The Lone Samurai

by William Scott Wilson

  CALLIGRAPHY

  Like the Zen artists and scholars of both China and Japan, Musashi also practiced calligraphy, and with the intensity that was customary for him. He had an interest in both the sword and the brush from an early age, and we may recall that he was on his way home from a calligraphy lesson at the age of thirteen when he saw the invitation to a sword match from Arima Kihei. One wonders if the young Bennosuke was as outraged at Arima’s poor calligraphy as at the audacity of the swordsman’s challenge.

  At any rate, to gain a better measure of how his calligraphy might reveal the inner workings of Musashi’s mind, it is helpful to review the differences in the Western and Eastern concepts of the art. For this, it may be interesting to compare the etymologies of the English word and its Sino-Japanese counterpart, shodo (書道). The English word “calligraphy” is a combination of two Greek words, kallos, meaning “beautiful,” and grafos, meaning “something written.” Thus, calligraphy in the West is something beautifully written, a linear grouping of individual letters in a graceful or ornate style, and it can be used apropos to anything from wedding invitations to diplomas to the Book of Kells.

  Shodo, however, is another matter. In contrast to English words which are linear and composed of letters representing sounds rather than meaning, each Sino-Japanese character is itself a concept or a full word. In this sense, the character has a visual meaning of its own, and the goal of shodo is to express that visual meaning in way that is both beautiful and significant and manifests the artist’s intent or state of mind. The first character, 書, means “to write,” “writing,” or “book,” and its roots are a stylus or brush over a nominative (or possibly over a mouth exhaling), indicating something written. The second character, 道, means “street,” “road” or “Way,” and shows a head (intelligence) bounded by a character root indicating activity. Thus, rather than being a Way in the sense of a specified series of steps, it suggests a constantly moving intelligence; and the term shodo, like kendo (剣道), karate-do (空 手道), or sado (tea ceremony; 茶道), includes within it a Way of life, or a Way of becoming more fully human.

  So it is understandable that calligraphy would play a much more important role in everyday life in the Far East than in the Western world. In Japan, it is displayed on shop signs in the street and in the alcove in the entryway to the home, and shodo is a popular extra-curricular study for people of all ages. Calligraphy was no less important for the warrior class in feudal times. In Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo wrote that one should always be mindful of the way he writes, and that a man should write even a receipt with the understanding that it might be hung in someone’s alcove.

  Like suibokuga, the ink of each line of calligraphy is immediately absorbed into the paper or silk and cannot be corrected. Thus, each stroke of the brush is said to give insight into the character of the artist.

  Although a number of Musashi’s calligraphic works survive, by far the best known is a scroll upon which is written 戦氣 (senki), or “the spirit of battle,” in large characters. These are followed by smaller characters reading “The cold current holds the moon, its clarity like a mirror,” which is the first line of a couplet by Po Chu-i, the T’ang Dynasty poet. The entire couplet reads:

  The cold current holds the moon, its clarity like a mirror;

  The evening wind merges with the frost, piercing like a sword.

  The large characters for “battle” and “spirit” are in the unmistakably bold and decisive style that one might expect from Musashi; and it may be interesting that the character for “battle” is made up of the elements used to write “simple” and “spear.” That the “spirit of battle” could be reduced to the “spirit of a simple spear” would not have been lost on Musashi. He was, after all, a practitioner of Zen (禅), the character for which can be reduced as well to “manifesting [the] simple.” At any rate, the balance of motion and stability in Musashi’s characters are reminiscent of the gourd floating downstream that Takuan equated with the mind of Zen—moving along with water, but always itself. The smaller characters of Po’s poem are much more loosely fluid, reminding one of the cold current itself.

  The first line of Po’s couplet reflect Musashi’s insistence (and Takuan’s as well) that the swordsman not have his mind catch or be caught by anything during conflict. The mind should be as clear and ungrasping as a cold stream, reflecting the opponent’s activities, intentions, and morale. This is the clearing away of the clouds of confusion, the Emptiness of the final chapter of The Book of Five Rings.

