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水の心 mizu no kokoro Heart Like Water

水の心 (mizu no kokoro), the heart of water, is a Japanese phrase with more than one reading. It is in a love poem of 905, and a 万葉集 song before it likens a clear heart to cold water. This study follows its uses, from the muddy water that holds the moon to a school poem's water held gently in two hands.

Japanese Scroll of Heart Like Water (mizu no kokoro) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Heart Like Water水の心mizu no kokoro

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

水の心 is not a headword in the dictionaries opened for this page, but the phrase is a thousand years old and the image behind it older: a 万葉集 song likens a clear heart to cold water. Its own uses are few and clear: the water's own heart, swift or shallow, in court love poems from 905; the muddy water that holds the moon, in a Buddhist poem of 1320; a still surface broken by a single act, in the archers' teaching and in karate's mind like water, in English print from 1960; water that flows through every season, in a judo textbook of 1920; and water that can only be held in cupped hands, in a poem taught to Japanese fifth-graders. Readers bring to it neighboring expressions that are not it: the reversed 心の水, a dictionary headword from a poem of 1151; the 荘子's still water that mirrors; the 老子's water that takes any shape; and Musashi's make the mind water. The English title, Heart Like Water, names no one of them.

Overview

The sense. The phrase's own uses, in the sources read for this page, are few and clear. The water's own heart, its current and its depth, which the love poets of the tenth century made a figure for their own [1][2]; a 万葉集 song had already likened a clear heart to cold water [3][4]. The muddy water that holds the moon, in a Buddhist poem of 1320, whose commentators read the water as the believer's heart [5]. A still surface: the archers' 水の心 at the center of the chest, which the release breaks, and karate's mind like water, which reflects the opponent as undisturbed water does. Water that flows through every season, in a judo textbook of 1920. And water that cannot be grasped: 高田敏子's poem 水のこころ, in which water is scooped with fingers held together and cupped in two hands, gently, and so is a person's heart [6]. Readers bring other expressions to the three characters, and those are not this phrase. The reversed 心の水, the heart likened to water, is a headword in the 精選版 日本国語大辞典, first from a poem of 1151 [7]. The still water that mirrors is the 荘子's: no one uses running water for a mirror, only still water [8], and the sage's still mind is the mirror of heaven and earth [9]; Japanese fixed it as the four characters 明鏡止水 [10], and the 禅林句集 has 心如水中月, the mind like the moon in water [11]. The water that benefits all things and does not contend is the 老子's highest good [12], and the water that takes the vessel's shape is Musashi's make the mind water. Which of these a reader brings to the three characters is the reader's.

The words. 水 is water, 心 the heart, the mind, the seat of attention; の joins them. The particle is load-bearing. Without it the same two characters are a different word twice over: 水心 mizugokoro is a swimmer's feel for the water [13], and it is also the short form of 魚心あれば水心, if the fish has a heart for the water, the water has a heart for the fish, goodwill returned [14]. The scroll's の keeps the phrase apart from both. Reversed, 心の水, the heart's water, is the dictionaries' word for the image: 心の状態を水にたとえていう, the state of the heart likened to water, in its clarity or muddiness, depth or shallowness, stillness or motion; the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives the same headword a second sense, 精液, semen, which no use of 水の心 read for this page carries [7]. The oldest use of the phrase in the sources read here is the water's own heart, in a love poem of the 古今集 of 905: 吉野河水の心ははやくとも, though the heart of the Yoshino's water runs swift [1]. The 万葉集's 寒水の心もけやに holds the same characters and is not the phrase: its commentators read 寒水の as a figure leading into the singer's own heart, like cold water, the heart is clear [3][4][15]. Both poems read a person's heart in water. The difference is whose heart the words name: in the 古今 poem the heart is the water's, and the lover's passion is read in it; in the 万葉 song the heart is the singer's, and cold water is its likeness.

