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剣禅一如 kenzen ichinyo The Sword and Zen Are One

剣禅一如 (kenzen ichinyo), the sword and Zen are one, names what the Zen priest 沢庵 taught the swordsman 柳生宗矩 in the 1630s. The name itself is of the twentieth century, in the National Diet Library's full text from 1916. This study follows it through 山岡鉄舟 and the storytellers to a Zen master who said in 1955 that nobody knew when it began.

Japanese Scroll of The Sword and Zen Are One (kenzen ichinyo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
The Sword and Zen Are One剣禅一如kenzen ichinyo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

剣禅一如, read kenzen ichinyo and written 劍禪一如 in the older form, has no headword of its own in the dictionaries read for this history; the 日本国語大辞典 heads its twin 剣禅一致 as the ground of the sword that the Zen master 沢庵 taught in the 不動智神妙録, where the last ground of swordsmanship is one with Zen's no-thought [1]. The four characters are not in that book as printed in 1921: in the 1630s 沢庵 and the swordsman 柳生宗矩 set Zen sayings beside the moves of the sword one at a time, and the swordsmen of the nineteenth century, 山岡鉄舟 and 勝海舟, still counted the sword and Zen as two ways [2][3][4][5]. The names come in the twentieth century: 剣禅一致 in a Zen magazine of 1901, 剣禅一味 in 1912, and 剣禅一如 from 1916 in a sentence about the 不動智, as the National Diet Library's full text gives them; within fifteen years the phrase was called ancient [6], and in 1943 a Ministry of Education textbook used it of a soldier killed in China [7][8][9][10]. My reading, signed below, is that the scroll names a practice of the 1630s by a name of the 1910s, and that it is a good goal for a dōjō wall so long as it is not given to 沢庵 as his words.

Overview

The sense. No dictionary read for this history has a headword 剣禅一如, nor 剣禅一味 [1]. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 heads the form with 一致: けんぜん‐いっち【剣禅一致】〘名詞〙沢庵和尚が「不動智神妙録」で説いた剣の境地。剣道の究極の境地は禅の無念無想の境地と同一であるという意, the state of the sword that the priest 沢庵 taught in the 不動智神妙録: that the ultimate state of the way of the sword is the same as Zen's state of no-thought, no-design, with no earliest example cited [1]. The 日本大百科全書 names 沢庵's book by the phrase itself: 『不動智神妙録』は剣禅一如(けんぜんいちにょ)の思想を示すものとして著名, the 不動智神妙録 is well known as setting out the thought of 剣禅一如 [11]. JMdict has no entry for the phrase [12]. The reading is けんぜんいちにょ, as the 日本大百科全書 gives it [11].

The words. 剣 is the sword and the art of the sword, 禅 is Zen. 一如 is a Buddhist word: in the デジタル大辞泉 first 仏語。唯一絶対の真理, a Buddhist term: the one absolute truth, then 異ならないこと。一体であること, not differing; being one body, with the example 物心一如, matter and mind one; the 日本国語大辞典's earliest example is from the 三教指帰 of about 797 [13]. The dictionary's headword has 一致 where the scroll has 一如, and a writer of 1912 has 一味, one taste (below); of the three, 一如 is the word whose dictionary sense is not two.

What follows. The historical record reads the two books of the 1630s the phrase is hung on and the print that carried one of them to the general reader, the swordsmen of the nineteenth century who wrote of the sword and Zen in their own words, the coining of the three names from 1901, their spread through school readers, novels and syllabuses, their use in the war and the cautions said against them, and the dictionaries today. 剣禅一如 in English follows the renderings. A reading is mine.

The historical record

The 1630s: the monk's letter and the swordsman's book

The 不動智神妙録 is a letter in kana by the Zen priest 沢庵宗彭 to a swordsman, with no title of its own. The 日本国語大辞典 dates it about 1638 and says it was written for 柳生宗矩, fencing master to the shogun; the 日本大百科全書 gives a fuller account, that it began as 沢庵's answer after an evening's talk on the sword before the shogun 家光 in the ninth month of 1636, with 宗矩 present, and that the copy given to 宗矩 was cut down into a sword book and handed to his pupils as 『不動智』 [14]. It reached print, the same entry says, in 1779, from a Kyoto bookseller, as one of a series of kana sermons [14].

