技術より心術 gijutsu yori shinjutsu Spirit Over Technique
技術より心術 (gijutsu yori shinjutsu), the mind's bearing over the technique, is one of Funakoshi Gichin's twenty precepts, and its key word is older than karate: 心術 is first cited from Dōgen's 正法眼蔵, a Zen word before it was a martial one.
Abstract
技術より心術, the mind's bearing over the technique, is one of Funakoshi Gichin 船越義珍's twenty precepts of karate. The list of twenty rests on a 1938 book not held here, 空手道大観, which the encyclopedias cite for its frontispiece photograph and which the 2003 English translation of Funakoshi's own commentary names as the first printing of the precepts with that commentary. The precept's second word, 心術, is first cited in the great Japanese dictionary from Dōgen's 正法眼蔵, and its modern second sense is Kant's Gesinnung.
Overview
The text. 技術より心術, gijutsu yori shinjutsu, the mind's bearing over the technique. The twenty precepts are given by the Japanese Wikipedia article on Funakoshi, citing a photograph in a 1938 book, as a numbered list [1]; this is item 5.
The sense. The precept holds one sense and the tradition does not argue it: what the mind brings counts for more than what the hands know. Funakoshi's commentary tells of the swordsman Tsukahara Bokuden testing his sons and concludes in martial arts mental faculties are more important than technique [2].
The words. The twenty precepts are written in the formal Japanese of their day: 先づ with づ, 而して, 放たん, 要す. 技術, technique; より, rather than, over; 心術, the mind's bearing, a word whose first citation in the 精選版日本国語大辞典 is Dōgen's 正法眼蔵 and whose second sense is Kant's Gesinnung, a Zen word before it was a karate one [3]. As words: the mind's bearing over the technique.
The text in English. There are no Meiji bilingual dictionaries for a 1938 list; the English begins with the karate books. What a rendering must keep is the imperative: the precepts are rules, not observations.
The historical record
1938. Nakasone Genwa 仲宗根源和, 『空手道大観』 (A Survey of Karate-dō), the frontispiece. The earliest print anyone names for the twenty as a list. The Japanese encyclopedia gives the list as 空手二十箇条 and cites this book's frontispiece photograph, dated 3 May 1938; the English encyclopedia cites the same book. The Kodansha translation of Funakoshi's commentary names it too: Originally published as Karate-do nijukkajo to sono kaishaku, in 空手道大観, 1938 [2]. The book is not in the National Diet Library's digital collection, and neither are Funakoshi's own five pre-war books. So the list rests on one book, cited by the encyclopedias for its photograph and by the translation for its text. That is the honest footing, and the precepts are Funakoshi's by every tradition that has them [1].
What is not a source. A rendering of the precept attributed to Rob Redmond is unresolved, not refuted: the address it names carries the first two precepts and not this sentence [4]. 正法眼蔵 is named here for the word 心術, not as a source of the precept.
The precept in English
1995. John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, p. 82. Stevens's own numbered paraphrase of the twenty, Funakoshi summed up his views on the art in his "Twenty Principles of Karate.": 5, Rather than physical technique, mental technique. This is another version of "Technique does not make the person; the person make the technique." [5].
2003. Gichin Funakoshi, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, translated by John Teramoto, Kodansha International. The first English of Funakoshi's own commentary on the twenty. It heads this precept Mentality over technique; the commentary tells of Tsukahara Bokuden testing his sons and concludes in martial arts mental faculties are more important than technique [2].
Today. The two web lists give Mentality over technique and Spirit before technique [6][7]. The first is the Kodansha translation's own heading [2].
A reading
The precept is Funakoshi's by every tradition that carries it, and it is built on a word with a long Japanese life: 心術 was Dōgen's before it was a karate teacher's, and the dictionary gives Kant's Gesinnung as its second sense. The English mentality and spirit each catch half of it; the mind's settled bearing is the whole.
References
- 「船越義珍」, § 松濤二十訓, Japanese Wikipedia, citing 仲宗根源和『空手道大觀』(1938) 口絵写真. https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/船越義珍
- Gichin Funakoshi, The Twenty Guiding Principles of Karate, translated by John Teramoto, afterword by Jotaro Takagi, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 2003 (Kodansha USA, 2012).
- 「心術」, 精選版日本国語大辞典 (初出 正法眼蔵), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/心術-537777
- Rob Redmond, 24 Fighting Chickens. http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2007/04/16/nijukun-1/
- John Stevens, Three Budo Masters, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1995, p. 82.
- "Nijū kun", Wikipedia (English). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nijū_kun
- "The 20 Precepts of Karate", Chiltern Karate. https://www.chilternkarate.co.uk/about-karate/philosophy/20-precepts/