If the heart is not correct,
then neither is the sword correct. Those who would learn the sword must not
chase after the tips of technique but must investigate its very root; through
technique they must govern their own heart, and through this aim at the
perfection (en-jō) of the heart.
Bear this in mind: Iaidō is the heart-art (shinjutsu) of constant correction
without retreat, of pouring in the whole spirit.
The above.
By Lord Hayashizaki Jinsuke Minamoto no Shigenobu — gyoei (honorable composition)
— Eiroku 4 (1561)
Receiving the august deeds of the chihayafuru gods,
I shall transmit them down to ten thousand generations.
Notes:
Eiroku 4 corresponds to 1561 — the height of the Sengoku period, Japan's age of
warring states. By the same calendar, this is roughly fourteen years before Oda
Nobunaga seized Kyoto, and seven years before the Ashikaga shogunate fell. The
date matters: this kakun is not later teaching projected backward onto the
founder. It is the founder's own statement of intent, written within the world
of constant warfare for which iai was conceived.
The phrase "do not chase the tips of technique; examine the root"
(技の末を追わずその根元を糾し) appears here in the founder's own words, and the
same phrase — with one variant character — opens the founding statement of
Esaka Sensei's dōjō on Page 1. Esaka Sensei placed Hayashizaki's kakun as the
foundation of his own dōjō's purpose. The continuity is intentional.
"Gyoei" (御詠) is an honorific term for a poem composed by a revered person.
To use it for one's teacher's verses is to mark them as worthy of reverence.
"En-jō" (円成) — literally "round-completion" — is the perfection or
fulfillment of something so that it becomes whole, like a circle closing.
Used here for the heart, it means the heart brought to completeness through
the discipline of the sword.
"Shinjutsu" (心術) — the "heart-art" — places iaidō with the inner disciplines
rather than the outer techniques. The kakun ends by reminding the practitioner
that what looks like a sword art is in fact a discipline of the heart.
Notes on translation:
A few places in the text required a judgment between defensible alternatives.
They are surfaced here so the reader can see the workshop, and think the
choices through.
The waka — chihayafuru (千早振る) preserved in romaji. This is a classical
pillow-word (makurakotoba) that conventionally precedes "kami" (the gods). It
can be rendered as "the mighty gods," "the gods that shake heaven and earth,"
"the awe-shaking gods." But each of those reads as ordinary description, when
the function of the word in the original is to mark the verse as moving in
the register of sacred poetry, the language of Shintō ritual going back over
a thousand years. Leaving it in romaji preserves the signal. The cost is that
an English reader may not catch the weight of the word; this note is the
compensation.
The waka — isaoshi (勲) rendered "deeds." Could equally be "merits," "great
works," or "valor." Each shading places the gods in a slightly different
role: "deeds" emphasizes what they did, "merits" their honor, "great works"
their generative force, "valor" their warrior aspect. I went with "deeds" for
plainness; the line is plain in the Japanese, and plain English seemed the
honest match.
The prose kakun — source-language layer. The prose is presented in the
school's tradition as Hayashizaki's own words from 1561. From the page alone
it cannot be verified whether the text printed in Esaka Sensei's shiori is
in the original Sengoku-era classical form, or a later sōke's rendering of
the founder's intent in the established voice of the school. The teaching is
the school's; the precise wording, in this edition, is what reached us
through the lineage.
The historicity of Hayashizaki. The figure of Hayashizaki Jinsuke and the
1561 dating are matters of scholarly debate outside the school. The
biographical details — born around 1542 in Dewa, training at the Hayashizaki
Myōjin shrine — come from school tradition and from accounts written down
significantly later. None of this changes the standing of the kakun within
MJER; it is the founding document. But a reader should know that "traditional
account" is the right frame, not "documented historical fact."
Send a message to learn more