The letter speaks to the swordsman in the second person, and it moves between his art and the Dharma by announcing the move. In the 1921 printed text of 『禅門法語全集』, after a passage on taking the opponent's sword the moment it is raised [2]:

禪宗には是を還把鎗頭倒刺人來と申候。鎗はほこにて候、人の持たる刀を我かたへもぎ取て、還て相手を切ると申心にて候。貴殿の無刀と被仰候事にて候。

In the Zen school this is called "take hold of the spearhead and turn it back on the man who came." The spear is a halberd; it means wresting from a man the blade he holds and cutting him with it in turn. It is what you call 無刀, no-sword. A Zen phrase is named for one move of the sword, and so is the swordsman's own word for it. A page on, after naming the mind that stops on the opponent's sword, its rhythm or one's own sword: これ皆心のとまりて手前ぬけ殻になり申候。貴殿御覺可有候。佛法に引當て申にて候, in all of these the mind stops and you are left an empty husk. You will know it from your own experience. I say this setting it against the Buddhist Dharma [2]. And near the end [15]:

貴殿の兵法に當て申候はゞ、太刀を打つ手を忘れて打て人を切れ、人に心を置くな、人も空、我も空、打つ手も打つ太刀も空と心得、空に心を取られまいぞ。

To put it in terms of your art: strike, forgetting the hand that strikes the sword, and cut the man; set your mind on no man; know the man as empty, yourself as empty, the striking hand and the striking sword as empty, and do not let your mind be taken even by emptiness. The Zen precedent the letter gives next is not a swordsman but a monk under the sword: 無學祖元, about to be cut down in the troubles in China, made the verse 電光影裏截春風, in the flash of lightning, it cuts the spring wind, and the soldier, the letter says, threw down his sword and ran [15]. The letter lays the sword against the Dharma point by point, saying each time which it is speaking of, and never calls them one. In the library's full text of the 1921 volume every 剣禅 form stands in the editor's introduction and life of 沢庵, none in the letter [16].

宗矩 did the same in his own book. The encyclopedia says he completed his 兵法家伝書, three scrolls, with 沢庵's help after the priest returned from exile; 沢庵 was exiled in 1629 and pardoned three years later [17][18]. In the 1937 print of 『秘籍大名文庫』, 宗矩 quotes the gāthā of the patriarch 摩拏羅, 心隨萬境轉、轉處實能幽, the mind turns with the ten thousand circumstances; where it turns is truly deep, and says what it is in his art: 萬境とは、兵法ならば敵の數々のはたらき也, the ten thousand circumstances, in the art of war, are the opponent's many movements [3]. The next paragraph opens [3]:

兵法の佛法にかなひ、禪に通ずる事多し、中に殊更着をきらひ、每物にとゞまる事をきらふ尤是親切の所也

Much in the art of war accords with the Buddhist Dharma and has much in common with Zen: above all, both abhor attachment and abhor stopping at each thing, and this is the vital point. This is the nearest any book of the period read for this history comes to the phrase, and it is the swordsman's: the art accords with the Dharma and has much in common with Zen. It sits in the part of his book on 無刀, the no-sword, which Wilson's English gives as considered an exclusive secret of our style [19]. Searched in the National Diet Library's full text, the sentence comes back from prints of 宗矩's book from 1934 on and from books quoting it, and from no print of the 不動智 [20].

The printed text: a letter becomes a lesson for every swordsman

The 国書総目録, as the National Institute of Japanese Literature serves it, lists some twenty manuscript copies of the 不動智 under titles that file it as a sword book addressed to a swordsman (沢庵和尚柳生但州江教訓書, 沢庵和尚兵法物語, 沢庵和尚刀術論, 沢庵和尚剣術書 among them), and prints of 1779 and 1791 [21]. None of the titles carries 剣禅. A printed copy without a colophon, held by Kyushu University as 『沢菴和尚神妙録』, changes the letter's address [22]. Where the 1921 text has 貴殿の無刀と被仰候事, what you call 無刀, the print has 劍術の上にては無刀の刀と申にて候, in swordsmanship it is called the sword of no-sword; where the 1921 text has 貴殿御覺可有候, you will know it from your own experience, the print has 劍術者は覺あるべく候, a swordsman will know it from experience [22]. The print takes the one swordsman out and puts every swordsman in his place. Which printing this copy is was not settled.