The text in English. The phrase travels in English in three settings. As the court poem's water it reached English with the translators of the 古今集 and the 土佐日記 in the 1980s: the heart of the waters, the river's feeling for me [16][17]. As a karate teaching it reached print in 1960, in Nishiyama Hidetaka and Richard Brown's Karate: The Art of "Empty Hand" Fighting, which gives mizu no kokoro (a mind like water) beside tsuki no kokoro (a mind like the moon) and credits the pair to the ancient karate masters without naming one [18]. As a poem it reached English in 2007, when Arthur Binard translated 高田敏子's 水のこころ as Water Way [19]. Beside them stands Bruce Lee's be water of 1971, which is the 老子's formless water and not this phrase.

The historical record

Eighth century. The 万葉集. A song in book 16, 3875, has 寒水の心もけやに思ほゆる [3]. The words 寒水の心 stand side by side, but the commentators read them as two things: the lines up to 寒水の are a figure hung on 心もけやに, the heart is clear, and the heart is the singer's. 井上通泰 in 1928: サムミヅノまでの五句は心モケヤニにかゝれる序なり, the five lines up to "cold water" are a preface hung on "the heart is clear" [4]; 福井久蔵 in 1927: 〓水の如く心を潔くおもほゆる … こは比したるなり, the heart feels pure as clear water; this is a comparison [15]. They do not agree on who sings it — a woman, for 井上 [4]; a man who hopes to meet a girl on a quiet road, for 鴻巣盛広 in 1935 [20] — and the old readings of 寒水 run ひやみづ, しみづ, ましみづ and さむみづ [4]. So this is not yet the phrase. It is the oldest likening of a clear heart to cold water in the sources read for this page, some four centuries before the poem the dictionaries cite for 心の水.

905 and about 935. The water's heart, in love poems. The phrase first stands, in the sources read here, in the 古今集, the first imperial anthology, among the anonymous love poems of book 13: 吉野河水の心ははやくともたきのおとにはたてしとそ思ふ, though the heart of the Yoshino's water runs swift, I will not let it sound out like the falls [1]. The water's heart is its current, and the current is the lover's passion, which will not be let out as rumor; the translators give it as the heart of the waters flows swiftly and this passion impetuous as the flow of Yoshino's stream [16][21]. Thirty years later 紀貫之's 土佐日記, near the capital on a river too low for the boat, has the ailing master of the party sigh とくと思ふ船なやますは我がために水のこゝろのあさきなりけり, the boat I would hurry drags, because the water's heart is shallow toward me [2]: the river's feeling for me … shallow as its waters, in McCullough's English, the shallow sympathy this river bears me in McKinney's [17][22]. In both the water has a heart of its own, swift or shallow, and the poet's heart is read in it.

1151. The heart as water becomes a word. The 詞花和歌集 carries 藤原実行's 思ひやれ心の水の浅ければかき流すべき言の葉もなし, think of it: the water of my heart is so shallow that there are no words for it to carry away, and the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 makes that poem the first attestation of 心の水, the heart's water, defined as the state of the heart likened to water in its clarity or muddiness, its depth or shallowness, its stillness or motion [7]. 西行's 山家集, later in the same century, has the still-water sense in a Buddhist key: 波の立つ心の水を鎮めつつ咲かん蓮を今は待つかな, stilling the waves of my heart's water, now I wait for the lotus to bloom [7]. Here the water is the heart's own, under the reversed words.

1188 and 1320. The moon in the water. The 千載集 of 1188 already sets the moon in the heart's water, under the reversed words: 藤原教長's 照る月の心の水にすみぬればやがてこの身に光りをぞさす, on attaining buddhahood in this body, when the moon shines clear from the water of my heart, on this body just as it is light is cast [23]. The 続千載集, the imperial anthology of 1320, carries the image under the scroll's own words, among its Buddhist poems: にごりえの水の心はすまずとも やどれる月の影はくもらじ, though the heart of the muddy inlet's water never clears, the moon lodged in it is not dimmed [5]. Two Pure Land collections, of 1921 and 1941, quote the poem and name its poet 従三位宣子 [24][25], and they read it as the nenbutsu said inside deluded thoughts: the water is the believer's heart, which does not clear, and the moon is Amida's light, which does not need it to. In that reading the poem forgives the mind for not being still. The sayings of the Pure Land teacher 関通, printed in 1892, carry the poem with the moon parting the reeds instead, 濁り江の水のこゝろはすますともあしまをわけてやとる月影 [26]. Zen keeps the same image as a capping phrase: 心如水中月, the mind like the moon in water, reflected in clear water and muddy alike, moving with the water and leaving no trace [11].

