Intro
Tradition is like a map.
A map does not tell us where we should go.
It only makes orientation possible.
In the previous episode, I explained that authority guides others’ development by transmitting the structure of action. That structure is what I call the Way.
Tradition is the continuing transmission of the Way across generations. It is one of the ways in which this structure is transmitted and learned. For this reason, tradition deserves a closer look.
1. Two Kinds of Tradition
Let us imagine two martial arts dojos: one established three hundred years ago, the other only two years ago. Which one is more traditional? At first glance, the answer seems obvious. But a closer look reveals something more complicated.
In the first dojo, students have practiced the same kata for generations. Their only concern is preserving what they believe to be the correct form inherited from the battlefields of the past. The tradition survives, but it is no longer alive.
In the second dojo, students practice exactly the same kata. However, they continually reinterpret its meaning and adapt what they learn to contemporary practice. Here, the tradition is alive.
Tradition transmits the Way—that is, the structure of action. The structure is like a map. There are many traditions of map-making, but every map serves the same purpose: it provides orientation.
The first dojo keeps drawing the same map over and over again. Gradually, that map loses contact with the territory it was meant to describe.
The second dojo preserves the traditional way of drawing maps while continually updating them to reflect the terrain. As a result, its students can still use them to guide their everyday actions.
I do not intend to suggest that one of these dojos is simply better than the other. A practitioner may find value in both. A living tradition and a dead tradition are neither good nor bad in themselves. Both can be used wisely. Both can be used poorly.
The important question is how we use them.
2. Tradition and Progress
If my view is correct, then some common conceptions of tradition are mistaken.
Tradition is often presented as the opposite of progress. But a dead tradition cannot stop progress. And a living tradition cannot survive without adapting to changing circumstances. To remain alive, it must remain functional. Some adaptations prove successful. Others do not. As a result, among competing traditions, only those that adapt successfully endure.
For the same reason, tradition is not the opposite of innovation. A dead tradition cannot prevent innovation. A living tradition, on the contrary, demands it. In the end, history shows which innovations helped a tradition survive.
3. Tradition and History
The most important distinction, however, is the one between tradition and history.
Tradition is often described as the memory or preservation of the past. If this were true, it would be a very poor source of historical knowledge.
Historical facts do not speak for themselves. They always require interpretation. Even professional historians often disagree about what the same evidence means. At the same time, historical reality is far too complex to become a tradition. Inevitably, every tradition simplifies the past.
Consider, for example, a kata. A kata is both a traditional and a historical form of practice. Yet trying to reconstruct the history of martial arts from kata alone leads nowhere. On the contrary, we usually need historical knowledge before we can properly interpret a kata. Moreover, every generation modifies its form, making its original meaning increasingly difficult to recover.
This shows that preserving the past is the task of history, not of tradition. The role of tradition is different.
The difference between history and tradition is like the difference between reading about martial arts and practicing them. Historians study documents. They may give us profound intellectual understanding. But that understanding differs fundamentally from the understanding of a practitioner.
Someone may know everything about the history of a school of swordsmanship—even its technical details—without ever belonging to its tradition. And someone else may know almost nothing about its history while fully participating in its living tradition.
This is because tradition is not primarily about preserving knowledge. It is about participating in a structure of action. In other words, tradition is about following the Way.
As I said at the beginning, tradition is the continuing transmission of the Way across generations.
4. Tradition and Repetition
This leads us to a more subtle question.
Since tradition transmits the structure of action, it is naturally associated with repetitive behavior. The structure is codified in these behaviors, just as the law is codified in a legal code. Because of this, we can always return to them. Like a lawyer returning to a legal code, we may refresh our understanding, discover something new, or see familiar things from a different perspective. This is the true function of repetition.
Yet many people repeat traditional behavior simply for the sake of repeating it. As they say, they cultivate tradition. This is like copying a legal code without understanding what it says.
There is no cultivation in repetition alone. The word cultivate comes from Latin and originally referred to tilling the soil for crops. Later, Cicero famously described philosophy as the cultivation of the mind. For him, philosophy was a form of spiritual exercise and self-development.
I understand tradition in the same way. To cultivate a tradition means to develop ourselves through the repetitive behaviors in which the structure of action is codified.
Kata provides a perfect example. The knowledge of past masters is embodied in repetitive movement. But practicing a kata makes sense only if it shapes the practitioner’s technique, character, and understanding of the art. We do not repeat a kata simply to repeat it. We repeat it to develop ourselves.
At this point, an interesting question arises. Why do so many people engage in repetitive traditional behavior for its own sake?
The answer lies in the way our minds work. Our minds naturally search for patterns in experience. Whenever we recognize a pattern, the mind becomes calmer. Whenever the pattern is broken, uncertainty appears. Repetition itself is a pattern. That is why it gives us a sense of stability and safety.
In the case of tradition, however, this feeling may be deceptive. But, at the same time, we should not dismiss our tendency to search for patterns. Everything we know about the world depends on recognizing them. Some patterns are even expressed mathematically as the laws of nature. Science itself relies on our ability to discover regularities and use them to predict events.