Two ways of one measure: 鉄舟 and 勝, 1880s–1890s

山岡鉄舟 (1836–1888) is the man the later books make the phrase's model; the 世界大百科事典 says he reached 剣禅一致 and in 1880 founded his 無刀流 [23]. His own words, as the 1930 biography 『高士山岡鉄舟』 prints them in an appendix of his writings, are of a different shape. Of his study under the Zen master 滴水 [4]:

先づ吾れ劍法と禪理とを合せ、其揆一なる所を細論す。

First I set the method of the sword beside the principle of Zen and argued in detail where they are of one measure. 滴水 answered him: 況んや貴下は、劍、禪兼至るの人なり, and you, all the more, are a man who has arrived in both, the sword and Zen [4]. Two disciplines of one measure, and a man who has reached both. In a note on his calligraphy, dated the thirtieth day of the twelfth month of 1885, 鉄舟 brings in the brush [24]:

明治十三年三月三十日、余劍禪の二道に感ずる處ありしより、諸法皆其揆一なるを以て、書亦其筆意を變ずるに至れり。

Since the thirtieth day of the third month of 1880, when something in the two ways of the sword and Zen came home to me, my brush too has changed its intent, because all methods are of one measure. 勝海舟, in a talk on 鉄舟's brushwork the same book prints, says 劍、禪、書共に其發現本所は同一揆だ, the sword, Zen and the brush: the source from which each springs is of one and the same measure, and 要するに書、劍、禪共に、否々宇宙の萬機皆其揆一なりと云ふことを記憶して置くことが大切だ, in short, what matters is to remember that the brush, the sword and Zen, and indeed every working of the universe, are of one measure [24]. Calligraphy enters here, beside the sword and Zen, in 鉄舟's own note and 勝's talk; and still they say two ways, or three, of one measure, never one thing. Where the 1930 biography speaks in its own voice it gives him the later name: 劍禪一致, as the library's full text gives it [25].

勝海舟 (1823–1899) said the same of himself. In 『海舟先生氷川清話』 of 1898: 此の坐禪と劍術とが老爺の土臺となつて, this sitting in Zen and the sword became this old man's foundation, and 是れ必竟、劍術と禪學の二道より得來つた賜であつた, it was, in the end, the gift I had from the two ways of the sword and the study of Zen [5]. In the account of his teacher 白井亨 that a 1899 life of 勝 prints, the lesson is 無我無心は禪機の極意だ, no-self, no-mind is the heart of Zen's working [26]. Every one of them counts two.

1901–1919: the names

The oldest witness the National Diet Library's full text gives for 剣禅一致 is the magazine 『禅宗』 of 15 June 1901, where the compound follows a sentence that says the sword and Zen can be said to agree and is then given to 沢庵 [7]. By 1915 a book on teaching says of the lives of swordsmen that most of them talk of things like 剣禅一致, as the library's full text gives it [27]: a phrase already in common use.

剣禅一味 is in 加藤咄堂's 『禅学観』, which the library's slip dates to the ninth month of 1912, at the close of a chapter on Zen and the martial way [8]:

皆なこれ禪によつて劍を語るもの、劍禪一味、道は則ち一、

All of these speak of the sword by way of Zen: sword and Zen are one taste, and the Way is one. In 1916 the same writer called 鉄舟 the great master of 劍禪一味 in modern times, as the full text gives it [28].

剣禅一如 is, in the oldest dated book the library's full text returns for it, 徳富蘇峰's in 1916, in an essay on the monk 一絲 printed in a book and in 『禅宗』 the same year: reading the 不動智神妙録 that 沢庵 wrote for 柳生但馬守, the essay says, shows a bond of the spirit in 劍禪一如 [9]. The first 剣禅一如 the instrument returns is already a sentence about the 不動智. In 1919 森大狂's 『近古禅林叢談』, a book of Zen lives, enters 宗矩 under the heading 臨濟, among the Rinzai laymen, and says [29]:

能く劍禪一如なることを得たり。澤庵、鐵如意を授與して、之が證明とす。

He attained the oneness of sword and Zen; 沢庵 gave him an iron 如意, a monk's sceptre, as its proof. The book names no source for the sceptre.

In the National Diet Library's full text, searched oldest first, 剣禅一致 is the commoner form to 1945, and 剣禅一如 the commoner in the 1950s; the counts are of books in one instrument, bounded by how many rows were fetched, not of uses in the language [30].

