The Lone Samurai

by William Scott Wilson

  Among the tenets of Shingon Buddhism is the assertion that the esoteric teachings were taught not by the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, but by Vairocana, the cosmic Buddha, who is in fact the universe itself. Vairocana is manifested in a number of artistic forms, but in Japan he is often represented by the five-tiered stone pagoda, or sotoba, also called the gorinto, or Tower of Five Rings (Gorin no sho is the Japanese title of Musashi’s book; sho means “book). This gorinto is usually constructed as follows: a square stone at the bottom represents the Earth Element, or stability and the fundamental element of being; next, a round stone represents the Water Element, or permeation and vacuity; a triangular stone represents the Fire Element, or purity and perfect activity; a crescent-shaped stone represents the Wind Element, or growth and perfect awareness; and, at the top, a stone in the shape of a mani-jewel (wish-fulfilling gem) represents the Void Element, or space. The stones are inscribed respectively with the Sanskrit letters A, Vi, Ra, Hum, and Kham, which together represent Vairocana himself, the very essence of the universe.

  According to Kukai, these five elements are constantly interfusing to form the various manifestations of the universe, and hence Vairocana. We see the forms, but we are too unenlightened to recognize them for what they are. The outward result of this eternal interplay is impermanence, but what is inherent in every single form, no matter how small or large, earthy or ethereal, is Emptiness.

  Each of the five rings also represents one of the Five Dhyani Buddhas, and each of these has its own corresponding element (Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void), color, location (south, east, west, north, and center), mudra (meditative hand gesture), meaning and transformational wisdom. Shingon teaches that constant meditation on these Buddhas and their aspects will eventually result in the unification with Vairocana, and thus in enlightenment.

  The parallels of this system with the title and structure of Musashi’s work are too obvious to pass over. Each chapter does indeed echo, reflect, and fuse with the others, as do the Five Elements in Shingon. One chapter cannot be read to the exclusion of the others, or the full meaning will be lost.

  Shingon Buddhism3 is not specifically mentioned in The Book of Five Rings, nor is Pure Land or Zen. Musashi, however, was too inquisitive about the world and too intense an artist to have ignored this system of thought; and indeed he urges us to know the various Ways of the world. What kind of austerities Musashi performed in the Reigan Cave while meditating on his life work is not known, but the burning eyes and taut muscles of his sculpture of Fudo Myo-o, the manifestation of Shingon’s central Buddha, Vairocana, suggest that we might look for meanings that lie deeper than the words on the page.

  BASIC PRINCIPLES

  Musashi’s structure of The Book of Five Rings provided an outline of various themes: a general look at the martial arts, his own particular style, the problems of combat, other styles, and philosophical foundations. There are a number of fundamental principles established throughout the book, however, that, although emphasized strongly in certain chapters, are not particularly tied down to any one chapter. These principles form the essence of Musashi’s martial art—what the Japanese term the shinzui, the true pith or marrow—and from them develop the skeleton, muscles, and skin of everything he taught. Like his life and his art, they are another window through which we have a glimpse of Musashi’s soul.4

  THE WAY OF THE MARTIAL ARTS IS TO WIN

  Some eighty years after Musashi’s death, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a samurai of the Nabeshima clan in nearby Hizen, dictated what would become the most famous words of his book, Hagakure, and gave expression to one of the major tenets of the warrior’s way of life:

  The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one’s aim is to die a dog’s death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one’s aim.

  This was not so radical as it may seem. The samurai served a master, and his master supported not only the samurai’s own life but the lives of his entire family. The clan was the samurai’s prime identity and he was expected, as a warrior, to lay down his life for it. Tsunetomo’s conclusion that giving up one’s life was “the substance of the samurai Way” was, while given remarkable expression here, not all that remarkable an idea.

  Musashi, however, completely rejected this concept. For him, the Way of the Warrior was to wear two swords into battle, to be able to use those swords well, and to defeat the enemy. Death would eventually come to everyone, and resolve in the face of death was not the crucial point distinguishing the samurai from other classes in society.

  Generally speaking, when people contemplate the heart of warrior thought, they consider it simply a Way in which a warrior learns to be resolute toward death. But this is not actually the essence of the Way: what distinguishes the warrior and is most basic in the Way of the Martial Arts is learning to overcome your opponent in each and every event.

