162「呼びさます一人の相手も心せよ一を以て万に当る丈夫の道。」- 植芝盛平
Original Waka
呼びさます
植芝盛平 (Ueshiba, 1977)
一人の相手も
心せよ
一を以て万に当る
丈夫の道
Translation
“Awaken! [Even] one person as opponent, [be] heedful in heart-mind—with one [principle], meet the many—[this is the] stalwart man’s way.” – Morihei Ueshiba
Waka Translation
Call and awaken,
one person as opponent,
a heart-mind heedful—
by one, match the ten‑thousand,
this is Masurao’s Way.
Morihei Ueshiba
歴史的仮名遣い（語構成を明示）1
呼びさます (よびさます)
一人の相手 (ひとりのあひて)
心せよ (こころせよ)
一を以て當つ (いちをもてあつ)
丈夫の道 (ますらをのみち)
植芝盛平
Bungo Romanization1
yobi samasu
hitori no ahite
kokoroseyo
ichi o mote atsu
masurao no michi
Ueshiba Morihei
Notes
1 To produce a metrically regular tanka, editors often (i) drop optional particles, (ii) use classical inflectional forms, and (iii) adopt historical kana/lexis. Here, I (a) read 以て as classical もて (mote, 2 mora), and (b) use the classical verb 當つ (atsu, lower bigrade), which is the bungo ancestor of 当てる/当たる; this is a standard move in bungo prosody. This strict version elides explicit 万に (“against the many/ten‑thousand”). Such ellipsis to achieve meter is conventional in waka editing; the idiom 「一を以て万に当（あ）つ」 (‘by/with one [principle] match the many’) is transparent from context and widely understood through the classical kanbun idiom 以一当十 (‘one equals ten’).
Translation, Notes, Commentary, and Research by Latex G. N. R. Space-Coyote
Ueshiba, M. (2025). 植芝盛平道歌–162: Awaken stalwart man (L. G. N. R. Space-Coyote, Trans.; OpenAI ChatGPT-5 Pro, Ed.). Shugyokai.org. (Original work published 1977) https://shugyokai.org/d6pz
呼びさます（よびさます; yobi-samasu）— compound “to awaken by calling / rousing”; semantically works on two levels: (a) physically rousing an opponent or situation, and (b) spiritually / mentally awakening oneself (a very Oomoto / Aikidō flavor); the bare verb phrase at the start functions like an exclamatory imperative in didactic waka: “Awaken!”—a typical opening gambit in dōka (道歌, “Way‑poems”).
一人（ひとり; hitori）—“a single person; one person”.
相手（あひて; ahite / aite）— “the other party, partner, opponent.” In budō this is your training partner, but also your enemy in combat; many lists have 敵 “enemy”; this text has 相手 “partner / opponent”; both are attested in dōka selections (for consistency; for consistency and overtones of -te, it may be ideal to preserve teki, however it breaks the mora count in this tanka).
一人の相手（ひとりのあひて; hitori no aite/ahite）— “a single counterpart / opponent”.
心（こころ; kokoro）— “heart-mind”; etymologically the four ventricles of a heart.
心せよ（こころせよ; kokoroseyo）— imperative in bungo: “be mindful / heed / take to heart”; imperative ‑seyo is standard in the classical register.
一（いち; ichi）— “the one”; meaning on the surface, “one [thing, means]”, and more deeply, “the single principle” (of Aiki, or divine unity), echoing Oomoto’s theology of a single Great Origin and the slogan Bankyō dōkon (“the many teachings share one root”).
を（o）— object marker.
以て（もて; mote）— classical instrumental: “with, by means of.”
一を以て（いちおもて; ichi o mote）— classical instrumental 以て (mote / motte): “with / by means of the one (principle)”.
万に当る / 當つ（よろずにあたる / あつ; yorozu ni ataru / atsu）— “to face / meet / match the many (ten‑thousand)”, “to match, to be equal to, to stand up to,” classical lower‑bigrade 當つ (atsu) is the bungo ancestor of modern 当てる/当たる; using 當つ makes the meter fit and registers the classical voice.
