Matsuoka Seigo, Senya Sensatsu 1252: Fujiwara Ryōzō's The Thought of Shuhari

Matsuoka presents shuhari as a way of thinking that grew from Buddhism and spread into Zen, tea, Noh, and martial arts. He defines it as preserving the kata, breaking toward the kata, and leaving to bring forth a new kata, and says the concept has not yet received full scholarly study.

He then follows shuhari through tea practice in Kawakami Fuhaku, through the organization of the ISIS Editing School, and through martial arts texts such as Chiba Shūsaku’s Kenpō hiketsu. He also links it to Noh’s jo-ha-kyū, Zeami’s riken, and the idea that practice depends on master-disciple transmission and on the feeling that “the kata is moving.”

Reading notes

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• Shuhari is defined as preserving the kata, breaking toward the kata, and leaving to give birth to a new kata.
• The concept is said to have flowered from Buddhism, Zen, tea, and martial arts.
• Matsuoka says the origin and development of shuhari still lack full-scale scholarly study.
• Kawakami Fuhaku is presented as the key tea figure who seriously explained shuhari.
• Fuhaku’s Fuhaku hikki describes shu as teaching, ha as the disciple’s breaking from within, and ri as combining and leaving both.
• The ISIS Editing School was organized around shu, ha, and ri, with Japanese terms such as henshū keiko, shinan, and shihandai.
• The school’s program for ri took much longer to complete than shu and ha.
• Practice in tea, Noh, editing, and poetry is said to require forms grounded in master-disciple transmission.
• Matsuoka connects this to community formation, where simple learning or guidelines are not enough.
• He cites Sawamura Sōjūrō’s image of the master as a temple bell and the disciple as the striker.
• Completion at the Editing School is marked by different ceremonies for shu, ha, kadensho, and ri, not by graduation.
• Miyagi Michio is cited for the idea of entering and emerging from kata.
• Kumakura Isao is cited for the view that old and new kata are layered rather than exclusive.
• The title Shuhari no shisō is said to focus mostly on martial arts and to omit Fuhaku.
• Matsuoka says the sequence shu-ha-ri likely began in Buddhism, especially Zen, though he cannot prove it.
• In Buddhism, shu is linked to concentration and holding to one, ha to breaking delusion or fixed views, and ri to liberation and nirvana.
• Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu are presented as major thinkers of this “ri” as method.
• Zen’s three-stage imagery of seed, flower, and fruit is mapped onto shu-ha-ri after it entered Japanese communal practice.
• Zeami’s Sarugaku dangi changes seed, flower, fruit into sprout, bloom, fruit, which Matsuoka treats as more place-bound.
• Tea under Rikyū is described as preserving kata, breaking into unconventional kata, and then leaving to create a new ultimate kata.
• Sōtan’s organization of tea and his sons’ spread across domains helped give tea a visible form and spread practice nationwide.
• The spread of tea is connected to wider cultural currents, including music, etiquette, and scholarship.
• Chiba Shūsaku is used as a martial arts example of shuhari, especially in Kenpō hiketsu.
• His text distinguishes shu, ha, and ri in terms of preserving school form, breaking through training, and departing into no-thought.
• Matsuoka says shuhari is about lineation, while jo-ha-kyū is about rhythm.
• Harigaya Sekiun is another example, with ainuke and Risō-ryū presented as connected to the idea of ha.
• Practice in martial arts, sports, and editing is finally framed as a matter of hitting the right mark, with Zeami’s kantō and Nakae Tōju’s jichū cited.
• Shōzō Nakamori’s Keiko to Nihonjin is used to argue that practice matters because it shares dreams and lets amateurs and professionals mix.
• Matsuoka closes by returning to Minamoto Ryōen’s Kata and Zeami’s Fūshikaden, where the skilled and the unskilled serve as each other’s models.