About 1346. A court love poem. The 風雅集, completed about 1346, carries 二条良基's poem on hidden love, Shirareji na / Osauru sode no / Namidagawa / Shita ni wa hayaki / Mizu no kokoro o: the river of tears on the sleeve, and under it a heart / Now turbid like an agitated stream, in Brower and Miner's English [27]. It is the 古今 poem's swift water under a still surface, four centuries on.

1641 and 1645. 宮本武蔵, and a neighboring phrase. Musashi's words are not 水の心 but 心を水にして and 心を水になす, make the mind water. They belong in this record because his is the flowing water many readers bring to the phrase. His 兵法三十五箇条 says of the mind: 心を水にして折にふれ事に應ずる心也、水にへきたんの色あり、一滴もあり滄海も在り, make the mind water, a mind that answers each thing as it comes; water has the color of the deep pool, and it is a single drop and it is the ocean. The 五輪書 names its second book for it: 第二水の卷、水を本として心を水になすなり、水は方圓の器にしたがひ、一滴と成り蒼海と成る, the Water Book: taking water as the model, one makes the mind water; it follows the square or the round vessel, becomes a drop and becomes the blue sea [28]. Between 1917 and 1944 seven Japanese books in the National Diet Library's full-text index quote the line, their authors two Zen writers, a kendō historian and a novelist — 釈宗演, 堀内文次郎, 山田次郎吉, 菊池寛 [29].

Edo, printed 1894 and 1931. The archers' term. The oldest martial use of the phrase in the sources read for this page is not karate but kyūdō. The 竹林派 school names its highest release 紫部の離, and an undated Edo manuscript, 射學雜纂, teaches it so: 胸の詰を真中にして水の心を持て五臓五体の精を胸に収る時は其色紫と成此紫の胸の中へ大石を打込如く離の心を付て双四つに搦たる物さつと切て離るゝ心そ, hold the center of the chest as the heart of water, gather the body's essence there until its color is purple, and then, as if a great stone were thrown into it, let the four bindings of the draw part at once [30]. The passage is printed in 1894 [31] and again in 1931 for the Dōshisha kyūdō club, 胸の眞中を水の心にて、其眞中へ大石を打ち込んで [32]. Water here is a still surface that a single act breaks. A gunnery manuscript of the 荻野流, copied in 1864, carries 水のこころ as its title; it has not been opened, and what the words mean in it is not known here [33].

1900 to 1942. The phrase in several traditions at once. A Zen sermon of 1900 uses the old sense, water's own nature; preaching on 道元's 山水経, it has 水の水たる妙用を發揮せんと欲せば。水の心を覺らざるべからす, to bring out the marvelous working of water, one must awaken to the heart of water, beside 山に山の心あり。水に水の心あり, the mountain has the mountain's heart, the water the water's [34]. A Pure Land tract of 1909 uses it for entrusting oneself to Amida, in the swimmer's image: 水の心を知りて、水に任すれば、怒濤の上も尙ほ疊の上に在るが如し, knowing the heart of water and giving oneself to it, one is on raging waves as if on the tatami [35]; a swimming manual of 1942 tells the learner to go on into the stroke 水の心を識りつゝ, knowing the heart of the water [36]. And a judo textbook of 1920, telling students how often to train, has 春夏と秋と冬との區別無く流れて止まぬ水の心, the heart of water that flows without stopping, spring, summer, autumn or winter [37], repeated in the same author's judo manual of 1935 [38]. The National Diet Library's full-text index, whose books run to 1966 and all but sixteen of them to 1949, finds the string 水の心 in 2,221 books; most of those are other words that contain it, 山水の心, 濁り江の水の心, 明鏡止水の心 and 水の心得. Of the twelve it classes under martial arts and sport, five carry the phrase: the archery prints of 1894 and 1931, the two judo books and the swimming manual. Four are editions of one kendō manual, 堀田捨次郎's, which has 明鏡止水の心, the mirror-mind under its four Chinese characters; two are copies of a collection of 1915 with 柳生's 西江水の心; one is a rowing reader's 水の心得. None is a karate book. The two pre-war karate books the index holds, 船越義珍's of 1922 and 本部朝基's of 1926, were searched whole at their machine-read text and do not contain the phrase [29].