一を以て万に当る / 一を以て當つ（いちおもてよろずにあたる / いちおもてあつ; ichi o mote yorozu ni ataru / ichi o mote atsu）— “with one [principle] match the many (ten‑thousand)”, ten-thousand being the stand-in term for myriad / limitless / “many”; By using the classical idiom 「一を以て万に当つ」, Ueshiba is echoing the old Sino‑Japanese maxim 以一当十, “one [warrior] equals ten,” familiar from dictionaries and compounds like 一騎当千.
丈夫（ますらお; masurao）— ancient poetic word for a stalwart, valorous man; key term in the masuraoburi (“manly style”) aesthetic in waka criticism.
道（みち; michi）— path / way (as a moral / spiritual path) / [redacted].
丈夫の道 （ますらをのみち; masuro no michi）— “the Way (michi) of the stalwart / heroic person,” drawing on ますらを (lit. “stalwart man”), a keyword in waka poetics (cf. masuraoburi).
Imperative diction. …せよ is a conventional classical imperative used in ethical/didactic waka (dōka), matching Ueshiba’s gnomic style.
Sino‑Japanese idiom. The phrasing echoes 以一当十, the old Sino‑Japanese maxim, mapping martial insight to ethical cultivation (ichi vs ban). Embedding kanbun‑style diction inside waka lines is common in later tradition.
Note on idiom. 以一当十/当百 (ichi o motte jū/ hyaku ni ataru) is a classical Sino‑Japanese trope—“one equals ten [or a hundred].” Ueshiba’s line echoes that idiom in ethical, not merely military, register.
Waka key‑wording: ますらを（丈夫）. Evokes the masuraoburi ideal—vigorous, forthright, “manly” spirit associated with early waka poetics—exactly the register Ueshiba often invokes in his dōka.
Historical kana & kyūjitai. I use あひて for 相手, 以て (mote) for the instrumental “with,” and 當 for kyūjitai of 当. These reflect rekishiteki kanazukai and pre‑1946 orthographic norms.
Classical morphology. Reading 當つ (atsu) (タ行下二段) is textbook bungo; it both evokes the classical register and allows the regular 7‑mora line. (See Vovin and Shirane for overviews of bungo verb classes and usage.)
Meter & editorial practice. Waka allows ji‑amari/ji‑tarazu; editors historically normalize when desired. Using 當つ and eliding a redundant element is a standard, documented approach (Brower & Miner discuss meter and permissible irregularities). However, while using the native classical reading yields 万に当る → よろづにあたる → yorozu ni ataru, using Sino-Japanese yields 万に当る → ばんにあたる → ban ni ataru, which satisfies the Sino-Japanese idiom pattern 一を以て万を知る / 以一知万 where dictionaries give the reading いちをもってばんをしる (ichi o motte ban o shiru; DIGITALIO, n.d.).
Where the line sits. Lists of Ueshiba’s dōka (sometimes numbered; this “162”) circulates in Aiki Shinzui–derived selections and dōka compilations. Variants read 相手 (opponent) vs 敵 (enemy). Either way, the maxim generalizes from combat to life‑practice.
Religious‑studies backdrop. Ueshiba’s ethic is inseparable from Ōmoto (Oomoto) spirituality—universalist Bankyō Dōkon (“all teachings share one root”) and a cosmology of harmonizing “the One and the many.” For Ōmoto’s history and theology, see Stalker’s monograph and Ōmoto’s own publications.
Anthropology of dōjō practice. As Donohue’s ethnographies show, Japanese martial halls ritualize ethical maxims into embodied habitus; injunctions like “heed even one opponent; with one principle meet the many” function as practical pedagogy of attention, posture, and social conduct.
Poetics & ethics. Casting doctrine as waka (dōka) is traditional: it compresses doctrine into memorizable 31 onji. The acceptance of slight over‑ or under‑counts (ji‑amari/ji‑tarazu) underscores that rememberability and moral force trump arithmetic perfection in many didactic contexts.
Shugyokai note. Fractal tesselative mechanics indeed.
