Background

Skill is the essence of the Scholar Warrior. Such a person strives to develop a wide variety of talents to a degree greater than even a specialist in a particular field. Poet and boxer. Doctor and swordsman. Musician and knight. The Scholar Warrior uses each part of his or her overall ability to keep the whole in balance, and to attain the equilibrium for following the Tao. Uncertainty of the future inspires no fear: whatever happens, the Scholar Warrior has the confidence to face it.

It may seem strange, even paradoxical, to combine these two sides of human endeavor, yet the two have been related for hundreds of years. Difficult circumstances and a pragmatic attitude forged their links closer and closer. As in many other countries around the world, the successive empires in China were born from violent struggle, peasant uprising, and foreign invasion. Even learned persons had to defend themselves, and even warriors needed scholarly understanding.

Archaeological diggings reveal mural depictions of warriors as far back as the Shang dynasty (16th-11th centuries B.C.). In the Zhou dynasty (1111-222 B.C.), men like Lao Tzu and Confucius embodied the principles of the Scholar Warrior. Lao Tzu was a renowned swordsman, and Confucius held the title of Leader of Knights. Indeed, martial association may well have inspired Confucius' definition of the ideal scholar. At the heart of his Analects, he utilized the word shi, his designation for a scholar, which meant "warrior." A shi was a fighter of high rank -- he went to battle in a war-chariot rather than on foot. Confucius' use of the word implied a person who would uphold the Tao (he used the word Tao to mean divine law) as valiantly as a warrior would. The term was eventually applied to all cultured people.

In the time of the ancient samurai, Shogunate state doctrine prescribed the practice of equal cultivation of both literary and martial arts. The term bunburyodo , or "way of unity of the pen and sword," became a path toward cultural refinement for the samurai, a path to becoming a Bushi Gakusha, or SCHOLAR- WARRIOR . Whereas the ultimate aim of training is the manifestation of the practice of "Seeking Perfection of Character," into our lives, the KEN ZEN ICHI KAN recognizes the dual academic/martial achievement of it's students with a special award of achievement for those who meet rigorous academic and character requirements.

2005 Warrior Scholar Nominees