1935 to 1939. The last sentence of 吉川英治's Musashi. The novel ran in the 朝日新聞 from August 1935 to July 1939, and in the words of the 日本大百科全書 it revised the old picture of Musashi as a master swordsman, 従来の剣豪としての武蔵像を改め [39]. It ends on the phrase. After the duel on the island, with those who disliked him saying he had been rattled, since he left without finishing Kojirō, the book closes: 波騒は世の常である。波にまかせて、泳ぎ上手に、雑魚は歌い雑魚は躍る。けれど、誰か知ろう、百尺下の水の心を。水のふかさを。 The noise of the waves is the way of the world. Given over to the waves, swimming well, the small fry sing and the small fry dance. But who knows the heart of the water a hundred feet down, the depth of the water? [40]. It is the tenth-century water's heart again, the current and the depth under the surface, and here it is the depth of a man the world only sees the surface of.

1975. The poem. 高田敏子 (1914–1989) wrote 「水のこころ」. The pages that print it whole place it in 『可愛い仲間たち』 of 1975, a book of poems with photographs by 西川治 that the national catalogue holds [6], and the National Diet Library's reference service finds it in 『高田敏子詩集』 of 1997 [41]; neither book has been opened here. 水は つかめません／水は すくうのです／指をぴったりつけて／そおっと 大切に——／水は つかめません／水は つつむのです／二つの手の中に／そおっと 大切に——／水のこころ も／人のこころ も, water cannot be grasped; water is scooped, fingers pressed together, softly, with care. Water cannot be grasped; water is enfolded, in two hands, softly, with care. The heart of water, and the heart of a person. The national catalogue returns two fifth-grade readers approved in 2001 on a search for the poem's title [42], a teacher's note of 2011 has it in 東京書籍's fifth-grade reader [43], and a first-year middle-school recording of 2012 carries it [42]. Its water is neither still nor flowing. It is held: a heart, like water, slips from a hand that closes on it and stays in hands that cup it. An association of bereaved families prints it for holding the memory of the dead [44]. Under the titles 水の心 and 水のこころ the catalogue holds collections of poems, tanka and haiku, Zen books from 永平寺 and on 明鏡止水 and 行雲流水, a book on the water of faith, a book on dry gardens, an ethics primer of 1875, the readers' recordings, and one martial book, the gunnery manuscript of 1864 [45][33]. A title is not a use; the census shows only what people have named books.

What is not a source. 沢庵's 不動智神妙録 does not carry the phrase in either printing searched, nor do his sayings collected in 1934, and its water is the flowing kind: a ball thrown on a rushing stream that rides the waves and never stops, 急水上打毬子念々不停留, and a swimmer who forgets the water as a fish does [46][47][48]. The kendō manuals say 明鏡止水, which is a different expression with a fixed form. The proverb 魚心あれば水心 and the swimmer's 水心 are the same characters and a different word [13][14]. The Bruce Lee monologue is a television actor's lines of 1971 and belongs to reception rather than to the phrase's sources. A video game of 2023 names a beginner's water skill 水の心 [49]. None of these is an origin, and each has been offered as one.

The word in English

1960. Nishiyama Hidetaka and Richard Brown, Karate: The Art of "Empty Hand" Fighting, Tuttle, pp. 19–20: mizu no kokoro (a mind like water) This term, along with the one in the following section, was emphasized in the teachings of the ancient karate masters … Mizu no kokoro refers to the need to make the mind calm, like the surface of undisturbed water. To carry the symbolism farther, smooth water reflects accurately the image of all objects within its range; and tsuki no kokoro (a mind like the moon) This concept refers to the need to be constantly aware of the totality of the opponent and his movements, just as moonlight shines equally on everything within its range [18]. Nishiyama was 船越's student and the Japan Karate Association's. The book credits the pair to the old masters and names none. It is the earliest English print of the phrase in the books read for this page and in what the Internet Archive's full-text index returns on it.

