Tsunetomo Yamamoto (1659-1719) was a samurai of the Saga domain in Hizen Province, under his lord Mitsushige Nabeshima. For thirty years Yamamoto devoted his life to the service of his lord and clan. When Nabeshima died in 1700, Yamamoto did not choose junshi because Nabeshima has expressed a dislike of the practice in his life, so Yamamoto considered it better to follow his lord’s wishes. Yamamoto renounced the world and retired to a hermitage in the mountains. Late in life, he narrated many of his thoughts to a fellow samurai, Tsuramoto Tashiro. These commentaries were later turned into the Hagakure (Hidden behind the Leaves).
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I have found the essence of Bushido: To Die!
In other words, when you have a choice between life and death, always choose death. If you die before you hit your target, then it will be the death of a dog. In order to master this essence, you must die anew every morning and every night.
The way of advising others must be carried with utmost care. It’s quite easy to see the evil in others… Get intimate, refer to your own weaknesses and failures, then let him discover your point without mentioning his weakness. How can you reform others if you disgrace them?
On the previous night… make plans for the next day.
Don’t go where you’re not invited.
In order to be called a samurai, you must offer your life to Tao. There is no difference between high and low.
It’s difficult to carry acts of justice.
Onlookers see more than the players. Find your own faults through speculation. Consult others. Read books. Learn from the previous generation. You must throw your own judgment.
There are levels in the course of mastery. At the lowest level, you think of others as poor (needless to say, at this level you’re not useful). At the high level, you pretend to know nothing. You go ahead only with the idea of mastery. You go forward without pride and without humility. Your life you build every day. You’re better than yesterday and but not better than tomorrow.
Think of serious matters in a light manner, but think of trifles in an earnest and thoughtful way.
Those who never make mistakes are in danger.
If your eye is able to see good qualities in others who apparently are (you see as) inferior to you, then they can be your masters, even though they have shortcomings as well.
On your way, you meet a shower. You dislike get wet, so you hurry along the streets under the eaves. Still you get wet the same. As long as you accept that you will get wet, you won’t suffer from being wet.
Normally, most people rely on you when they are in trouble. But they will not think of you once they are out of their trouble.
On a low level, it’s unsatisfactory if you remain unfrightened when you find yourself with disaster and difficulties. On a higher level, you ought to go through troubles with courage and elation. “If the water rises, the ship rises too.”
However gifted you are, people refuse to see it if you are a greenhorn. Build your brightness and give it restrained play; “The slower the better.”
The way to excel above others is to have others talk about and judge you. To consult with others is a spring-board to a higher level.
After a year had passed, everyone said: “He looks a tired and sick man.” A took this as the beginning of my service.
There are many in the world who are eager to give advice. There are few who feel glad for being given advice. And there are still fewer who follow the given advice.
12 comments:
After a year had passed, everyone said: “He looks a tired and sick man.” A took this as the beginning of my service
as i said before i identify with this a lot. to me this means the extra effort. it has been said by many philosophers in differnt ways you could say. it means that you can do something but not until you are exeding your capacity does it start to count. as i said in sports what counts and makes you better it what you do after you are tired or after you exceded your capacity. i think there is something in the bible about that. it tells the story of a rich men who went to church and gave a lot of money and a poor lady who gave very little this shows how what the poor lady gave was more imporatnat since she gave almost everything she had and the rich men only gave what he didnt need. to me this is about quality.
when are you going to post the terms to review for the final??
Thanks, Mariana. I am now.
"Those who never make mistakes are in danger."
I hate making mistakes, but I appreciate them as well. It sucks to mess up, knowing that you could have done something different that would have avoided the consequence of your error. But then again, if you don't mess up, you would have been deprived of a very meaningful learning experience.
Through my mistakes, I am able to build a better me. If I never make mistakes, either one of two things is happening: 1. I have attained perfection -a highly unlikely proposition; 2. I'm not doing anything in life.
