Onkochishin - to learn from the past. What does it mean to learn from the past? We read books or attend lectures about famous people and their histories, but sometimes that doesn't sink in deep enough to create any meaningful change. Onkochishin is to learn from not only from the history of others, but from our own history too. It is said that experience is the best teacher and I agree, but one needs to be "smart" enough to learn from not only the victories but the blunders too. For the most part, there is no such thing as good or bad or right or wrong - the only thing that matter is if one learns something from one's experiences. Learning by direct experience is the way to become successful. Furuya Sensei once said, "Success is built on many failures" and the Dalai Lama supposedly said, "When you lose, don't lose the lesson" so one can see that the path to victory is in learning from the past.