Australian Kyokushin - Dojokun background

The Kyokushin dojo kun was (or dojo oath) written by Mas Oyama with the help of Eiji Yoshikawa, the author of Musashi, a book about the life and times of Japan's greatest warrior Miyamoto Musashi. The book provided much of Mas Oyama's inspiration during his mountain training days.

Not suprisingly, it is not really very different, in spirit, from the Shotokan dojo kun, just more poetic (at least in English), or most other dojokun in other styles of karate. All Martial Arts hold the same principles high - they just choose different words with which to express them, and then often have slightly different interpretations.

The most common usage for the dojokun is at the end of each training session, when all students and instructors kneel in seiza in rank order with instructors facing the students. The chief instructor then designates someone, usually the most senior student, to recite the oath in the local language.

The student might be required to announce loudly "Dojokun!" and then recites it with pauses at the end of each sentence, during which the whole class repeats that line. Sometimes, after the first student has announced "Dojokun!" all the others might be required to chime in with "OSU! Dojokun" just to let him or her know that they're ready to start reciting. Alternatively, the whole class may recite it simultaneously.

Once the oath has been concluded, the senior student says the following lines, with the everyone responding with a bow and resounding "OSU". Everyone says the last sentence. The "HAI" is to tell them "Now!"

Not all dojo do this exactly the same way. Hanshi Steve Arneil doesn't even require it to be said, because he feels it would be hypocritical, since it would be impossible for most of us to truly practice what the oath says. Other dojo may recite it all together, without a leader. Some dojo such as my own, require students to memorise it, while others have a poster of it up on the wall in front, where it can be read while being recited.

Some countries use "We will follow our Gods and Buddha", which is the correct translation, instead of "We will follow our religious principles". I have been told that in Australia, it was thought that might be construed as anti-Christian, and it was changed for local use, and appears to have been adopted elsewhere. I do not know whether the origin of this change truly was Australian, but it seemed plausible when it was first explained to me.

Shihan Cameron Quinn also has the following to say about the use of "Gods and Buddha" (with some editing by myself):

The translation of shin-butsu, whilst often said to be literally be "Gods and Buddha", is actually not that at all. Shin, IS gods and Butsu IS Buddha, but the word Shin-butsu is not so easy. That's because it is a generically Japanese word, related to Kamikaze. The most accurate way to translate it would be to say that it is a reference to the anthropomorphisation of awe-inspiring natural phenomena that the Shinto faith calls Kami. Just as Muhammad, Krishna, Christ, and Buddha were all prophets of the same God and Truth yet serve different purposes for different times and places, the Shinto Kami are uniquely for the Japanese. (Editor's note: Please do not debate with me the validity and accuracy of whether the four named above are correctly grouped or described etc... Firstly, I have no interest in the debate, and secondly, I do not think that Shihan Quinn means it exactly as stated, i.e. it must be read in a broader sense, much like the subject being discussed in these paragraphs)
And then the Japanese go and confuse it more by being Buddhist as well as Japanese, depending on what they are dealing with at the time: marriage is time of renewal and happiness, so let's make it a Shinto thing, but death is all about the after-life and passing, so we'll let the Buddhists look after that.
So Shin-butsu is a reference to the completely unique Japanese religious eclecticism of Shinto and Buddhism. To translate it as "our Gods and Buddha" and have people saying it who are not Shinto AND Buddhist AND Japanese all at the same time is a little inaccurate, if not inappropriate. The eclecticism of the Shinto Kami (shin) and the Gautama Buddha is encapsulated in the one word shin-butsu. It is more a description of their principles of religion, and their approach, more than the objects of their religious fervour.