July 27, 2025

Kazusa Kanōzan (上総鹿野山) –
Mount Kanō (鹿野山)

Sunday:
What is tradition? | July 27, 2025

The artifacts shaped by the forces of deep time that are particular to any culture, region, or land can be said to be the material aspects of that tradition, for they shape and govern the course of destiny and as such they become integral parts of the human condition as well as the cardinal feature that clearly separates one culture from another, one region from another, and one land from another – this is the essence of tradition in the material domain. The wish to adhere to tradition is for man the call to uphold the orderly, to remain on the course of destiny and to remain anchored to the celestial order, for all men have upon their shoulders the awesome responsibility of ancestral responsibility, for a man that rejects the wish and the ways of his ancestors is not a man, he is the beast, and such is the case with modern man, a pathetic creature in the shadow of a once great man. Traditions are the artifacts and the material particles as well as the sacred ways of a civilization that has survived the test of time, and in that regard traditions can be said to be immortal but never universal for what separates one tradition from another is time and space and without the respect for time and space there would be no need to delineate any particulars and such is the claim of the humanist axiom, in the attempt to impose cosmopolitanism on the world; nothing is more peculiar and more native to a certain corner of the world and everything is equally good in all corners of the world at the same time. Somehow modern man expects this attitude to yield great results, great quantitative and material results for the benefit of usury and speculation. What modern man fails to see, because he refuses to see it, is that tradition is not, by definition, universal, it is peculiar and certain and for one people, one land, and one culture there is only one tradition, not all traditions and this attitude has actually yielded true multiculturalism. Tradition is the aspect of reality that binds man to society, it is the qualities that grounds man as a member of the societal body and without tradition, the great claim of the liberal paradigm, man can be maid unshackled and free to "explore" the world and himself, and the result of this enterprise has been nothing but utter chaos, as seen in the embrace of homosexuality, abortion, and other depravities and immoral acts driven by the mental confusions in the wake of anti-traditional thought and measures. From the point of view of the transcendental, tradition can be thought of as the anchor that ground man to the Earth, but it may also be thought of as the compass that guides man in the righteous direction and if every man starts from different positions in the world it should be expected that the compass would point in different directions for each man, and this is essentially how and why traditions while being part of the same cosmic source points towards the same source but in different directions depending on each man's position in the material realm.

    During the era of the Kali Yuga, tradition has come to be seen as something adverse to the "natural" man, and something that he has to be liberated from, and the liberal paradigm has demanded and enforced, through imperialism, the abolition of traditional modes of being and traditional ways of living, for they stand in the way of man's liberation from the human condition, and as such the liberal world has been engaged in perpetual warfare against the so-called backwards and rearguard world. It is fancy to think of "tolerance" as a virtue, but the revolutionary elite relies on tolerance to enforce their ways of anti-tradition. I am by no means making the claim that people of the liberal persuasion are evil, for they know not of what they are doing; they are merely the servants of the serpent. I also want to acknowledge that it is quite natural and indeed normal for one tradition to collide with another tradition and that the aspects of one tradition can come to be seen as something out of this world to another tradition, and this should be taken into account when discussing the liberal-western paradigm, for the parochial values of the western man should also be seen as an expression of tradition. I would add that the traditions of western man have mostly been pushed out in the modern world however. Which should not come as a surprise in this, the era of the Kali Yuga. It is not that there's anything wrong with one particular tradition, it is rather that one tradition may be out of place in a particular region, culture, or land, or really out of balance with the aspects of the celestial order in that region, culture, or land, and as such it is no longer the tradition. Traditions are in this way, not merely instrumental nor are they replaceable; they are the aggregate expression of sacred values in the material and this must be respected. Modern man must respect tradition, but he won't and that is okay.

Massaki-hen yori Suijin
(真崎辺より) –
Suijin Shrine (水神社)

    Continually I have called for non-violence and peace, for there is only one way forward, the route of Radical Peace, for the beast is not to be resisted, not in the material domain; the beast must be resisted in the transcendental arena and this should prompt any far seeing man to reject the ways of the beast, which includes violence. Reject violence! Non-violence and peace goes towards the preservation of tradition on the spiritual plane, for all traditions converge around the same source at the end of the day, and from the point of view of sacred morality it would be wrong and anti-traditional to engage in violent acts. All modes of being in the world are derived from these traditional aspects and what has been labeled culture is the most sacred expression of tradition on the exoteric or the material sense, and the erasure of tradition would necessarily mean the worldly confluence of all tradition into the multicultural soup, the end of history and the final solution to the human condition. Beauty is also a quality that is derived from tradition, for what is considered beauty in one region is seldom considered beauty in another region, but the all qualities of beauty do converge towards the source, whether they are considered beautiful in one region or not, they are constituted of the same particles, but in different material configurations. The esoteric and the sacred are universal, but the profane and the exoteric, the material, takes on multiple different expressions and thus we have many different expressions of tradition across the world.

    Preserve your tradition and preserve your purity; those should go hand in hand. I am a bit flabbergasted as I am writing this so do forgive me. I have been made aware of an adverse personal situation. I will continue to uphold the importance of celibacy and fanatical Bodhicitta. Do not allow yourself to become sloppy and lazy – embrace the beauty of tradition!

Reginald Drax – July 27, 2025.