  Finally, the very choice of a line from a tenth-century Chinese poet shows us yet another dimension of Musashi’s character. It is well known that he studied linked Japanese poetry, and we are reminded that he likely met Hosokawa Tadatoshi for the first time at a poetry circle in Kyoto. But Po Chu-i’s poems were in classical Chinese—a language quite different from Japanese and one that Musashi had taught himself sometime during his life as a shugyosha. He found this particular couplet in his copy of the Wakan roeishu, a popular source since the eleventh century for the study and recitation of both classical Chinese and Japanese. Po Chu-i, who was called Hakurakuten by the Japanese, was one of Musashi’s favorites among the old Chinese poets. One of the poems Musashi liked best was from Po’s “Song of Unending Sorrow,” and was perhaps, for him, the perfect expression of the Way of Nature and the turning of all things:

  In the spring breeze, the plum and damson blossoms open at night;

  In the autumn frost, the leaves of the parasol and paulownia fall in their season.

  Thus, there were many nights when the old swordsman stayed up alone in his simple residence, only a candle lighting the text. In his famous low voice, he would have quietly chanted the bits and pieces of poems that so well reflected the sixty years that had brought him to his final home.

  FUDO MYO-O

  The range of the arts in which Musashi excelled was nearly as broad as that of the Kyoto sword polisher Hon’ami Koetsu. His abilities were founded in swordsmanship but encompassed suibokuga and calligraphy, both of which were further refined by his study of Chinese poetry and his practice of Zen meditation. He became quite expert at metallurgy, fashioning a number of sword guards that are still extant, and producing an elegantly simple saddle, which he gave to Nagaoka Yoriyuki, Nagoka Okinaga’s son, and which remains in the Matsui family collection to this day.

  One of his most remarkable works, however, was produced when Musashi returned his hand to the blade. This is a wooden statue of the deity Fudo Myo-o (literally, the “Immovable Brightness King”), who is ever ready to strike down the enemies of Buddhism.20 This small wooden piece has Fudo Myo-o with his feet firmly planted on level ground, holding a single sword vertically at his right side. Eyes flaring and mouth set into a determined frown, he manifests an astonishingly palpable tension and wrathful energy. As if to underscore these qualities, his back and side are surrounded by flames. Japanese commentators have described this statue as having kankei, or “strength in spite of small stature,” which can be further defined as strength contained in conciseness or brevity.

  What would an “immovable” deity have to do with Musashi, whose swordsmanship required an absolute freedom of movement? For a concise view of Fudo Myo-o and his significance, we once again turn to “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom” by Takuan:21

  Although wisdom is called immovable, this does not signify any insentient thing, like wood or stone. It moves as the mind is wont to move: forward or back, to the left, to the right, in the ten directions and to the eight points; and the mind that does not stop at all is called immovable wisdom.

  Fudo Myo-o grasps the sword in his right hand and holds a rope in his left hand. He bares his teeth and his eyes flash with anger. His form stands firmly, ready to defeat the evil spirits that would obstruct the Buddhist Law. . . .

  What is called Fudo Myo-o is said to be one’s unmoving mind and an unvacillating body. Unvacillating means not being detained by anything. . . . Gl
ancing at something and not stopping the mind is called immovable.

  If ten men, each with a sword, come at you with weapons slashing, if you parry each sword without stopping the mind at each action, and go from one to the next, you will not be lacking in a proper action for every one of the ten.

  This is one of the very foundations of Musashi’s swordsmanship, and it is interesting that this commentary was given by Takuan, a Zen sect priest. But given the connection of the title and the structure of Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings with Shingon Buddhism, and the fact that worship of Fudo Myo-o was introduced by that sect in the ninth century, it is worth taking a further look at this interesting deity who inspired Musashi.

  There are a number of sutras devoted to Fudo Myo-o, giving various descriptions of him, but he is most often described as having a blue-black body, and being either standing or seated on a Diamond Seat and surrounded by the purifying flames of the Kali-yuga. In his right hand he holds the double-edged Sword of Wisdom (often with a dragon winding up around the blade) to cut through our ignorance, and in his left hand the ropes to tie up our passions, thus defeating the enemies of Buddhism—ignorance, greed, and hatred. Fudo’s brow is covered with wavelike wrinkles, his left eye is often squinting, and from his curled upper lip one fang protrudes downward while another protrudes upward from his lower. Over his left shoulder hangs a braid of hair.

  Fudo’s title in Sanskrit is Vidyaraja, and the word vidya, at its root, means “wisdom” or “knowledge.” The Sino-Japanese translation, ming (明), means “bright” or “clear,” but connotes both wisdom and knowledge, and both the Sanskrit and the Sino-Japanese terms suggest that this knowledge is supernatural. As an esoteric sect, Shingon Buddhism holds that the repetition of spells or magic formulas (dharanis and mantras) is part of the key to enlightenment, and one of its main holy works, the Mahavairocana Sutra, indicates that these magical formulas are the active nature of Emptiness itself. Thus, the supernatural knowledge of the “Brightness” or of the “Wisdom Kings” like Fudo is the magical formula of a dharani or mantra. There are, in fact, five vidyarajas, each a manifestation of one of the five Dhyani Buddhas, all of whom possess the supernatural knowledge contained in these spells. Fudo is a manifestation of Vairocana, the central Buddha of Emptiness and the source of all the world’s phenomena. What better deity for the writer of the Emptiness chapter of The Book of Five Rings?

  Did Musashi engage in the practices of Shingon Buddhism as well of those of Zen? There is no evidence other than this sculpture, the title and structure of his book, and the tradition of the swordsman to sometimes ritually purify himself by meditating beneath waterfalls, all of which are closely associated with Fudo in Japan.

  Musashi kept such things strictly to himself. What seems most likely, however, is that he did not adhere to any one sect in particular, Zen included. A staunch individualist, Musashi took from each sect that which was to him the most useful and true, and made it his own. The animals of nature, the patriarchs of Zen, the mystical deities of Shingon—all became manifestations of the spirit that moved and directed his Way.

  Even as a Zen-inspired artist, Musashi is difficult to categorize into one particular school or group. He does not exactly fit into the classical mold of men from a century earlier, nor does he fall into the almost cartoonish style of the Zen priests Hakuin or Sengai, who would follow him. But his stature as an artist was never in doubt and, starting with the patronage of the powerful and cultured Hosokawa clan (which still owns the majority of his paintings today), his reputation only grew. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the fate of traditional Japanese art itself was in jeopardy.

  With the Meiji Restoration and the opening of the country in 1868, Japan turned its eyes overseas for the cultural and scientific knowledge from which it had effectively barred itself since the first half of the seventeenth century. Promising young men were sent to Germany to study medicine, to England to study technology and the parliamentary system, and to America to study the educational system. Soon, Western clothing and even Western haircuts came into vogue, and “things Japanese” came under suspicion of being “unenlightened.”

  In particular, the artistic heritage of Japan, of which painting was the primary expression, lost prestige dramatically, often with drastic consequences. Traditional paintings were given far less value and were sometimes thrown away; ukiyo-e, the hand-printed classic illustrations of the Edo period (1603–1868), were crumbled up and used for stuffing in sending exports overseas; and in the scramble to catch up, important cultural works were lost entirely or sold cheaply to foreign buyers. An anecdote from the Record of Praise of Floating Waterweed by a Viscount Fukuoka (1835–1919), coincidentally concerning a painting of Musashi’s, illustrates the situation well.

  At the time I was amusing myself in Asakusa, and passed through the Raimon Gate. There was a roadside stand that had hung up a portrait of Daruma. The paper was dirty and sooty, and I could just barely see the heroic strength of the brush. I thereby put down twenty sen, and it was mine. I still didn’t know whose painting it was. Later, I carefully inspected it and found a small seal on the bottom which read “Niten.” For the first time I realized it was signed with Miyamoto Musashi’s artist name, which was Niten. It was enough to observe the character of this painting to understand that he was the swordsman known to all.

  In 1915, however, an interesting event occurred. When the new emperor attended the graduation ceremony at Tokyo Imperial University, he was invited, as was the tradition, to observe artistic and cultural works selected by the Department of Literature. That year, the department selected three works by Musashi: Reed Leaf Daruma, Shrike on a Withered Branch, and Wild Geese and Reeds, arranging them together and accompanying them with an explanation by a professor of art history. This caused no small excitement among both academic circles and the public at large, and it is indicative of the level of Musashi’s artistic genius that his paintings were in the vanguard of what became a reevaluation by the Japanese of their own artistic traditions.

  Musashi, however, had always been appreciated as an artist as well as a swordsman. His works were highly valued by the warrior-artists Watanabe Kazan and Tanomura Chikuden, and have been noted with extreme praise as being unparalleled in terms of observation, insight and precision by both Japanese and foreign art historians from the Edo period to the present. Even during the Meiji period (1868–1912), when Japanese art was held in low esteem by so much of the populace, Musashi’s works were considered fundamental in the art history of the country by a number of important historians, including Okakura Tenshin, who worked with Ernest Fenellosa and wrote the famous Book of Tea, and Fujioka Sakutaro, who published Japan’s first systematic history of art.

  It may be interesting to finish this section with an evaluation by Fujikake Shizuya, a former professor of art at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1951, he wrote an article on the Dancing Hotei for the art magazine Kokka.

  Niten was praised as being pre-eminent in the Way of the Sword, and he was extraordinary as a swordsman. Although his painting was fundamentally an avocation, he surpassed the specialists in his artistic technique and was, once again, extraordinary. It can be thought that there exists in Niten’s paintings the deepest meaning of his swordsmanship, and a sublime transcendence that communicates to the two disciplines. The strength of his spiritual originality is obvious. Niten’s technique was truly in his ability to express the strength of this originality as artistic works in painting. This was not simply strength of character. Niten was extraordinarily skilled as a painter as well.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  The Way of Life and Death: Reigan Cave

  OLD AGE

  Although he could feel his disease progressing, Musashi did not take up the life of a shut-in. On a typical day he went out accompanied by a retinue of six samurai and provisioned with a horse, a spear, and a carrying-pole box. At times he practiced zazen, either at the Taishoji or at the Reigan Cave on Mount Iw
ato, a steep hill at the foot of Mount Kinpo, some miles west of Kumamoto. Musashi reached the cave by following a narrow path that starts from behind the Unganzenji, the temple near the peak of the hill, then rises and cuts through the boulders to just below the cave’s entrance. At the top of the precipice is a large boulder called “Black Rock,” and it was while sitting on this that Musashi practiced Zen meditation. On clear days, he could see the peaks of the distant mountains and the Ariake Kai, the “Sea of Dawn.”

  Musashi also participated in everyday affairs and, of course, the training of his disciples, among whom were Terao Magonojo Katsunobu, Terao Kumanosuke Nobuyuki, and Nagaoka Yoriyuki. Yoriyuki, it will be remembered, was actually a son of Hosokawa Tadatoshi, but was given in adoption to Nagaoka Sado no kami Okinaga; and Musashi, too, seems to have become a sort of father figure to the young man. Yoriyuki often came to the old swordsman for advice, and their relationship had lighter moments as well. Once, Yoriyuki came to Musashi with a question and the response showed that Musashi, despite his sickness, had not lost all of his former strength. Bringing a number of heavy bamboo poles to Musashi, Yoriyuki asked how to determine which ones would be best to use as banners. Musashi replied that this was a relatively easy problem to solve. He grasped each bamboo pole by the base, went to the edge of the veranda and swung it down sharply with such force that some of the poles split and others broke off at the joints. Finally, he laid out all of those that had not broken and said, “I suppose these are all right.” Yoriyuki laughed and said, “An unquestionable method, Sensei, but one that seems limited to a man a bit stronger than myself.”

  Musashi clearly stated his method of instructing his disciples in the Wind chapter of The Book of Five Rings:

  My way of teaching the martial arts is to take a man who is a beginner in the Way; have him learn according to those skills that he may develop well; teach him the principles that he will quickly understand first; see through the places where his mind may be suitable for matters not easily understood; and gradually, gradually, teach him the deeper principles later.