Reviewed by: The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation by Robert E. Carter John W. M. Krummel Review of Robert E. Carter, The Japanese Arts and Self-Cultivation Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. ISBN 079147254X. 200 pp. I enjoyed reading this recent book by Robert Carter. As the title indicates, it is about the practice of self-cultivation as evidenced in the Japanese arts. By “arts” here, the author means a variety of traditional practices that involve the use and incorporation of the body and the mind and that result in something of aesthetic value and, ultimately, self-cultivation. The arts he covers are aikidō, landscape gardening, chadō (the way of making, serving, and drinking tea), ikebana (flower arranging), and pottery making, to which he dedicates a chapter each. I appreciated the book from multiple angles, first and foremost as a scholar of Japanese philosophy and religious thought. In addition, I appreciated it as someone who had grown up in Japan and has some familiarity with Japanese customs and culture and who has been interested in the martial arts since childhood and trained in an aiki-related art when living in Japan. The book, however, is not just for the scholar. Anyone interested in self-cultivation as practiced in Japan in its various guises, be it martial, aesthetic, or religious, would find reading this book worthwhile. I also think that Carter has succeeded in introducing the difficult philosophical concepts of Nishida, Nishitani, Dōgen, and Zen Buddhism to the nonspecialist or even nonacademic and in employing them in his explanations of the Japanese arts of self-cultivation. The author, however, did not limit his research to scholarly or academic works. Rather, much of the book is based on his [End Page 186] interviews and conversations with Japanese masters of the various arts and his visits and journeys through parts of Japan. There is something of an experiential travelogue about this book, making it an enjoyable read for anyone. Yet the author’s musings and comments may provide particular insight for the scholar. Unlike other books I might peruse for research, reading this book was a joyful experience that in a strange way put me in a tranquil mood and was something I looked forward to each day. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese religion, philosophy, aesthetics, martial arts, and/or culture in general. I shall discuss this book on the basis of the different ways in which it struck me as well as the questions that came to mind while reading it. The discussion of aikidō was interesting to me personally because I had practiced an aiki art—a derivative of Takeda-ryū aikinojutsu 武田流合気之術 that is related to Daitō-ryū aikijūjutsu 大東流合気柔術 that in turn influenced Ueshiba’s founding of aikidō 合気道—while growing up in Japan, from mid-elementary school up to the end of high school. I often wondered about the applicability or effectiveness of aiki in a real life, or “live,” combative situations, although that is not really the concern of the mainstream aikidō schools of Ueshiba’s Aikikai 合気会 and Tohei’s Ki Society (ki no kenkyūkai 気の研究会), which are central to Carter’s discussion. They might frown upon such speculation as “missing the point.” But today there are several offshoot organizations or schools independent of both of these groups that actively engage in testing the effectiveness of aiki in unchoreographed situations, for example, Tomiki-ryū 富木流 or Shōdōkan 昭道館, Shoot (jissen 実践) Aikidō, and Hatenkai 覇天会. Who is to say that the principle of aiki cannot be developed and fostered in a “competitive” context, that is, with a resisting opponent, which allows for spontaneity and flexibility in the appropriate use of the incoming force so as to yield to and “cooperate” with it—hence aiki—while deflecting or dissipating its destructiveness? These offshoots are attempting to rediscover the combative discipline hidden in aikidō. Their understanding of aiki might then come closer to the original intent of the principle of aiki as practiced by the older schools before the development of modern aikidō by Ueshiba. Carter’s interest in aikidō, however, is more as a method of self-cultivation rather than a method of...