Have to agree Peter, however history is distorted by points of view on motivation and it could only be interpreted benificially by agreed moral values of what is good in the absolute.

"accurately teach History"; that's a laugh. Historiography is a crock. Not only is it parochial and written by the victors, it employs all the same rhetorical devices as fiction. Christian history is an even bigger crock: an obscure sect gets lucky and their purblind perspectivism is taken up, or imposed, en masse.
Tradition is also a crock, cherished by conservatives as though its hallowed ignorance should impress merely for the sake of its antiquity--that's why we're still saddled with a monarchy; because its ignorant supporters suffer from pathological nostalgia for a past that never existed. Like Christianity, the "true history" of monarchy is a sordid tale of barbarism and viciousness. The supporters of these three crocks should logically use leaches to cure their distemper; but their love of tradition has its limits.
Anyone for crucifiction?

Hai *Pericles* (1/3)

Re your request, it needs its own thread really and it has been a long, long time since I did any Japaneezoo (Nihongo)
However, I had a look at your links and memories are being stirred. ThankU.

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The "Open Hand" link a.k.a KaraTe re Bushido is not particularly interesting in terms of definitions but it does appear to have the the Bushido Kanji at the bottom right of the page embossed in silver.

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I note also that "google" has facility to offer better translations.

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I am without my reference materials, (though could search for some online ones) of which I have some beautiful old photo hard backs on the martial traditions. The history of the origins of the KamiKaze tradition that I referred to came from one in particular which from memory was written and produced primarily by a western photo journo and practitioner who lived in and did a grand tour through all the old temples and martial training halls, writing in detail on the history, the various "masters" of the respective arts and the interlink with their religions etc etc

However, the "Bu/Mu" character is one that I particularly remember as it was one that was given to me to represent part of my name by my home stay mother (a Japanese Olympian in her time) more than 20 years ago.

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Adam --> A da Mu

Grim,
Thank you for the sincere confession. I know, you are not the only one who thinks that already at the age of 12 he/she could find faults with the concept (of God), “inconsistencies and contradictions in the argument” that for centuries has inspired, and still inspires, many creative minds without which our current level of understanding (also) of the physical world would be unthinkable.

I belive no system is so bad that it could not be worse. It is hard for us to compare two different worlds, two different systems of education - your experience with an Australian version of Christian education and my experience with a Communist version of atheist education respectively - since neither of us two lived through both of them. The only objective criterion one has is to compare the numbers of people who risked their existence (sometimes even life) to escape from the one world into the other, from e.g. Communist East-Central Europe to Australia or vice-versa.

Returning to the original theme of this thread, for those interested to compare:

“(The Russian President) Dmitry Medvedev met with the leaders of Russia's traditional religions, and ... agreed that the history and culture of the country's main religions should be included in the core school curriculum. .... Twice a week from the spring of next year, pupils in the fourth and fifth classes will study one of three new subjects. They and their parents will be able to choose between the religious culture of one religion (Orthodox, Islam, Judaism or Buddhism), the history and cultural background of the world's great religions, or the foundations of secular ethics. It will be compulsory for pupils to choose one of these three modules.

To start with, it will be introduced in 18 regions in six of the seven federal regions of Russia. The three-year experiment will be introduced in 12,000 Russian schools, 20,000 classes, 256,000 children and 44,000 teachers, according to the Ministry for Education and Science. From 2012, the new modules will be introduced to all Russian schools.
These three modules, "Foundations of religious culture", "Foundations of history and culture of world religions" and "Foundations of secular ethics",- will be taught by teachers who have taken a special training course, though most of them will probably have had  a secular education. The rector of Moscow's State University V.A. Sadovnichy has already expressed a desire to put the resources of the country's leading university behind the re-training of these specialists. But it is clear that at first the main problem will be a serious lack of qualified teaching staff.” (http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/russia_looks_to_its_religious_culture/)

So, Mu or Bu as in Budo, as has been said can be simply translated as "The way of the Warrior"

*NOTE* Especially for Philo if he is still with us, what I will say next if distilled for essential meaning is one of the reasons I become critical when people start wanting to make "leaps of logic" as *Pericles* puts it relation to the english verion of the Bible and other Holy Books.

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(I'm having overlapping thoughts at the moment and am imagining that the likes of *OUG* in particular would Luv to get his hands on copies of and teeth into some of the original Ancient Greek and Hebrew scriptures that he may suck out the meanings of his own accord.)

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So, back to it then. You may care to note in the embossed representation in silver there are 3 kanji characters and we are focusing on the 1st. Now, please note the smaller element on the bottom left. You see this character in Japan these days all over the place on the "Stop" signs. On the literal level of interpretation it means "Stop."

The other part of the character "Bu" (and I'm a bit fuzzy here) is something like attacks/hurled projectiles/arrows & spears

Now when you put these elements all together it means
"the way of the one who stops attacks."

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So, again, if one was to translate to say "the way of the warrior" or "the way of the bodyguard" it still doesn't quite encapsulate the meaning does it? And of course, when talking about "arrows/spears" it gives it specific historical context and denotes the specific job performed by the one referred to.

And to link back to your article with the general designation of "special attack corps" I see that they mention the Mongol Invasion and the Divine Wind. If I was to offer some conjecture, and do please note that this is educated guessing and I know not for sure, but mayhaps it is like this: