"The way of the martial artist is the way of enduring, surviving, and prevailing over all that would destroy him. More than delivering strikes and slashes, and deeper in significance than the simple outwitting of an enemy, ninpo is the way of attaining that which we need while making the world a better place. The skill of the Ninja is the art of winning."--Toshitsugu Takamatsu, 33rd Grandmaster.

The Ninja of ancient Japanese history were reputed to be wizards who could tell the future, change into any form or disappear in the blink of an eye, and who could read the minds of their enemies. In fact, the Ninja of old were ordinary people who trained themselves to be very aware of their surroundings and highly sensitive to the people around them.

Today, students of the Ninja's art may begin their study for various reasons, including physical fitness or self-defense, but usually stay involved because of subtle beneficial effects, such as learning how to maintain health, reduce stress and avoid danger.

Fundamental to the practice of Ninjutsu is Taijutsu, the structure of the unarmed self-defense techniques, which can translate as "the art of using the body". From the Taijutsu, all of the weapon techniques and the more subtle mental training have their foundation. It is in fact because of this mental training that the current generation head of the system, Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi (34th Soke of the Togakure Ryu), has decided to call what he is teaching Ninpo, changing the jutsu (art/set of techniques) of Ninjutsu to po (law/set of precepts.)

Stephen Hayes is an internationally renowned martial artist and is ordained in an esoteric Buddhist tradition. His teachers include the last known Japanese Ninjutsu grandmaster and the God-King of Tibet. He has spent most of his adult life travelling the globe, studying and teaching what he has learned in a fashion that, while true to tradition and history, is no longer the preserve of dry scholars and musty clerics. He is a contemporary Renaissance man with almost two dozen books, videos and cassettes to his credit--about the only thing left is a duet album with Kitaro. Introduction by Courtland Elliott

ACE OSMER: My experience with my Ninjutsu (or Ninpo) teacher here in Toronto is that there is a very solid spiritual foundation that works into the study of this martial art. Is Ninjutsu a path, a philosophy, a secular spirituality? How would you define it?

STEPHEN K. HAYES: I think the most direct answer would be that Ninjutsu, per se, is a Martial Art, and the training does tend to attract people who wish to learn how to increase their own and other's personal security by means of preventing danger, or being able to be strong enough to endure danger. That's the common focus. Woven around that are things like 'life ways'. Some people take it very seriously, and they start to see patterns from their Martial Art training in their lives, and it allows as a 'life way' or life guide. So we have Ninpo, and the 'po' of Ninpo means law. Actually it means law in the sense of the Buddhist word, meaning how the universe works. So, some people are drawn to the spiritual aspects, and by spiritual what I mean is that anything that you examine from living life, of course, has grander significances behind it, even the small, humble things that we experience. And you can get spiritual truth from that, as well. In addition, there is a formal spiritual practice that is not Ninjutsu, per se, but is a parallel development rooted in Japan. And this involves esoteric Mikkyo Buddhism, which came to Japan from the Himalayan cultures by way of China. Historically, the Ninja, in a lot of cases, were protectors of the Mikkyo institutions, and they in turn gave a lot of inspiration to the Ninja. So there was an extreme overlap there, and I blend all of that together in the way I work.

ACE: There are also elements of Japanese Shinto spirituality at the heart of Ninjutsu. Does that connect to the particular way you work with the elements?

STEPHEN H: There are two systems of elements. There is a Chinese system which a lot of Chinese medical practitioners work with, and which is also found in Tai Chi and some Kung Fu systems. And that involves earth, water, fire, metal and wood, and has to do with cycles of growth and what interrupts those cycles. There's another series of five elements that comes out of the Tantric tradition in India, which involves earth, water, fire, wind, and void. Both of these systems were used in the original Ninja training, but for different purposes, because they really represent different phenomena. Now it's a little unfortunate that some of the names are the same, because it can be confusing. The Chinese system has to do with change and progression, natural cycles of life, and also an awareness of what would block or jam those cycles. And the Tantric system has to do more with why things take the shape they do, the structure of the physical universe and also the structure of our self as a small model of the universe.

Now Shinto is the ancient indigenous spiritual system of Japan that acknowledges the power of forces that work in our life. And a lot of those forces are of Nature. Again, think about people three thousand years ago, doing their best to make sure that the rice grows and that the fruit trees produce fruit. If there was a dry year or a too cold Spring, people would die for lack of food. So there was a deep awareness of natural forces and cycles, and being very delicate about them, appreciating and understanding them. Then, during the 6th century, Buddhism was first imported to Japan, and Buddhism had to do more with the forces inside the individual, what I call the mind science. So now they had this perfect pair. There was a way to deal with and understand and acknowledge the forces that move outside of us, that make us feel like we're just a pawn or a small thing in the middle of a storm, but also they had matched that with Buddhism, which showed us how, as individuals, we could relate to these things. So we have in Japan today a balanced situation with these two systems, which from the outside look to be very different. And the Japanese have no problem with that blending.