The same cognitive capacity makes tradition possible. The problem is not repetition. The problem is repetition without understanding. Repeating traditional behavior for its own sake is like intellectual junk food. It gives immediate satisfaction without any real nourishment.
5. Tradition and Change
Tradition is the continuous transmission of the Way—that is, the structure of action.
In the previous episode, I explained that authority plays a crucial role in this transmission. What authority transmits, however, has two dimensions. One is objective. The other is subjective.
The objective structure of action can be transmitted from one person to another. But every practitioner realizes that structure in an individual way. While the objective Way is transmitted, the subjective Way develops through personal practice. As a result, what every authority transmits is the objective structure interpreted through individual experience.
For this reason, tradition inevitably changes, whether we like it or not. Even the most conservative traditions continue to change.
If the Way is like a map, then it is a map continually refined throughout the journey. The structure remains the same. But the map becomes more accurate. Maps drawn five hundred years ago differ from the ones we use today. Yet their basic structure remains unchanged. Otherwise, they would no longer represent the territory.
Language provides another useful example. Words and expressions change constantly. The underlying structure of language changes much more slowly. It is the continuity of that structure that makes it the same language rather than a different one.
The same is true of martial arts. Weapons change. Training methods change. Societies change. Yet the structure of action remains continuous. That continuity is what makes something the same martial art despite centuries of transformation.
The source of change within a tradition lies in the subjective interpretation of the Way. The reason for change, however, may be objective. Every authority exists within a broader social reality. And that reality continually changes for social, economic, political, and many other reasons.
Reality tests traditions just as evolution tests organisms. Traditions that fail to adapt eventually disappear. Every subjective reinterpretation of the Way is therefore subjected to an objective test. Reality ultimately decides whether a tradition survives or dies.
6. Tradition, Freedom and Development
Tradition is sometimes accused of suppressing individuality and limiting freedom.
This is the same concern we encountered in the previous episode when discussing authority. There, I distinguished between irrational and rational authority. Irrational authority forces us to realize someone else’s will. Its purpose is domination. Rational authority, by contrast, provides the structure within which our potential can develop.
The same distinction applies to tradition.
Sometimes people pressure us to preserve certain customs simply because they are traditional. The hidden reason is anxiety. As I explained earlier, familiar patterns calm the mind. Breaking those patterns creates uncertainty. For this reason, many people defend traditions simply because they fear the anxiety that change brings. Repeating established patterns creates an illusion of control and safety. This is an irrational way of maintaining tradition.
Tradition becomes rational when its purpose is development. A rational tradition provides a structure of action within which people can grow. It is like fertile soil in which human potential can take root and flourish.
Yet even rational tradition has its costs. Tradition is not necessarily the enemy of individuality. On the contrary, it often provides the ground on which individuality can develop. But every tradition shapes us in a particular direction. By following one Way, we gradually become similar to those who follow it with us.
The same applies to freedom. There are many different traditions of map-making. Each offers a different way of orienting ourselves. Choosing which map to follow remains our responsibility. But every map is inevitably a simplification of reality. Otherwise, it could not provide orientation. For that very reason, every tradition also limits the possibilities available to us.
7. Learning the Way
Tradition is not the only source of the Way. Moreover, what tradition provides is only its objective dimension.
Learning to drive a car offers a good analogy. A driving instructor can teach only those aspects of driving that can be objectively transmitted. They also correct us whenever we apply them incorrectly. But this is not the same as driving alone, without guidance. That is why people often say that we truly begin learning to drive only after receiving a driver’s license. The subjective dimension of the Way must be acquired through personal experience.
Indeed, personal experience may even reveal aspects of the objective structure that no teacher could fully explain. For this reason, it is not impossible to discover the Way without formal guidance.
I know a person who taught himself how to make traditional Japanese armor. After years of practice, his work earned the recognition of Japanese masters.
Tradition is only one source of the Way. It is one of many grounds on which human beings may grow. Tradition cannot choose our destination. Nor can it decide which Way we should follow. It cannot free us from responsibility for our own choices. What it can do is preserve structures that have already proved capable of orienting human action. Whether we follow them, transform them, or leave them behind remains our responsibility.
Outro
This was the Budo Mind Podcast.
In this episode, I argued that tradition is not the preservation of the past. It is the continuing transmission of the Way across generations.
Tradition is neither the opposite of progress nor the opposite of innovation. It is not history. Nor is it repetition for its own sake. Its purpose is to preserve the structure of action that has proved capable of orienting human life.
For this reason, tradition must continually be interpreted and adapted. Otherwise, it gradually becomes an empty form.
Like authority, tradition may be rational or irrational. Irrational tradition demands repetition to preserve an illusion of safety. Rational tradition uses repetition to cultivate understanding and development.
Tradition does not tell us where we should go. It preserves maps drawn by those who walked before us. Whether we choose to follow them, revise them, or draw new ones remains our responsibility. Because a map is valuable only as long as it helps us find our way.
