An-Shu Stephen K. Hayes performs consecration ceremonies at the dragon’s Mouth waterfall on Shin-Togakure. —Photo by Kim Stahl
I looked out across the small group gathered to take part in the ritual. Most of us trained together at the martial arts school several hours’ drive east of these mountains. Some were senior teachers of the ninja tradition, visiting from across the country. Ostensibly, the weekend was a high-level To-Shin Do martial arts seminar granting some insight into the more subtle secrets of the ninja fighting tradition. We got all that—and more.
One by one, we crawled across the rocks to the base of the snow-melt waterfall cascading down. We received final instructions, on how to walk on the slippery rocks, how to breathe in the icy water, and how to handle the impact and cold of the waterfall itself. We were warned that to fall here, so far from medical assistance, could be a life-altering or even life-ending event. We were given the chance to turn back, but I was certainly not about to do that.
A very powerful man stepped into the waterfall ahead of me, a long-time student of Stephen K. Hayes and a great teacher in his own right. He shouted the mantra from beneath the water like some kind of mythological deity, passionate and unperturbed by the force of the experience. “That’s what I want to be like,” I thought.
Then it was my turn. I stepped forward onto the rocks, carefully balancing. The swift water was destabilizing, but I picked my way carefully to the appointed spot. I repeated the mantra under my breath twice more as I approached, to lock it in. I wanted to say it seven times under the waterfall.
An-Shu Hayes looked me in the eye as I arrived. “Are you ready?” I nodded and then wished I had the voice to speak aloud. He grabbed my hands and I made the shape of the mystical hand posture, the mudra, associated with the practice. He mumbled an invocation over my hands and squeezed them firmly before sending me forward.
I stepped into the waterfall fully intending to shout the mantra like my role model, but my breath was immediately sucked out of me. Despite all the warnings, my own confidence, and my substantial outdoors experience, I lost my bearings and my voice when the water hit my head.
I held the mudra shape with my hands and focused on it so as not to lose myself. I knew a trick, I remembered, and angled my face downward so that I could draw a careful breath of air despite the cascade of water over my head. The noise of the water drumming on my skull obscured all possible outside sound, my eyes were closed, and the cold sent my skin numb. I was cut off from the rest of the universe, immersed in the stream.
When the breath was drawn, I started the mantra. “Namaku…” My breath came out in a squeak. I couldn’t even hear myself. I didn’t want that. I wanted the world to hear me. I let the breath out with a sigh and carefully drew another, aware that if I didn’t make my moment soon, the assistants would haul me out of the water before I passed out.
I held the full breath for a moment and raised my head in the water. I didn’t need to bow my head anymore. I shouted the mantra, and I got it out intact. Somehow I found air even in the stream. I drew another breath and shouted it again, louder. I knew that I wasn’t going to make it to seven repetitions, so I drew the last breath as deeply as I could and shouted with everything I could muster. I felt the mantra from deep down in my chest cavity, vibrating tangibly beyond mere sound.
I pulled back from the water triumphant, stepped out into the air, and shook my head with a roar. The world came back with the cheers and applause of my friends.
Suddenly, the water wasn’t cold anymore. The waterfall seemed small, and I was on the other side of the line, with those who had passed through the experience. Mr. Hayes was there, grinning at me, and I knew I had found my path.
CHAPTER 2
The Nine Powers
Who hasn’t wondered whether magic is real?
Advanced staff training on Bear Peak. —Photo from author’s personal collection
In childhood, we are told amazing tales of human capability. People fly around, heal the sick, read minds, visit fantastic lands, and develop all manner of superpowers that they put to heroic use. Every culture around the world relates such stories, and many of them are remarkably similar in content.
The similarity might just echo basic human needs and hopes, but as we get older, and maybe try to fly a few times, we discover that it’s harder than it sounds. It turns out no one we can find is actually capable of such things, or at least not in ways like the stories. Gradually our childhood wonder gives way to a practical and adult mind that knows better than to believe in magic.
Yet, every now and then, a seemingly magical moment slips through. We might see something we don’t quite believe, a fleeting glimpse of another time or another’s mind. We might witness a momentary feat of strength or speed that seems beyond ordinary human capability, and then rationalize it as an illusion or a special coincidence of physics. We might be touched by a certain cosmic awe or sense of powerful forces beyond the physical, but then assign those experiences to a glitch in our neural chemistry or hand them over to the unknowable forces of religion.
Of course we don’t want to surrender our rational thought and sense of causality. It seems culturally, socially, and physically dangerous to do so. At the same time, some of us are never quite willing to let go of that childhood sense of magic. Partially it comforts us, but also at some level it still feels true, fleetingly just out of reach. Just when we’ve forgotten it or ceased to believe in it, some moment comes along in life that forces us to consider that there could be more to reality than what our conventional five senses perceive.
The situation was the same in old Japan. Legends from incredibly ancient times suggested great untapped powers in the human mind and spirit. Still, the average person saw few miracles performed, and so most people were divided into the faithful and skeptical. The faithful believed in everything, including religious authorities, wise men, snake oil salesmen, and folk remedies. The skeptical had enough piercing intelligence to see through many of the illusions, and drew the conclusion that there was no such thing as magic, or if it did exist, it was long forgotten and unavailable.
The ninja warriors, under extremely heavy pressure from lives of espionage and warfare, certainly were intelligent. Ungrounded superstition would have gotten them killed in short order by very violent and motivated conventional forces. Yet the ninja, operating at the edge of society, witnessed time and again the unusual cases of what a human being can do under pressure. Exposed to such situations, needing every edge they could garner, and free to explore all possibilities, the ninja developed a method of critical inquiry into what we might call magic or psychic powers.
Critical inquiry means they took the old superstitious ways that Japanese shamanism and esoteric Buddhism inherited from Chinese Taoism and they put them to the test. What really works? What powers can be developed? Of what practical use are they?
The ninja were not so much concerned with the ultimate nature of the powers, such as whether they were really magic, gifts from gods, or simply advanced applications of physics. The ninja needed to know what a human being could do, if well trained and well disciplined.
The results were legendary. The ninja accomplished feats thought impossible, and suddenly the ancient stories lived again. The ninja became a force far more powerful than their numbers, wealth, or equipment should have permitted.
One of the systems of studying the possibilities of human power was called the kuji. The kuji (literally “nine characters” in Japanese) were mystical symbols that represented a state of mind, a view of life, and a set of skills that worked together to produce extraordinary results. Some of the methods of the kuji look like modern Neuro-Linguistic Programming. There is also a bit of “the power of positive thinking” in there.