  The true Way of swordsmanship is to fight with your opponent and win.

  Why else, Musashi asked, would a lord give a man two swords and a stipend?

  Musashi’s motive for writing The Book of Five Rings was to give his students—and their students after them—a Way to defeat their opponents.5 His Way was one of victory, not of death in battle, and to that end he encouraged the student “to practice in the morning and train in the evening.”

  Your real intent should not be to die with weapons worn uselessly at your side.

  Moreover, my Way of the Martial Arts is to know the Way of victory with certainty when you are fighting for your life alone against five or ten men.

  Closely connected with his opposition to a warrior’s stepping into battle simply to die was Musashi’s contention that many of the martial arts schools taught useless, showy techniques. He declared that if students relied on such techniques, it would be the same as fighting only to die with attractive form, but without victory. What was important to Musashi was not so much the flower as the fruit, and the fruit was clearly defined as the defeat of the enemy:

  The other schools get along with this as a performance art, as a method of making a living, as a colorful decoration, or as a means of forcing flowers to bloom.

  In the way of the martial arts, especially, form is made into ornament.

  While other schools look good to the eye, none of them contains the heart of Truth.

  It would seem to be common sense that the reason for being involved with the martial arts during this period was the goal of defeating one’s opponent. Musashi considered this common sense, but some martial artists clearly did not.

  DISCIPLINE

  It is not uncommon in Oriental literature for major themes and propositions to be given away in the very beginning of a work. Kamo no Chomei, the writer of the thirteenth-century Hojoki (Record of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut), for example, expressed his entire theme in the first line, “The flow of the river is unending, but the water is never the same.”

  Musashi also provided the reader with one of his most fundamental themes in the very first line of his book: “[A]fter many years of discipline, I have thought to describe [my own Way of the Martial Arts] for the first time.” This was not a light entry. The absolute necessity of discipline and practice is repeated over and over again in The Book of Five Rings, and it is no accident that phrases like “You should take up the sword and practice,” “You should investigate this thoroughly,” “You should make great efforts in this,” or “This is something you should practice thoroughly” appear at the end of almost every section of the work. Musashi’s realization of the Way was not given to him all at once in a dream or a moment of satori. It was acquired only through a neverending discipline.

  Without discipline, one would never forge himself into a true swordsman and never make the art his own; Musashi made it clear, in his Water chapter, that transform
ation comes only with practice: “The journey of a thousand ri6 proceeds step by step, so think without rushing. Understanding that this is the duty of a warrior, put these practices into action, surpass today what you were yesterday, go beyond those of poor skill tomorrow and exceed those who are skillful later.”

  It is strongly implied in The Book of Five Rings that discipline is far more important than any lesson on fancy footwork or on how to gain the advantage of length with a particular grip on a sword. Musashi felt that techniques have little value unless they are internalized and verified by constant practice and investigation. To express this principle, he wrote the now-famous line, “See to it that you temper yourself with one thousand days of practice, and refine yourself with ten thousand days of training.”

  Musashi defeated over sixty men between his thirteenth and twentyninth years, and these statements leave us with little doubt as to how he otherwise spent his time.

  REAL KNOWLEDGE

  Closely linked to the subject of discipline is Musashi’s insistence on gaining direct, not theoretical, knowledge. We know with certainty that Musashi was deeply involved in Zen practice in the last years of his life, but we do not know just when this involvement began. However, Musashi undoubtedly had a strong penchant for many Zen principles from the very beginning. His repeated dictum, “You should investigate this thoroughly,” echoes the common Zen phrase, “See everything for yourself” (issai jikan). He did not survive his personal bouts and major battles on armchair knowledge. Early in The Book of Five Rings he states, “Learning these principles indoors, studying all the minor details but forgetting the Way of actuality will likely be of little use at all.” He also insisted that “You should train in the Way of the Sword with your hands.”

  Musashi’s pragmatic emphasis on real knowledge led to his disdain for partiality of any sort in the practice of the martial arts. To him, real knowledge meant real efficiency in every situation. He spoke derisively of practitioners whose view was too narrow: “[N]ot knowing how to defeat others in any situation, they put virtue in the length of the sword and think they can win by their distance from their opponent.”