The latter is usually true. It's like a soccer player who has never scraped his knee going for a slide tackle or a musician who has never played a wrong key. It is through our mistakes that we learn what works and what doesn't for us. So although I will always try to avoid making them, when I make a mistake, I will make sure I suck up every ounce of learning I can from the experience.
-daniel
Through my mistakes, I am able to build a better me. If I never make mistakes, either one of two things is happening: 1. I have attained perfection -a highly unlikely proposition; 2. I'm not doing anything in life. Beautiful, Daniel. I agree.
"I have found the essence of Bushido. To Die! In other words, when you have a choice between life and death, then always choose death." When I first read this, I could not quite put my finger on it. But after contemplating with myself on the segnificance of this I came to realized that in these two sentances their is truth. What I get from reading this is that it is better to die to live. I say this because when one dies, their is no more of anything. No more feeling, emotion, sadness, depressions, laughter,etc. When one dies they feel no more. They can no longer do wrong. When one dies they are trully at peace. As one lives all they will go through is misery after misery and agony after agony. While one is alive they can do plenty of wrong and are really never at true peace with themselves. This is why it is better to be dead than alive. In reality you have no worries what so ever.
There is a level of paradox in that opening phrase, Rey. See that saying not feeling anything already presuposes that one feels something. Having said this, I would not say that "it's better being dead than alive," I would not say the opposite either. What I'd say though is that "living a good life" is much better than not living -it- at all.
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I have found the essence of Bushido. To Die! In other words, when you have a choice between life and death, then always choose death.
Of all the statements, this one stuck with me the most as well, but my interpretation is somewhat different than Rey’s. I don’t think it’s necessarily literally promoting death over life. I think the message lies in how you live life and what choices you make that lead to how you die. Those who practice Bushido are supposed to be honorable and intelligent people (philosophers with swords), not suicidal sociopaths. Maybe Yamamoto has something else in mind, but I read his words and thought that we have choices in life (as few as they may be), but death of the body is not a choice (old age, disease, etc). I think the message is more of a metaphor: as everyday passes, we die at night (learning from the day before) to be reborn in the morning light with a new sense of self (the same man, but one day different). In this, one chooses death of the past self in order to progressively move forward; “then always chose death.”
“On your way, you meet a shower. You dislike getting wet, so you hurry along the streets under the eaves. Still you get wet the same. As long as you accept that you will get wet, you won’t suffer from being wet.”
Of all the passages we read from the Hagakure, the above was my favorite. It is a beautiful metaphor that tells of the fruitlessness of trying to avoid discomfort in life. If you accept that certain things are, not only will you not suffer from being wet, you may be able to enjoy being wet. So often we put our efforts into the things that we are trying to avoid. We try to avoid the discomfort, the pain, and the conflicts of life. In doing so, we miss all of the good that those experiences offer. We miss the opportunity to enjoy, to feel, and, most importantly, to learn. If we accept that things are, if we accept that we will get wet, then we can walk down the street blissfully, taking in every detail of the experience.
“You’re better than yesterday and but not better than tomorrow.”
I think this is the most beautiful phrase out of all the wise lessons I’ve read in this class. It implies that first and foremost, life is in constant flow, and the permanency we sometimes seek, resides in the past. It implies that even if you think you have learned your lessons, even if you have acknowledged your mistakes, tomorrow still awaits. No matter how many accomplishments one has compiled, no matter how many victories one remembers, if one realizes that one is still alive, there must be a reason to continue walking. The road has not ended.
Perhaps the reason you are still with a pulse is that you have not finished, it is still not time to leave. There are probably no greater truths in the world than those one already knows, but there is something one must practice and achieve, and that is why, I believe, tomorrow can be better: We need to achieve the state of peace within our own consciousness…
"The way to excel above others is to have others talk about and judge you. To consult with others is a spring-board to a higher level."
These are statements I most certainly agree with. In our society, the presence of ruthless competition, deceit, and back-stabbing seems simply unavoidable from our extensive history. Therefore, it seems Yamamoto claims that we should use this truth to our advantage and excel over these people, rather than letting them affect us negatively. We must factor in the true nature of the people around us at all times to avoid being naive and getting taken advantage of.
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