In the West, if someone were to say, "I'm Jewish, but I attend the Lutheran Church", that would be weird, strange, and we couldn't imagine somebody saying that. Whereas, to be married in a Shinto temple and turn right around and have your grandad's funeral in a Buddhist temple, would be no contradiction at all in Japan.

ACE: This sense of cultures being crossed, and religious and historical boundaries being bridged, is very reminiscent of what seems to be happening in the new consciousness movement in North America. What do you make of the new consciousness movement and how does Ninjutsu or Ninpo fit into that?

STEPHEN H: Well I see this new consciousness phenomenon on the whole as a very healthy situation, and it's about time (laughter). The new awareness movement, to me, represents the notion that we have to pay attention to the world and its resources. We're paying attention to the fact that everything's global now and we can't just ignore what's going on in Bangladesh and say, "Well those people have nothing to do with us." Those people are the world now. If something happens to the market or the economy in Japan, we're directly affected, and we can no longer pretend that it isn't a whole world. So I think that's very encouraging.

My model for the new consciousness is to take some of these ancient ways, the Ninpo, the Ninja warrior tradition, this esoteric Buddhist tradition, some of the aspects of Shinto, study them in their very ancient and formal traditions, but then, because I know the Japanese culture and I know my own culture, I can translate them into a form that people here in the West can more readily understand.

ACE: Often in movements you get a cycle of expansion, or breathing out, followed by a contraction, a breathing in, and a deepening. In terms of Ninjustu, the expansion phase, with the silly Ninja movies, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc., has reached its zenith. And now there's likely to be a contraction and a deepening. What do you feel that deepening is going to involve?

STEPHEN H: There's a parallel phenomenon going on here. On one hand there's the public 'fad' of Ninjutsu, where it expanded out from the early 80's into the mid-80's, when there were all these Ninja toys and these ghastly Ninja movies. The Turtles were kind of cute (although they certainly don't represent Ninjutsu at all). And all of these things were quickly relegated to video shops where you have movies where people are tearing the faces off babies, all this kind of stuff, and calling themselves Ninja. So all of that expanded out and got to its real zenith around the late 80's and then it kind of dropped off. Now, at the same time, we had a situation where, in the art itself, the number of people practising it quickly grew until the middle 80's, and then there was a splintering and a falling off, because a lot of people got to the point in their training where the next step for them was to make real changes in their lives, and a lot of people just aren't willing to do that. So they fell off rather than make those changes, and we all of a sudden went into a contracting phase in the practice, while the fad was getting bigger. Now the toys seem to be less popular in general, but our training is starting to expand. There is a grass roots phenomenon occuring where more and more folks are establishing clubs all around North America and teaching the art of Ninjutsu.

ACE: And what does the future hold for Stephen Hayes?

STEPHEN H: I'm about to start a new expansion myself, in terms of some of the things I'm going to be doing, maybe even outside of the confines of the Martial Arts medium, and to explore not so much the hard aspects of the Martial Arts, but more of the kinds of things we were working on in this seminar, ("Ninja Mind"), the Mikkyo meditations and so forth. Also, in North America there is a rapidly growing phenomenon of men's groups and workshops, and I did one of those seminars here not long ago. I bring a little different slant to this work in terms of what it means to have a mentor, what it means to be a man. That's an area I enjoy and will enjoy growing into.

ACE: Is there a new definition of warrior spirit emerging among men these days?

STEPHEN H: There could be. Warrior is such a loaded word. Sometimes, when you say it, people think about armies and going to war and organized combat, etc., and it summons up macho images of toughness and uncaring hostility. But that's really not the way we use the word. What I mean when I talk about the warrior spirit is one who has enough insight, enough strength and enough caring that he or she is willing to take a stand to defend what needs to be defended. So that's one definition. A second definition, which is one I use more in teaching Ninjutsu in my training hall here, is that the warrior is one who is willing to risk things in order to grow. And there's a dichotomy. There's the warrior who goes out into the world, engages the world, takes risks, takes chances in order to learn about how things operate, as opposed to the one who stays home, equally a valid path, the hermit, the one who cuts him/herself off from all of the craziness of life in order to really understand what's at the core of themself as a human being. Both warrior types are going to find the core, but by different means.

