noun:

• mysteries of one's master's art
• robes and a bowl (monk's key possessions auctioned off at his funeral); "transmission of the dharma from master to disciple (in Zen)" [figurative] - original meaning - Buddhism term

expression / godan ~つ verb:

• to become hard and fibrous; to go to seed; to have passed one's prime; to have lost the first bloom of one's youth

noun:

• sake bottle; tall and slender bottle with a narrow mouth made from ceramic, metal or glass that can be used for sake, shoyu or rice vinegar
• turtleneck (sweater)
• someone who cannot swim

adverb / ~と adverb / ~する noun:

• crisp (not moist or juicy); crunchy; flaky (as in pastry) - onomatopoeia
• crunching sound (of walking on snow, frost, sand, etc.) - onomatopoeia
• doing skillfully and efficiently; doing quickly; proceeding smoothly - onomatopoeia
• sound of pouring liquid - onomatopoeia - archaism
• speaking clearly - onomatopoeia - archaism

noun:

• red eboshi (headgear worn by Japanese men prior to and during the Edo period, which was ordinarily black in color) ➜ 亭主の好きな赤烏帽子
• metaphor for an odd item or having a taste for such an item

noun:

• dumplings offered to the moon (on the 15th day of the 8th month and the 13th day of the 9th month)

expression:

• complete reversal of values or ways of thinking (over time); What appeared wrong in the past now appears right; realizing and regretting the past errors of one's ways - four character idiom

noun:

• Yezo (northern part of Meiji-era Japan, esp. Hokkaido, but also Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands)
• Edo-period realm of the Ainu (as opposed to the Japanese) comprising most of Hokkaido ➜ 和人地

expression:

• take a long walk off a short pier; go stick your head in a pig; bash your head against the corner of a block of tofu and die [literal]

noun:

• inscription on the bathtub of King Tang ("If you can renovate yourself one day, then you can do so every day, and keep doing so day after day.")

noun:

• low-lying part of a city (usu. containing shops, factories, etc.)
• Shitamachi (low-lying area of eastern Tokyo near Tokyo Bay, incl. Asakusa, Shitaya, Kanda, Fukugawa, Honjo, Nihonbashi, Kyobashi and surrounds) ➜ 山の手

expression:

• walk a mile in other's shoes to understand their suffering; you can't appreciate others' suffering until you've gone through it yourself; pinch yourself and know others' pain [literal] - proverb

noun:

• ukiyo-e print produced with various shades of indigo (and sometimes small amounts of vermilion or yellow)
• staining a pattern on fabric or paper by rubbing it with indigo leaves

expression / ~する verb (irregular):

• to try and do something; to attempt to do something ➜ 為る【する】・とする

noun / ~する noun:

• cheating on train fare by buying tickets covering only the first and last portions of the journey (so-called because traditional pipes had metal only in two short segments at the ends) ➜ 煙管乗り

noun:

• hard-liners; diehards; hawks

noun / adjectival noun:

• (young) man with traditionally masculine interests; tough boy; man's man

noun:

• hard news; reporter who covers political and economic affairs

noun / adjectival noun:

• strait-laced type (with respect to relationships)

noun:

• bullish traders

noun:

• young people who behave in a rowdy fashion (e.g. in a pub); young people who cheer and drink loudly

noun:

• being kept standing (without doing anything); remaining on one's feet
• beggar; tramp
• prostitute; streetwalker
• tout (for a hostess bar)
• street drug pusher
• day laborer standing and waiting for a job.

expression:

• everything comes in handy when used correctly; use the right tools for the right job; fools and (blunt) scissors have to be used in the right way - proverb

noun:

• territories in the vicinity of the capital and under direct imperial rule; (in Japanese history) the five kuni in the immediate vicinity of Kyoto

expression / godan ~る verb:

• to keep a fine house; to put up a front; to make the front of the house nice (and be pretentious about it)

noun:

• gods and men ［しんじん］
• godlike person; person as powerful as a god; person as refined as a god ［しんじん］
• low-ranking Shinto priest - archaism

noun:

• Twenty-Five Histories; authoritative collection of twenty-five Chinese historical books (the Twenty-Four Histories and the New History of Yuan) ➜ 二十四史

noun:

• Heike biwa; Heike lute; biwa with 4 strings and 5 frets, esp. for accompanying the Heike Monogatari ➜ 琵琶
• chanting of the Heike Monogatari to biwa accompaniment ➜ 平曲【へいきょく】

expression / godan ~う verb:

• to spend (money) like water; to spend (money) like it grows on trees; to throw around (one's money); to play ducks and drakes with