1963. Roger Zelazny's story A Rose for Ecclesiastes, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for November, has the moon alone: I tried hard to force my mind tsuki no kokoro, like the moon, reflecting the all of Ontro [50].

1967 to 1998. H. D. Plée's Karate: Beginner to Black Belt glosses MIZU NO KOKORO: "the mind like water" [51]. Ratti and Westbrook's Secrets of the Samurai of 1973 give the pair as the famous images of mizu-no-kokoro and tsuki-nokokoro in the theory of haragei: a spirit like calm water that reflects everything near it, and a spirit calm as the moon, which shines over everything impartially and is thus "aware" of the entire landscape. They set it among the majority of kenjutsu masters, not karate's, and their bibliography lists both Nishiyama and Dürckheim's The Japanese Cult of Tranquillity of 1960 [52]; which of them they drew the pair from is not shown. Randall Hassell's Karate Ideals of 1991, read in its 1995 printing [53], and Robin Rielly's Complete Shotokan Karate of 1998 [54] teach the pair as Shotokan's own.

1971, and the other water. Bruce Lee's Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water … Be water, my friend are lines he spoke in the television series Longstreet in 1971, as Wikiquote transcribes them from a documentary of 2000 in which he recites them [55]. When Pierre Berton asked him on his show of 9 December 1971 for the lines Stirling Silliphant wrote for you, Lee recited them [56]; who wrote them is told both ways, Berton giving them to Silliphant and Wikiquote to Lee [55][56]. This is the 老子's water, formless and taking the vessel's shape. Lee's own notes, as edited in 2000, set it beside the other water: Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo [55]. The pairing is the 荘子's, in its last chapter: 其動若水，其靜若鏡，其應若響, in motion like water, in stillness like a mirror, in responding like an echo [57].

1984 to 1988. The court poem's water, and the words of the title. The translators of the court poetry gave the tenth-century water its English: Rodd's Kokinshū of 1984 has the heart of the waters flows swiftly, McCullough's of 1985 turns it to this passion impetuous as the flow of Yoshino's stream, and McCullough's 土佐日記 the same year has the river's feeling for me … shallow as its waters [16][21][17]. And the English words of the title, a heart like water, are in print in 1988 for a Chinese line, not this Japanese one: John Stevens renders a scroll brushed 焚香静座 心如水, Takiko seiza shin nyo sui, as Lighting incense, sitting quietly, a heart like water [58].

2001. David Allen's Getting Things Done took mind like water into office productivity, crediting karate for it [59].

2007. The poem in English. Arthur Binard, an American poet writing in Japanese, put 高田敏子's poem into English in 『日本の名詩、英語でおどる』 as Water Way: You can't snatch water. Water needs to be scooped by fingers held together in close accord, uplifting with care … Water is that way, and so is a person's heart [19]. His note on the title, as a reader's transcription gives it, says that heart, feeling and mind each made the water a person, and the poem does not.

Today. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and the デジタル大辞泉 at kotobank, and JMdict, have no entry for 水の心; the reversed 心の水 is the headword [7]. Japanese dōjō pages teach the karate sense in these words today, without naming a source: 水の心の教えは、勝負に際し相手に対する時の心境の理を説いたものである。まず我が心が水のように、清く澄み、風もなく静かであれば、満月は丸く、三日月は細く月影をうつし, the teaching of the heart of water sets out the state of mind in facing an opponent: if my heart, like water, is clear and still with no wind, the full moon is reflected round and the crescent thin [60].

A reading

The phrase's own waters are few: the love poets' water, whose heart runs swift or shallow as a person's does; the 1320 poem's muddy water that holds the moon; the archers' and the karateka's still surface; the judo teacher's water that flows through every season; and the school poem's water held in two hands. Around them stand the heart's water of 1151, the 荘子's mirror, the 老子's and Musashi's flowing water, and Lee's be water. The 荘子 itself, and Lee after it, set the moving water and the still mirror side by side, so a reader who brings both brings an old pairing, not a confusion. Of the phrase's own uses the root is the water's own heart, and 吉川英治's last sentence, the depth under the noise of the waves, still belongs to it. The karate mind like water is the use English met first, in 1960. The poem I would give a Japanese reader is the 1320: the heart of the muddy inlet's water never clears, and the moon in it is not dimmed. The poem I would give anyone else is 高田敏子's, because it is the one that asks something of the person who reads it, and asks it gently. Which water a person carries in these characters is theirs to decide; the philology's part is to show which are the phrase's and which are its neighbors'.