1926–1936: a school reader, the storytellers, and from of old

In 1926 the novelist 山本有三's essay 『途上』 was taken into the middle-school reader 『国文鑒』, with a sentence that the passage was drawn from the 不動智神妙録, in which 沢庵 taught 宗矩 the 妙趣 of 禪劍一如 [31]. The teachers' guide to the reader, of 1927, glosses the phrase for the classroom [32]:

【禪劍一如】 禪學も劍法も、工夫鍛鍊の功を積んで悟道に達する呼吸は、一つであるの意。

禪劍一如: means that for the study of Zen and the method of the sword alike, the knack by which long effort and training reach awakening is one. The guide calls the lesson's aim 禪的修行の極致, the height of Zen-like training [32]. The way a schoolboy of the late 1920s met the 不動智 was a novelist's essay that named it 禪劍一如, and his teacher explained the phrase as a likeness of two disciplines.

By 1931 the phrase was old. A book of that year calls it a great iron law prized from of old [6]. In the same year the Zen master 釈宗演's 『達磨の足跡』 retells 鉄舟's study under 滴水 with 劍禪一致 put in the teacher's mouth, as the full text gives it, where 鉄舟's own account has 滴水 say 劍、禪兼至る [33][4]. A children's encyclopedia of 1936 says the 不動智 teaches 劍禪一致, as the full text gives it [34].

The novelist 谷崎潤一郎, writing on 中里介山's 『大菩薩峠』 in January 1934 and reprinting the essay in 1935, put the phrase where it had lived [35]:

劍の果たし合ひそのものを、もしくは白刄の魅力と云ふやうなものを主題とし、更に進んで劍禪一如の境地などを創作の目標としたものは、恐らく日本だけにしかあるまい。いや、日本にも思想としてはあつたけれども、從來は講釋師が飯の種にしてゐたゞけで、小說の畑へ植ゑ付けたのは介山氏が始めてゞあるかも知れない。

A literature that takes the sword duel itself, or the spell of the naked blade, as its theme, and goes on to make the state of 劍禪一如 its aim, is probably to be found only in Japan. Or rather, Japan had it as an idea, but until now it was only the storytellers' bread and butter, and 介山 may be the first to plant it in the field of the novel. In 1934 a novelist knew the phrase as the stuff of the storytellers' stage.

1937–1945: the syllabus, the soldier, the state

In the late 1930s the phrase entered the kendo classroom. A 1937 primary-school curriculum lists a talk on 劍禪一致 in its kendo course, and a 1943 kendo manual written to the teaching syllabus sets the examination questions explain what 剣禅一致 is and write what you know of the 不動智神妙録, as the library's full text gives them [36][37]. In 1940 結城令聞 published a book titled 『剣禅一如』, catalogued with the subtitle 沢庵和尚原意, the original sense of the priest 沢庵, which says of the training of 剣禅一如 that it is likewise for the sake of lord and country [38]. In 1941 the press tied the phrase to the novelist 吉川英治 and his 宮本武蔵, the author speaking of the spirit of 劍禪一如 he had grasped through the novel [39].

In the war it was given to soldiers. A 1938 book of front-line tales from the 朝日新聞 has a soldier in an assault say it was the state of mind of Musashi's 劍禪一如 [40]. The front matter of 『大義』, the writings of Lieutenant Colonel 杉本五郎, killed in the attack on a height in Shanxi in September 1937 and called a 軍神, a war god, in the book's title, says he had reached the so-called state of 劍禪一如; the phrase is in the front matter and a comrade's memoir, not in 杉本's own chapters as the library's full text gives them [41][10]. On 7 September 1943 the Ministry of Education issued the civics textbook 『青年修身公民書』, in a lesson on faith [10]:

陸軍步兵中佐杉本五郎の如きも、劍禪一如の心境に到達した純忠の武人であつた。

Lieutenant Colonel of infantry 杉本五郎, too, was a warrior of pure loyalty who had reached the state of mind of 劍禪一如. In the 1930s and 1940s the phrase served the state's teaching of war.

The caution came from inside Zen, in the last full year of the war. In 1944 the 禅学会's study 『沢菴禅師の研究』 asks whether Zen can fuse with any form of life at all, puts 劍禪一如 in quotation marks, and says that if it can be said at all, it can be said only after passing through that reflection [42].

After the war: nobody knows when it began

In October 1955 the swordsman and Zen master 大森曹玄 opened a series in the magazine 『大乗禅』, later his book 『剣と禅』 (1958), by saying that the sword and Zen have long been thought of as kin and that there is even a phrase 剣禅一如, though nobody knows when it began to be said, and then asking whether the two are really inseparable [43]. Victoria's English of the same opening is below.