ACE: Could you address the attitude that a lot of people have towards Ninja, where they automatically associate the word with all the violence that is portrayed in those movies?

STEPHEN H: Sometimes people say to me, "You talk about self development and Buddhism, and Buddhism is supposed to be non-volent, and here you are teaching knife fighting stuff, and stick fighting. How do you justify that?" To which I enjoy replying, "Well, we're not teaching people how to hurt others with knives. We are teaching them how to be resourceful enough not to be harmed by someone else's knife." Because if we're going to do good things in the world, we're going to have to be in the world. The scariest thing that a lot of human beings can imagine happening to their body would be to be attacked, to have their life snuffed out too early. And so we deliberately take that scary situation and we put people in it, so they can experience what it's like to be scared. And then from there we can show them ways of overcoming that type of fear, based on knowledge and experience, to where they are no longer as controlled by that fear. The analogy that I use is of a boy or girl Scout leader who would send a canoe full of young Scouts out onto a river and then flip them over. Well nobody is going to accuse the Scoutmaster of trying to teach the children how to drown one another in the river. It's a very loving thing they do. They say, "We're going to flip you over so that you're going to learn how to get the water out of the canoe and get back in there and save your own lives and the lives of the rest of the children." And everybody's quite respectful of that, and quite happy with that. Our use of knives and sticks and so forth is on an exact parallel to that. And that sometimes can help people understand what we're doing.

ACE: Ninjutsu has gone through a rough public relations period in the last six or seven years. Do you see a time when it will take an equal place among the Martial Arts, or is it so distinct in its own way that it will always be that 'other' Martial Art?

STEPHEN H: In a way I feel that it's going to be difficult for Ninjutsu to become just one of the Martial Arts, in that there are certain aspects about Ninjutsu that don't lend themselves well to fitting in. We don't do competitions, for example, and it's very hard for us to do flashy, exciting demonstrations because the principles and the techniques are so pragmatic. And there is this strong psychological aspect behind it--why it is we do the things the way we do them--that make it so much more demanding an art to study. So for those reasons I think Ninjutsu is always going to look a little odd, look a bit different from some of the other Martial Arts, especially in North America. I would say that for the future, we may see quite an expansion in terms of different applications, based on the fact that we as teachers are such an independent lot. Some may do more bodyguard, executive protection type of work; some may take it out into police work; others take it out into health care, which may sound like a real stretch; others are out there setting up training halls where children can learn these values. I myself am looking forward to doing more with some of the spiritual aspects that are part of the roots of Ninjutsu.

ACE: I understand that you were ordained as a priest in the Japanese Tendai tradition of esoteric Buddhism.

STEPHEN H: Yes. I'd been involved with that tradition for years, and I'd been training in it. I hadn't said too much about it publicly because frankly I had a feeling that here in North America it might tend to frighten people away. They might think that to come to this training you've got to be some kind of a religious person, or whatever. And it was something very private. But it finally got to the point, where, after all those years of work, I was not going to be able to continue receiving the instruction--I'd already received things that technically weren't supposed to be given to someone who hadn't made the pledge of loyalty to the tradition--unless I made up my mind to go further in the work.

ACE: Does this mean that you have more or other responsibilities in terms of the community you live in, for example?

STEPHEN H: For me it probably won't mean that, at least not for many years. The word priest is a difficult one. In Japan, in this mystical tradition, anyone who receives these Mikkyo teachings has to be totally involved, because they are very complex. You couldn't do it as a hobby. So anyone who comes in is given this particular title--Ju Shoku--which can mean monk, or it can mean priest. But, in Ohio, if you say priest, people think of the guy who runs the parish, or if you say monk, they think of this celibate possessionless person who is in a monastery somewhere. So neither word works. But what it means is that I am a person who is entitled to receive the higher so-called hidden teachings, and that I'm also allowed to share in my own way these teachings with people who would like to learn them. It's hard to find the right word, because we tend to think of Buddhism as a religion. I always did. But the more I studied it, the more I realized that it doesn't fit our Western definition of a religion in terms of why it even came to be. And yet it is called a religion. So we're saddled with these religious terms, like priest or accolyte or monk. The best English word I can find for it is practitioner, one who is doing the practice, but that's sort of a boring word (laughter).

ACE: You've developed a special relationship with His Holiness the Dalai Lama over the years, and I'm wondering what that has meant for you.

