修行会

138「主の御親至愛の心大みそら世のいとなみの本となりぬる。」- 植芝盛平

Original Waka

主の御親
至愛の心
大みそら
世のいとなみの
本となりぬる

植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)

Translation

“Su’s Divine Parent, [a] supreme boundless love’s mind-heart [as] great vast firmament—the world’s daily working’s foundation [is] fully accomplished.” – Morihei Ueshiba

Waka Translation

Su’s own Mioya,
supreme boundless love’s mind-heart,
great vast firmament—

the world’s own daily workings’
foundation fully complete.

Morihei Ueshiba

歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）

主の御親（すのみおや）
至愛の心（しあいのこころ）
大御空（おおみそら）
世の營みの（よのいとなみの）
本となりぬる（もととなりぬる）

植芝盛平

Bungo Romanization

su no mi‑oya
shi‑ai no kokoro
ōmisora
yo no itonami no
moto tonari‑nuru

Ueshiba Morihei

Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote

Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–138: Great firmament fountainhead (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/tias

主（す; su） — lord, master, main, principal; head of family; master, mistress; husband, proprietor, landlord; su is read in Go-on readings that were used in Japanese Buddhist and legal communities of practice based in Nanjing dialect which are readings for Chinese characters used in the Kojiki; as su, attached to names for respect; etymology is important here, wood with fire on top; a spirit tablet in old pictograms, which incidentally is the radical on the left of the kanji for kami; fire is considered sacred, and the person (e.g., master, head of household, elder) who controlled fire was called so (そう; DigitalIO, n.d.-a; EDRDG, n.d.; Muller, 2014; Wikimedia Foundation, 2025).

の（no）— genitive/attributive particle.

御（み; mi） — honorific prefix; in historical grammar it functions as a bound morpheme marking reverence toward the referent. NINJAL’s (2017) historical corpus treats ミ（御） as a prefixal element with numerous sacred exemplars (御子, 御言, 御手洗, etc.); indexes sacred dignity. In Shintō vocabulary mi‑ marks kami and imperial referents (mi‑koto, mi‑tama), a usage Kokugakuin’s (n.d.-a) Encyclopedia of Shintō treats as an honorific title / prefix for divine persons and attributes. Reading 御姿 as みすがた thus harmonizes with Ueshiba’s Shintō / Ōmoto‑inflected diction, where the cosmos itself is treated as theophany.¹

御親（みおや; mioya） — rendered as Divine Parent, a Shinto / Ōmoto epithet for the primordial, nurturing deity (the god who is both Lord and Parent).

主の御親（すのみおや; su no mioya） — “the Divine Parent ‘Su’”; 主 here is read Su, a usage in Ueshiba’s Shintō/Ōmoto‑inflected vocabulary (often linked to kotodama “SU,” a primal breath / sound). This is not an everyday on/kun reading of 主 but part of the Founder’s theological poetics; “Divine Parent” aligns with the Shintō / sectarian concept Oyagami / 御親 (Kokugakuin University, n.d.-b).

至愛（しあい; shi‑ai） — supreme / extreme love, the highest, all‑embracing benevolence; kakekotoba as 試合 (shiai) “match”.

心（こころ; kokoro）— heart, core, mind, spirit, wick. etymologically the four ventricles.

大（おお; ō） — great; large; big; grand.

みそら / 御空（misora） —  is a classical honorific for “sky,” widely attested in dictionaries and early poetry citations.

大みそら / 大御空（おおみそら; ōmisora） — the great sky / firmament / vast heavens; an honorific / poetic word for the vast heavens used in classical verse and liturgy; alludes to 高天原 (Takamagahara), the great sky plain (of kami) without being explicit, allowing for various simultaneous interpretations.

世（よ; yo） — generation, many spanning generations, era, period, time, epoch, dynasty, regime, year, age, world, earth, people (atemporal) (three leaves on a branch).

世のいとなみ（よのいとなみ; yo no itonomi） — the world’s activities, affairs, doings, endeavors, daily workings; the ongoing activity of life.

本 （もと; moto） —  in Classical Japanese, “origin / foundation”, where the kanji later became a character for book.

となり（となり; tonari） — to become / to be: It functions as the conjunctive form of the verb なるnaru, meaning “to become” or “to be” in a state of transition. When used in this way, it often connects a preceding noun or adjective to the main verb of the sentence, indicating the result or state achieved (Freiles, 1993); kakekotoba shading as 隣 (tonari) meaning “neighbor”, “next to” describing proximity reading as “it is a close, inseparable neighbor / partner to that foundation [of kami-no-ku]”; 隣 is a compound of 外 (to, “outside, other”) + nari, possible nominalization of verb なる (naru, “to become”), or contraction of に (ni, locative particle) + あり (ari, copular “to be” verb, predicative and nominal form; Wikimedia Foundation, 2025).