Notes

The phrase is not a headword under this word order in the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 or the デジタル大辞泉 at kotobank, or in JMdict, and 水心 — the same two characters without the particle — is in all three. The full 日本国語大辞典 was not opened. The reversed phrase 心の水 is the headword to open instead.

The attribution of the 1320 poem to 従三位宣子 comes from the Pure Land commentators who quote it, not from a 校注 edition of the 続千載集 with its headnote, which would settle it.

高田敏子's poem is quoted from three published readings of it that print it whole and agree to the letter, and Binard's English from a reader's transcription; the poem at its own page in the 1975 book, and Binard's book, remain to be opened.

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 『古今和歌集』巻十三, 恋歌三, 651, よみ人しらず, at Japanese Wikisource. https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/古今和歌集/巻十三
  2. 紀貫之, 『土佐日記』, in 丸岡桂 and 松下大三郎 eds., 『国文大観』 9, 日記草子部, 板倉屋書房, 1903, scan 12, National Diet Library pid 991361. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991361/1/12
  3. 『万葉集』巻十六, 3875, at Japanese Wikisource. https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/万葉集/第十六巻
  4. 井上通泰, 『萬葉集新考』 第6, 国民図書, 1928, scans 134 and 135, National Diet Library pid 1222959. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1222959/1/135
  5. 『続千載和歌集』, 1320, poem 998, Nichibunken waka database. https://lapis.nichibun.ac.jp/waka/waka_i017.html
  6. 高田敏子, 「水のこころ」, in 『可愛い仲間たち』 (詩: 高田敏子, 写真: 西川治), サンリオ出版, 1975, 63 pp. National Diet Library catalogue record. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/api/opensearch?title=可愛い仲間たち&creator=高田敏子
  7. 「心の水」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank, with the 詞花和歌集 (1151頃) 雑下 369 and 山家集 examples. https://kotobank.jp/word/心の水-500710
  8. 莊子, 德充符, ¶1, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/seal-of-virtue-complete
  9. 莊子, 天道, ¶1, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/zhuangzi/tian-dao
  10. 「明鏡止水」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/明鏡止水
  11. 「心如水中月」, 禅林句集, at 臨黄ネット, the Rinzai and Ōbaku schools' site. https://rinnou.net/language/2604/
  12. 老子, 道德經, ¶8, at the Chinese Text Project. https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing
  13. 「水心」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/水心
  14. 「魚心あれば水心」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/魚心あれば水心
  15. 福井久蔵, 『枕詞の研究と釈義』, 不二書房, 1927, scan 365, National Diet Library pid 1126532. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126532/1/365
  16. Laurel Rasplica Rodd with Mary Catherine Henkenius, Kokinshū: A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 236, poem 651.
  17. Helen Craig McCullough, Brocade by Night: "Kokin Wakashū" and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1985, p. 502, Internet Archive brocadebynightko00mccu. https://archive.org/details/brocadebynightko00mccu
  18. Hidetaka Nishiyama and Richard C. Brown, Karate: The Art of "Empty Hand" Fighting, Charles E. Tuttle, 1960, pp. 19–20, read in the open copy at the Internet Archive, karate-the-art-of-empty-hand-hidetaka-nishiyama-and-richard-c.-brown; the lending copy is karateartofempty00nish. https://archive.org/details/karate-the-art-of-empty-hand-hidetaka-nishiyama-and-richard-c.-brown
  19. Arthur Binard, 『日本の名詩、英語でおどる』, みすず書房, 2007, the poem as Water Way; quoted here as a reader's blog of 13 July 2012 transcribes it. https://kensakumaigo.hatenablog.com/entry/20120713/p1
  20. 鴻巣盛広, 『萬葉集全釈』 第5冊, 広文堂書店, 1935, scan 74, National Diet Library pid 1259724. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259724/1/74
  21. Helen Craig McCullough, Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry, with Tosa Nikki and Shinsen Waka, Stanford University Press, 1985, p. 145, poem 651.