No Chinese or Buddhist source found

CBETA's full-text search of the Buddhist canon returns no work for 劍禪一如, 劍禪一致 or 劍禪一味; every 劍禪 it returns is a monk's name ending in 劍 followed by 禪師 or 禪人 [44]. Every witness of the phrase found for this history is Japanese.

剣禅一如 in English

Enomiya-Lassalle, 1966. Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle's Zen: Way to Enlightenment says the Japanese language has expressions like Ken-zen ichinyo, which means 'fencing and Zen are one and the same', as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it [45].

Sekiguchi, 1970. 関口真大 (Sekiguchi Shindai)'s Zen: A Manual for Westerners says that swordsmen in the past found Zen in their blades—"The sword and Zen are one", they said, as the full-text index gives it [46].

Sato, 1985. Hiroaki Sato's The Sword and the Mind writes kenzen itchi, "Swordsmanship and Zen are one", and says the 太阿記 helped promote the notion [47].

1986. An essay in the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport says From long ago, Japanese have used the phrase "kenzen ichinyo"— the oneness of Zen and the art of the sword, as the full-text index gives it [48]: the English twin of the from of old of 1931.

Victoria, 1997. Brian Victoria's Zen at War gives 大森曹玄's opening in English: Sogen opened his book by admitting that he didn't know when the phrase "The sword and Zen are one" (ken Zen ichinyo) had first been used, at the page its index gives as 188, as the full-text index gives it [49].

Hurst, 1998. G. Cameron Hurst's Armed Martial Arts of Japan gives the phrase as the transcendent concept of kenzen ichinyo—"the sword and Zen are one" and warns in a note: We have to be very careful with the idea of combining Zen and swordsmanship or asserting that "swordsmanship and Zen are one" (kenzen ichinyo). There is no necessary connection between the two, and few warriors were active Zen practitioners [50].

Dumoulin, 2005. Heinrich Dumoulin's history of Japanese Zen notes that 大森 was familiar with talk of the "unity of sword and Zen," but stressed rather that the practice of Zen is not necessarily required to achieve mastery of the sword [51].

Wilson, 2012. William Scott Wilson's translation of the 兵法家伝書, The Life-Giving Sword, says in its introduction that through 沢庵's teaching 宗矩 was able to confirm the concept of kenzen ichinyo, or the "sameness of sword and Zen," and that this concept was emphasized in Fudochi shinmyoroku as Takuan explained, then quotes as 沢庵's a passage beginning There are many instances where the martial arts and Buddhism are in accordance [19]. In his own translation that sentence is 宗矩's, in the section on no-sword: The martial arts are in accordance with the Buddhist Dharma, and have many points in common with Zen [19][3].

So the English took the phrase in the 1960s as an old Japanese saying, gave it in Wilson to 沢庵, and has carried a scholar's warning beside it since the 1990s.

A reading

I read 剣禅一如 as the name a century gave to a practice of the 1630s. What 沢庵 and 宗矩 did can be read at their pages: a monk took Zen sayings, one by one, and said which move of the sword each one was, and a swordsman took a patriarch's verse and said what it meant against an opponent's sword, and both kept saying which of the two they were speaking of. Their lesson was that the mind must stop nowhere, on the opponent's sword, on one's own, or on emptiness itself. The swordsmen of the nineteenth century who lived it, 鉄舟 and 勝, wrote of two ways of one measure. The four characters claim more than any of them did: not that the sword agrees with Zen, but that the two are not two. That is a claim a student can aim at, and I think it is what the phrase is for on a dōjō wall: a goal of training, the place where the sword is practiced so that the mind stops nowhere. It is not a sentence of 沢庵's, and a page that offers it as his words says more than his letter does.

The brush belongs in this history by 鉄舟's own hand. He wrote that after the day of 1880 his calligraphy changed, because the sword, Zen and the brush were of one measure, and 勝 said the three sprang from one source. A buyer who hangs these four characters is hanging the one place in the record where a master of the sword and of Zen said the brush was part of the same discipline.

The phrase served the state's teaching of war, in a textbook of 1943 among other places, and that belongs in its history. It does not make a scroll a wartime object. The phrase was a name for a teaching three centuries older, and two of the plainest cautions about it came from Zen itself, a society of scholars in 1944 and 大森曹玄 in 1955.

