The Gokui of Ten Chi Jin, by Kostas Kanakis

The Gokui is the essential teaching or spiritual awakening.

Hatsumi Sensei writes: "...keep control of bad end evil, follow a righteous path, this is the essence of training. From here, spiritual awakening is born. This spiritual awakening in Budo is called "secret of Budo" or "Gokui"...."

However, how does develop this "spiritual awakening"?

Well, an evolution has always a beginning, as each life can only arise with the birth. Therefore, we will try to take a look, at this development in the Budo, by the nature of the TenChiJin.

TEN means: Heaven, universe, the mental, the beginning.

CHI means: Earth, materially, the understandable, the transformation, to build up.

JIN means: Human, nature, individual, somewhat alive, the development.

In the phase of development of the human, the sensory organs stands on primary place, because the baby begins to hear and to feel already before the birth. By the "action" of the sensory organs the unborn can already communicate very early with the mother.

I.e. before the baby can move at all, it can develop by its senses a kind of communication. Aren’t the human senses parts of our spirit?

Thus, the Mother Nature sets the mental building on first place, so that the human / individual can understand first, before he / it can act. That is the natural instinct.

The BEGINNING in Budo, which is represented by the TEN, stands also in primary place and is of extreme importance. This is the beginning and the initial understanding. The old proverb " learn first to stand before you learn to walk" is in my opinion, for the development within the TEN, very accurate.

The second stage, the CHI or the transformation, can be equated with the physical development. Here one learns to move and adapt. By the physical development one becomes more mobile and flexible. By the element of the earth one learns to stand more stably on his legs and thus to control better his body.

From the universal development of the heaven and the transformation on earth, a living individual comes into existence. In this case a human being. JIN.

The evolvement of the human nature is the result of the cooperating between mental maturity and physical adjustment. Only by this cooperating, humans can become humans and thus to a particle of the origin. To the TenChiJin. By the Gokui of the TenChiJin we have the possibility to attain the Gokui of the Budo.

Hatsumi Sensei writes: "The Gokui (essential teachings) are elusive; the Gokui look easy to grasp but can actually be very difficult to understand. The feeling is just like that of being a jellyfish floating in the ocean. The same can be said about the Satori (enlightenment) of the martial ways. It would be most appropriate to float about in the common world."

BuFuSui Ikkan