  22. Meredith McKinney, Travels with a Writing Brush: Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Manyōshū to Bashō, Penguin Classics, 2019, p. 48.
  23. Stephen D. Miller, The Wind from Vulture Peak: The Buddhification of Japanese Waka in the Heian Period, Cornell East Asia Series, 2013, p. 369, 千載集 poem 1218, 藤原教長.
  24. 『的門上人全集』, 1921, scan 41, National Diet Library pid 953013. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/953013/1/41
  25. 『浄土宗全書』, 1941, scan 43, National Diet Library pid 1140494. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1140494/1/43
  26. 関通, 『夢の知識：関通上人随筆』, 小野国松, 1892, scan 61, National Diet Library pid 822655. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822655/1/61
  27. Robert H. Brower and Earl Miner, Japanese Court Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1961, p. 404, 風雅集 X: 951, 二条良基.
  28. 『武術叢書』, 国書刊行会, 1915, scans 124 and 128 (宮本武蔵『兵法三十五箇条』and『五輪書』), National Diet Library pid 945805. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/945805/1/124
  29. National Diet Library, NDL Lab full-text index for 水の心, 2,221 books, read by year and class, and for 心を水になす, nine books; with the full texts of 富名腰義珍, 『琉球拳法 唐手』, 1922, pid 971654, and 本部朝基, 『沖縄拳法唐手術』, 1926, pid 922034, read scan by scan. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?keyword=水の心&searchfield=contentonly
  30. 『射學雜纂』, Edo manuscript, scan 24, National Diet Library pid 1246396. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1246396/1/24
  31. 『四巻之書』, 1894, scan 23, National Diet Library pid 859995. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/859995/1/23
  32. 『竹林射法七道』, 同志社弓道部, 1931, scan 56, National Diet Library pid 1175325. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175325/1/56
  33. 『水のこころ』, subtitle 荻野流砲術書, copied by 近藤信行, 1864, 22 leaves, 石川県立図書館, the library's catalogue record. https://www.library.pref.ishikawa.lg.jp/shosho/detail/orgn/B001389145
  34. 『活禅談』, 1900, scans 157 and 160, National Diet Library pid 822910. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822910/1/157
  35. 『他力信仰論』, 1909, scan 67, National Diet Library pid 822152. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/822152/1/67
  36. 斎藤巍洋, 『水泳：其の本質と方法』, 欧文社, 1942, National Diet Library pid 1125897, through the NDL Lab full-text index. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1125897
  37. 『学校柔道』, 1920, scan 35, National Diet Library pid 939760. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/939760/1/35
  38. 『昭和の柔道』, 1935, scan 133, National Diet Library pid 1212027. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1212027/1/133
  39. 「宮本武蔵」, 日本大百科全書 · 世界大百科事典 · デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank, the novel's serialization in the 朝日新聞, August 1935 to July 1939. https://kotobank.jp/word/宮本武蔵-139643
  40. 吉川英治, 『宮本武蔵』 円明の巻, the last paragraph, at 青空文庫 (底本 講談社 吉川英治歴史時代文庫, 1990). https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/001562/files/52402_49793.html
  41. National Diet Library, レファレンス協同データベース, record 1000038874, on the book that carries 高田敏子's 「水のこころ」. https://crd.ndl.go.jp/reference/detail?page=ref_view&id=1000038874
  42. 『新しい国語 五上』, 東京書籍, and 『みんなと学ぶ 小学校国語 五年上』, 学校図書, both 平成13年 (2001) 文部科学省検定済, and 『中学生の国語一年 学習指導書 朗読CD』, 三省堂, 2012, National Diet Library catalogue records. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/api/opensearch?any=水のこころ 国語
  43. 「水のこころ」, a teacher's classroom note of 26 September 2011 on the poem in 東京書籍『新しい国語 五上』, 教育考現学. https://bcaweb.bai.ne.jp/~aik28501/custom745.html
  44. 遺族会 はすの会, 「水のこころ」, the poem read for the bereaved. https://hasuno-kai.org/mizunokokoro
  45. National Diet Library Search, the catalogue on the titles 水のこころ and 水の心, 32 and 72 records, read by title, date and class. https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/api/opensearch?title=水のこころ
