Furuya Sensei posted this to his Daily Message on March 15, 2001.
The learning process in the martial arts is very profound and I think something that we are not accustomed to today or a skill we have, for a large part, forgotten. Unlike a typical classroom, sports gym, or health club, learning in the martial arts is not limited to time, space, circumstances or events and learning takes place every second of every day. One can say, in the martial arts, learning takes place even when we are sleeping, not just during our waking hours. We do it when our eyes are open or shut.
Learning, practicing, reflection, review, further refinement, and testing in practice again and again, trying to penetrate to a deeper level or higher meaning of what we are doing, constant and endless refinement and further refinement. This is martial arts practice. At the same time, the martial arts are not simply acquiring physical skill or strength. There is the requirement that all effort or training is also geared towards development of one's character and spiritual side. This has nothing to do with a particular religion but with attaining a more profound attunement to Nature and the world at large - meaning a greater sense of the oneness or harmony with the world. This is also not imagination or fantasy or willful-thinking or dreaming - but the attainment of an acute sensitivity to everything going on around us. Finally, this takes us one tiny step towards wisdom or enlightenment - but this too has nothing to do with money, power or success. Nothing to do with winning or losing. Nothing to do with being weak or strong. It is the life process of life itself that we are trying to penetrate - in this effort there is purity and with this comes what? This is something that we will discover for ourselves in our own training that no other person can put a name to.
This process is difficult for us nowadays because we are too goal oriented or too obsessed with success and money. Of course, every human being wants money and success, even me but we must try to understand to what level are we going to live our lives.
Nowadays, the martial arts are becoming more and more violent. Not so much because it is an effective means - it is simply more entertaining to spectators and people can make a lot of money in the entertainment world. This may signal the end of martial arts if we are not careful.
True martial arts are an "end" to violence, it is never the glorification of it. Please continue to devote yourselves to your correct training.