STEPHEN H: I first became fascinated with Tibet as a child. It seemed like the most remote and exotic, unattainable place on the earth, and the legendary king of such a place was always intriguing to me. I can remember having books as a child about these Shangrila kingdoms. Then I had an opportunity to actually meet the Dalai Lama several years ago when I was in India. I had just come through Tibet, and I spent some time with him describing what I'd seen. He was interested, as a leader of his people, to hear about what was going on there, and I had wanted to ask him questions about some of the training that I was getting from Japanese sources. And as the years went by, I just found myself in places where he would be. It just so happened his older brother lived not far from where I live, so I got to know that family, and when His Holiness the Dalai Lama came over to his brother's place in Indiana several years ago, I got to be with him again there. And in California, when it was announced that he received the Nobel Prize, I happened to be there because I was visiting my publisher. Then, when he recently visited Ohio, my wife Rumiko and I both ended up being his personal...bodyguard is kind of a harsh word...escort or caretaker. And we picked him up at the airport and spent two days escorting him. It was just a marvelous opportunity because he is one of the few people I've met who totally lives up to his booking. He really does. He is amazingly strong and compassionate, and all of those overused adjectives that we all aspire to be. Just a really beautiful example of what it's like to be a total human being. So I thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend time around him, with his sense of humour and his sense of connectedness with whatever moment he's in, and his compassion and patience, all the things I'm not (laughter). And he's a living example that I can try to pattern myself after.

ACE: Before the beginning of each training session, we say 'Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo', which literally means: "Every encounter is sacred, and could present the one potential key to the perfection of the great universal enlightenment we seek." How does one recognize that moment which is the one potential key to our enlightenment?

STEPHEN H: I think the secret of "Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo" is that every moment is that moment. Every moment could be that moment. It's up to us to take advantage of that moment. It's up to us to determine the quality or the influence or the effect of what we experience in that moment. And it's up to us to make it positive or negative. What is, is. I'm surrounded by these people, I'm here at this moment and I can choose to be touched by it or I can choose to be damaged by it. I can choose to be ignorant of it. So that's the key; it's a reminder for us to be ever mindful, to be ever aware that each one of these moments that make up our life could be that special moment. It's like putting together one of these jigsaw puzzles. If you are so intent on the puzzle you may not even know that you put the last piece in. And which is the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle, anyway? Is it this one, or is it that one? It just depends on the order in which they are placed.

ACE: What often happens is that people who are moving on a spiritual path, tend to put their enlightenment 'over there', in the future. How do you get to the place where you're not futuring enlightenment, but rather just letting yourself be in the light of each moment?

STEPHEN H: This is a hard question, and I wish I could answer it. Then I could do it, and I'd be all right! (laughter) The good news is that there are many systems that talk about the same thing, and offer different ways in. Our job as individuals is to find the one that talks our talk, and seems to be going with the grain that we have, so that we can end up there. For some people that means being a monk in a Zen monastery. For other people it might mean working with an esoteric Buddhist approach, which is totally the opposite from Zen. For others it might mean doing helping work, in terms of injured people who need assistance. The key, I believe, is to engage what is going to allow you to be totally focused in the moment, so that the normal kind of distractions and things that cause hesitation, the things that cause me to remove myself from that moment, just don't even think to appear.

So it's not so much an actively 'going after', ie, I want to be here, I want to be enlightened. But it's going to come when you let go of those thoughts. Because you are so involved in something that is so real that all of the things that normally get in our way, all the acts we do and the masks we wear, and the beliefs that we talk about but maybe don't believe, fall away. All of that posing and posturing and wishing and hoping just falls away, because we forget about it for a moment. That's what the Zen monk calls Satori, that enlightenment. That's what the doctor who is working for thirty-six hours without sleep in Zaire taking care of babies in an epidemic can experience. All of a sudden, all of the contradictions, all of the craziness, all of the pain and all of the injustice somehow seems to make sense in its own way, and life never looks the same after that. Everything has a different glow to it. And yet, the harder we grab for it, and the more of our stuff we bring along, the more elusive it is. How's that for a real backward answer? What it isn't! (laughter)

This interview originally appeared in Dimensions, August 1991 edition. Ace Osmer currently holds a 4th kyu brown belt ranking in the Kasumi-An training system of Stephen Hayes. He is a photographer, actor and editor (of the book MINDFIRE: Dialogues in the Other Future).

Editors Note: Stephen K. Hayes was not yet an ordained priest in the Mikkyo tradition when this article was first published. The sections of the interview dealing with this issue have been updated to maintain the flow of the article. -- Liz maryland