Notes

The count of books. The figures for 剣禅一致, 剣禅一味 and 剣禅一如 are of books returned by the National Diet Library's full text, oldest first, up to the number of rows fetched; they show which form led, not how often anyone used either.

Open, not pursued: the 太阿記, which the 1944 study reads as teaching 劍禪一致 more directly than the 不動智, at any witness (it is not in the 1921 volume; the 1915 『武術叢書』 is the next print); the 1944 禅学会 chapter whole, and the 1901 and 1916 『禅宗』 issues, 蘇峰 1916, 『大義』 1938 and 山本有三 1926 at the page (served only inside Japan); Zen at War at page 188 (the Internet Archive's lending refuses); the Japanese behind Tokitsu's English of 勝 on 白井亨, the way of the sword and Zen are identical, found in neither 勝 book read; which printing the Kyushu copy of the 不動智 is; the first print of 鉄舟's essay and of his 1885 note before the 1930 book; Enomiya-Lassalle's German original.

References

  1. 「剣禅一致」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank; no dictionary kotobank carries has a headword 剣禅一如 or 剣禅一味. https://kotobank.jp/word/剣禅一致-258596
  2. 後藤亮一, editor, 『禅門法語全集』, 1921, scan 15, pp. 2–3, 沢庵 『不動智神妙録』. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968098/1/15
  3. 福井久蔵, editor, 『秘籍大名文庫』, 1937, scan 37, pp. 56–57, 柳生宗矩 『兵法家伝書』. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1074542/1/37
  4. 葛生能久, 『高士山岡鉄舟』, 1930, scan 274, the appendix 鐵舟遺稿, pp. (36)–(37). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1908856/1/274
  5. 勝安芳 (海舟), told, 吉本襄, editor, 『海舟先生氷川清話』, 1898, scan 36, pp. 66–67. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/781229/1/36
  6. 水谷清, 『古事記大講』, 1931, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1241397
  7. 『禅宗』, no. 75, 15 June 1901, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/11006063
  8. 加藤咄堂, 『禅学観』, scan 92, p. 166, the chapter 禪と武道; the date (明治45年9月) on the library's slip at scan 148. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823194/1/92
  9. 徳富猪一郎 and others, 『大梅夜話解説』, 1916, the essay on 一絲, snippet view, National Diet Library; the same essay in 『禅宗』, 15 August 1916 (pid 11006172). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1182791
  10. 文部省, 『青年修身公民書』, 1943, scan 44, pp. 60–61, 第五課 信仰; the colophon at scan 66. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1461121/1/44
  11. 「沢庵」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/沢庵-92912
  12. JMdict, release 3.6.2, no entry for 剣禅一如, 劍禪一如, 剣禅一致 or 剣禅一味; 一如 is oneness (the release file, searched October 2026).
  13. 「一如」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/一如-31332
  14. 「不動智神妙録」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/不動智神妙録-374616
  15. 後藤亮一, editor, 『禅門法語全集』, 1921, scan 27, pp. 26–27, 沢庵 『不動智神妙録』. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968098/1/27
  16. 後藤亮一, editor, 『禅門法語全集』, 1921, the editor's introduction, life of 沢庵 and the text of the 不動智神妙録, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968098
  17. 「柳生宗矩」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and other dictionaries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/柳生宗矩-143473
  18. 「沢庵宗彭」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus and other dictionaries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/沢庵宗彭-18646
  19. William Scott Wilson, translator, The Life-Giving Sword: Secret Teachings from the House of the Shogun, Shambhala, Boston, 2012 (the translation © 2003), the introduction and note 11, and On the No-Sword, read in the text layer.
  20. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search for 禪に通ずる事多し, oldest first, October 2026: 21 books, the oldest 『武道宝鑑』 (1934), then 『秘籍大名文庫』 (1937) and books quoting the sentence. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=禪に通ずる事多し
  21. 国書データベース, National Institute of Japanese Literature, the work record 不動智神妙録 (the 国書総目録 holdings: manuscripts, and prints of 安永8 and 寛政3). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/484377
  22. 『沢菴和尚神妙録』, a print with no colophon, 九州大学 中央図書館 雅俗文庫, imaged by the National Institute of Japanese Literature, canvases 5–6. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300049495/5
  23. 「山岡鉄舟」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and other dictionaries, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/山岡鉄舟-22058