  46. 沢庵, 『不動智神妙録』, in 後藤亮一 ed., 『禅門法語全集』, 1921, scan 17, National Diet Library pid 968098. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968098/1/17
  47. 沢庵, 『不動智神妙録』, in 福井久蔵 ed., 『秘籍大名文庫』, 1937, scan 63, National Diet Library pid 1074542. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1074542/1/63
  48. 伊藤康安, 『新釈沢庵和尚法語』, 1934, 沢庵's sayings, read whole at its machine-read text, National Diet Library pid 1259004. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259004/1/44
  49. 「水の心」, ドラゴンクエスト大辞典 (wiki), the Dragon Quest Monsters 3 skill. https://wikiwiki.jp/dqdic3rd/【水の心】
  50. Roger Zelazny, "A Rose for Ecclesiastes", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, vol. 25 no. 5, November 1963, Internet Archive sim_fantasy-science-fiction_magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction_1963-11_25_5. https://archive.org/details/sim_fantasy-science-fiction_magazine-of-fantasy-and-science-fiction_1963-11_25_5
  51. H. D. Plée, Karate: Beginner to Black Belt, W. Foulsham, 1967, Internet Archive karatebeginnerto0000plee. https://archive.org/details/karatebeginnerto0000plee
  52. Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook, Secrets of the Samurai: The Martial Arts of Feudal Japan, Charles E. Tuttle, 1973, Internet Archive SecretsOfTheSamuraiTheMartialArtsOfFeudalJapan. https://archive.org/details/SecretsOfTheSamuraiTheMartialArtsOfFeudalJapan
  53. Randall G. Hassell, Karate Ideals, first published 1991, read in the Focus Publications printing of 1995, Internet Archive karateideals0000hass. https://archive.org/details/karateideals0000hass
  54. Robin L. Rielly, Complete Shotokan Karate, Charles E. Tuttle, 1998, Internet Archive complete-shotokan-karate-robin-l.-rielly. https://archive.org/details/complete-shotokan-karate-robin-l.-rielly
  55. "Bruce Lee", Wikiquote: the Longstreet lines (1971) as recited in Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000), and John Little ed., Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 13. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee
  56. Bruce Lee, interview on the Pierre Berton Show, 9 December 1971 (television; no printed edition), the published transcript at Powerplace; the recording is at the Internet Archive, bruce-lee-interview-pierre-berton-show-1971. https://powerplace.org/blog/the-lost-interview-bruce-lee-on-philosophy-fame-and-being-like-water
  57. 莊子, 天下, at Chinese Wikisource; in English, Brook Ziporyn, Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings, Hackett, 2020, p. 271. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/莊子/天下
  58. John Stevens, Sacred Calligraphy of the East, revised edition, Shambhala, 1988, p. 174, plate 199, Internet Archive sacredcalligraph0000stev. https://archive.org/details/sacredcalligraph0000stev
  59. David Allen, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, Viking, 2001, Internet Archive GettingThingsDoneTheArtOfStressFreeProductivity_201712. https://archive.org/details/GettingThingsDoneTheArtOfStressFreeProductivity_201712
  60. 岩淵克之, 「武道用語」解説, 日本空手道白堊会 (Shotokan), the entries 月の心 and 水の心. https://www.hakuakaikarate.org/budoyogo.html

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios, LLC)

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

Checked · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-15, citations — every item tested at its address; most resolve; one resolves but differs — the account's own count of quoters had included two copies of the source text itself; one does not resolve — an unnamed book in the account's own tally, both now fixed; the rest not openable; the check's archery page image a wrong file on its side (the s97 state of that date; superseded by the s262 gate and the ten-s736 coding)

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 水の心 (mizu no kokoro)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/mizu-no-kokoro.