解説; Commentary
この道歌は、冒頭の「呼びさます」でまず「起動（自他ともに目を覚まさせる）」を命じ、つづく「一人の相手も 心せよ」で最隣接の一人への集中（注意・用心）を据えます。要の三句目は「一を以て万に当る」――以て（もて）は古典の具格＝「…によって／…をもって」、当るは古語の當つ（atsu）に遡らせる編集で「一つの原理で『万（よろず）』に応じる」をきっちり立て、結びの「丈夫（ますらお）の道」で美意識と行の規範を言い切る構図です（本文は歴史的仮名と漢文成句〈以一当十〉との呼応まで示す）。要するに――「一」を軸に、個の出会いから無数の局面まで貫いて応じるのが〈ますらおの道〉、という直截な稽古指針です。
六つのプライマーに糸戻しすると：プライマーの第一原理〈武＝宇宙原理〉では「一」を拍・秩序の基音として世界に合わせ、プライマーの第二原理〈人との合気〉は「一人の相手も心せよ」を関係の最小単位での結びとして運転する。プライマーの第三原理〈心魂一如〉は声・息・身を同一拍に揃えて「一」がそのまま出る身体を作り、プライマーの第四原理〈和合美化〉は一で万を壊さず和へ収める美学、プライマーの第五原理〈体＝道場／心＝学び手〉はこの一句を日々の稽古（常の所作）に反復し、プライマーの第六原理〈「至愛」の源に順う〉は「一」の運用を人を生かす方向へ常に点検する――この配列が本ページの語釈（命令法せよ／もて＝具格／當つ／ますらお）と噛み合います。
前の三首（第159首「嘆きから奮起へ—勝速日」、第160首「御言により浮橋で光が立つ」、第161首「神の怒りに触れて勇みつ」）の踏段に立てば、本第162首は「呼びさます」で奮起を常態化し、「一人の相手」で浮橋＝「ここ」の焦点を最小化、「一をもて万に当る」で勝の光を具体の運用原理に落とす章となります。換言すれば――（第159~161首で）光を呼び立てた者が、（第162首で）「ひとり」に丁寧に向き合い、その同じ「ひとつ」で万事に応ずる。ここに丈夫の道が閉じ、同時にひらかれます。
口語要約のひとこと
「呼び覚ませ――一人の相手にも心せよ、一つをもって万に当たる、これが丈夫の道だ。」
References
Brower, R. H., & Miner, E. (1961). Japanese court poetry. Stanford University Press.
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Donohue, J. J. (1990). Training halls of the Japanese martial tradition: A symbolic analysis of budō dōjō in New York. Anthropos, 85, 55–63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40462114
Horton, H. M. (2018). Making it old: Premodern Japanese poetry in English translation. Translation Review, 101(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/23306343.2018.1500980
Minowa, K. (2016). Buddhist thought in Late Tokugawa didactic poetry (dōka) collections: Understandings of the mind. Studies in Indian Philosophy and Buddhism, 24, 3–28.
Ōmoto Foundation. (n.d.). Teachings and scriptures (Bankyō Dōkon resources). https://www.oomoto.or.jp/English/
Shirane, H. (2005). Classical Japanese: A grammar. Columbia University Press.
Stalker, N. K. (2008). Prophet motive: Deguchi Onisaburō, Oomoto, and the rise of new religions in Imperial Japan. University of Hawai‘i Press.
Ueshiba, M. (1977). 合気道奥義（道歌）(S. Abe, Ed.). 阿部, 醒石. Retrieved from http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yp7h-td/douka.htm
Vovin, A. (2003). A reference grammar of Classical Japanese prose. RoutledgeCurzon.
Wikimedia Foundation. (2025). Historical kana orthography. In Wikipedia. Retrieved (September 30, 2025) from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_kana_orthography
Wikimedia Foundation. (n.d.). 当てる / 当つ (classical conjugation note). In Wiktionary. Retrieved 30 Sept 2025 from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BD%93%E3%81%A6%E3%82%8B
Appendix I: Change Modification Log
21 DEC 25 - Applied Phase V styling to waka.
11 DEC 25 - Phase IV completion; commentary added.
23 NOV 25 - Phase IV preparation.
19 OCT 25 - Phase III completion.
14 APR 20 - Initial notes transferred.