ぬる（nuru） — indicates the attributive form (連体形, rentaikei) of the auxiliary verb ぬ (nu) that attaches to the imperfective form (未然形, mizenkei) of the main verb; indicates completion or strong assertion (like the modern Japanese ~ta or ~te shimau). It can also indicate negation in some constructions, but when it is completed, it’s the completion / assertion meaning (Arai, 2011; Ōno & Satake, 2005).

となりぬる（tonari‑nuru） — become + perfective ぬ + attributive る → a consummated state—classical aspect / mode frequently used to close a waka; “which has completely become / which is fully accomplished” (Shibatani, 1990).

本となりぬる（もととなりぬる; moto to narinuru） — classical perfective, “has become the foundation, wellspring, fountainhead”; signaling a cosmic consummation rather than a mere future aspiration.

Kami-no-ku and shimo-no-ku. This arrangement lets the kami‑no‑ku name the source—Su’s Divine Parent, extreme / supreme love, great sky where shimo‑no‑ku declares its effect—the completed ground of all worldly activity alluding to the great perfection.

Structure preserved. The English rendering explicitly keeps the 5‑7‑5 / 7‑7 strophic balance and the rhetorical turn between kami‑no‑ku (naming the transcendent Source) and shimo‑no‑ku (worldly consequence), matching descriptions in classical poetics.

Honorific prefix 御‑ (mi‑). Pre‑nominal reverential element before sacred nouns (御親, 御空), standard in premodern diction and Shintō terminology.

Historical kana & kyūjitai. Reading 大御空 ＝ おほみそら (rekishiteki kana) and 營み reflect conventional bungo orthography.

Allusion to 大究竟. The allusion to the great perfection (dzog’chen) of Mayahana Vajrayana is nearly unmistakable in intentionality or parapraxis. In addition, 大究竟 is Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana, Mahāvairocana), the great sun buddha, also known as Great Buddha Amaterasu, where Amaterasu signifies the relationship between Buddhism and Shintō in Japan.

本となりぬる / 本隣ぬる pivot. The mo tonari-nuru pivot allows for simultaneous signing of (a) “The subject [world’s daily workings] is so essential that it is the foundation of life…”, and (b) “…or, alternatively, it is a close, inseparable neighbor/partner to that foundation”. This adds a layer of intimacy and immediacy to the subject’s importance—it is both the essential root and the closest, most immediate neighbor to that root. It elevates the subject from a mere concept to something physically or temporally near the heart of all things.

Aspectual closure with ぬる. なり＋ぬ＋る as perfective‑attributive cadence common in waka conclusions, marking cosmic consummation rather than mere futurity. Authoritative grammar overviews detail ぬ as a perfective auxiliary.

Semantic fields maintained. Divine Parent (御親／Oyagami), supreme love (至愛), and great firmament (大御空) remain intact, while “fountainhead / foundation” mirrors 本 and the perfective なりぬる. References on Oyagami situate “Divine Parent” within Shintō / new‑religion usage.

Dictional restraint. Like classical waka, the translation avoids heavy modifiers and keeps a single, continuous image schema (source → cosmos → human world), aligning with court‑poetry economy.

Shintō and the “Divine Parent”. The epithet 御親 / Oyagami (“parent deity”) is central in Shintō‑related new religions (e.g., Tenrikyō; also influential in Ōmoto, with which Ueshiba was deeply engaged). This “parental” theonym grounds an ethic of nurturance and world‑ordering love—precisely what 至愛の心 evokes.

Ōmoto / new‑religion milieu. Ueshiba’s religious imagination was shaped by Deguchi Onisaburō and Ōmoto discourse (cosmogony, kotodama, universal family), which frequently frames the cosmos as theophany issuing from the Parent Deity; Nancy Stalker’s monograph is a standard study.

Shintō scholarship. Hardacre’s comprehensive history clarifies how concepts like Oyagami and cosmological language circulate between sectarian Shintō and wider cultural practice—useful for reading Ueshiba’s metaphysical waka. Kasulis’ philosophical portrait of Shintō complements this by articulating intimacy with the natural/cosmic order.

Aikido thought & kotodama. Interpretations of Ueshiba’s teachings (e.g., Gleason) explicitly connect ai‑ki with a cosmology of love and with kotodama practice—consistent with “至愛” and the poem’s claim that this heart becomes the 本 (ground) of 世のいとなみ.

Shugyokai note. 空 and true emptiness.