  24. 葛生能久, 『高士山岡鉄舟』, 1930, scans 110–111, pp. 166–169, the chapter 鐵舟と書. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1908856/1/110
  25. 葛生能久, 『高士山岡鉄舟』, 1930, scan 55, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1908856/1/55
  26. 民友社, editor, 『勝海舟』, 1899, scan 124, part 2, p. 21. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/781225/1/124
  27. 加藤末吉, 『教壇上の教師』, 1915, scan 21, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/939233/1/21
  28. 加藤咄堂, 『剣客禅話』, 1916, scan 60, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/944046/1/60
  29. 森大狂, 『近古禅林叢談』, 1919, scan 45, pp. 60–61, under 臨濟 柳生宗矩. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/963150/1/45
  30. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search, oldest first, October 2026: 剣禅一如 2,873 books (the first 400 fetched: 1910s 3, 1920s 11, 1930s 94, 1940s 124, 1950s 155), 剣禅一致 2,223 (the first 600: 1900s 3, 1910s 11, 1920s 49, 1930s 232, 1940s 236; 1950s 69 among the rows fetched), 剣禅一味 573 (the first 300); the index folds 劍 and 剣, 禪 and 禅. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=剣禅一如
  31. 山本有三, 『途上』, 1926 (pid 977226), and 垣内松三, editor, 『国文鑒』, 1926, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/918824
  32. 垣内松三, editor, 『国文鑒 教授参考書』, 1927, scans 160–162, pp. 302–306, lesson 三七 心の置處. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1266943/1/161
  33. 釈宗演, 『達磨の足跡』, 1931, scans 86–92, the chapter 劍禪一致の極處, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175460/1/86
  34. 小原国芳, editor, 『児童百科大辞典』, 1936, scan 202, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1720373/1/202
  35. 谷崎潤一郎, 『摂陽随筆』, 1935, scan 102, p. 189, 「直木君の歷史小說について」 (first printed in 『文藝春秋』, January 1934, pid 3197645). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175079/1/102
  36. 和歌山県女子師範学校附属小学校, editor, 『日本的性格陶冶の実践』, 1937, scan 125, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1463492/1/125
  37. 名武赤心会, 『真剣道論』, 1943, scan 112, as the National Diet Library's full text gives it. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1030087/1/112
  38. 結城令聞, 『剣禅一如』, 大東出版社, 1940, the library's catalogue record (subtitle 沢庵和尚原意), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1256615
  39. 『政界往来』, June 1941, and 『詩と美術』, April 1941 (pid 1508198), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2740261
  40. 朝日新聞社, editor, 『上海・北支戦線美談』, 1938, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1034306
  41. 杉本五郎, 『大義 : 軍神杉本中佐遺稿』, 1938, the front matter and a comrade's memoir, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1026588
  42. 禅学会, editor, 『沢菴禅師の研究』, 1944, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1040774
  43. 『大乗禅』, October 1955, snippet view, National Diet Library; 大森曹玄, 『剣と禅』, 1958 (pid 2489636), snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/7885263
  44. CBETA Online, full-text search of the canon for 劍禪一如, 劍禪一致, 劍禪一味 and 劍禪, October 2026. https://cbetaonline.dila.edu.tw/search/?q=劍禪一如
  45. Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Zen: Way to Enlightenment, Taplinger, New York, 1966, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/zenwaytoenlighte0000hugo
  46. Sekiguchi Shindai (関口真大), Zen: A Manual for Westerners, Japan Publications, Tokyo, 1970, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/zenmanualforwest0000seki
  47. Hiroaki Sato, translator, The Sword and the Mind, © 1985, read in the Barnes & Noble edition of 2004 published by arrangement with The Overlook Press, the introduction, read in the text layer.
  48. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, vol. 13, 1986, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/journal-philosophy-sport_1986_13
  49. Brian Victoria, Zen at War, Weatherhill, New York, 1997, p. 188 by the book's index, as the Internet Archive's full-text index gives it (the scans are lent, not open). https://archive.org/details/zenatwar0000vict
  50. G. Cameron Hurst III, Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery, Yale University Press, 1998, p. 74 and note 56, p. 212, read in the text layer.
  51. Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, volume 2, Japan, World Wisdom, 2005, the notes, note 92, read in the text layer.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 剣禅一如 (kenzen ichinyo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/kenzen-ichinyo-sword.