  Real knowledge implies real freedom, and any prejudice for one weapon over another or one stance over another, or for anything at all, does nothing more than hobble a man or put blinders on his gaze: “But with weapons as with other things, you should not make distinctions or preferences. It is wrong for either general or soldier to have a preference for one thing and to dislike another.”

  Musashi illustrated the positive approach to this principle with the example of a carpenter. Just as a carpenter must have real knowledge of his tools in order to succeed in his various projects, he wrote, so must the warrior have an intimate knowledge of his weapons for the various virtues they will have in real situations: “When you put your life on the line, you want all your weapons to be of use.”

  Musashi wrote that the swordsman should know all the Ways, and not just theoretically. Preference or prejudice is akin to untried theory, and both are detriments to real knowledge. Real knowledge understands that an oar may be more efficacious than a naked blade, or that a simple change in technique may determine the outcome of a battle. In this sense, Musashi’s style was one of expediency, but such a style cannot be successfully executed with a one-track mind. In the end, “The Way of this style is the mind that obtains the victory with anything at all.”

  EVERYDAY MIND

  Musashi despised the showy techniques and “hidden meanings” taught by other schools. Not only did they transform the study of the sword, its implements and even its instructors into commodities to be bought and sold, but they put students in a false frame of mind. Musashi’s understanding of the Way of the Martial Arts was similar to the approach of Zen Buddhists to their practice: he considered it nothing extraordinary, nothing that would require mysterious or flashy leaps of either body or mind.

  Concerning the mind, he wrote in the Water chapter: “In the Way of the martial arts, do not let your frame of mind be any different from your everyday mind.”

  Neither too taut, nor too lax, the mind was not to depart from its normal condition. Musashi no doubt discovered this principle on his own, but he would not have failed to notice its similarity to Zen when he studied the Gateless Gate, the thirteenth-century Chinese collection of koans that was almost required study for serious practitioners of that sect. In the nineteenth case of that book are these famous lines: “Nansen was asked by Joshu, ‘What is the Way?’ He replied, ‘Your everyday mind is the Way [Heijoshin kore do].’”

  For Musashi, the body was to be regarded in the same light: the outstanding was unnatural, and the unnatural was not real. If a practice was not built on a foundation of reality, it would only become an obstruction, mere baggage on the way to victory or, more likely, to defeat: “In all things concerning the body in the martial arts, make the everyday body the body for the martial arts, and the body for the martial arts the everyday body.”

  Feet, eyes, hands, and general stance: nothing was to be moved, concentrated, or arranged in an unnatural fashion. To give one example, “In the use of the feet, you should walk as usual.” No leaping or running—nothing to get the mind “caught” or distracted from the work at hand. Both body and mind must be released from concentration on extraordinary feats and be allowed to function in an everyday mode. Musashi regarded every unnatural stride, hand maneuver, or fixing of the eyes as abnormal attention to trivia. He urged his students to remain free. As the popular seventh-century Chinese Zen manual, the Hsinhsinming urged: “Let go of the mind, and it will be natural [hoshin shizen].”

  FLUIDITY

  As already mentioned, Musashi’s most famous sculpture is a small statue of Fudo Myo-o, and his knowledge of the symbolism of Shingon Buddhism indicates that he had a deep understanding of this Buddhist deity. It is probably no coincidence that his friend, the priest Takuan, also had an affinity for Fudo Myo-o. Takuan wrote in “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom”:

  The man who is close to enlightenment understands that [Fudo Myo-o’s image] manifests immovable wisdom and clears away all delusion. For the man who can make his immovable wisdom apparent and who is able to practice this mental dharma as well as Fudo Myo-o, the evil spirits will no longer proliferate. This is the purpose of Fudo Myo-o’s tidings.

  Takuan is again referring to his “unmoving mind and unvacillating body.” This is exactly the same as letting go of the mind (and body), and means that both are to be in a state of fluidity. Musashi hints at this principle throughout The Book of Five Rings, but discusses it most explicitly in the Water chapter. Consider the following:

  Water follows the form of either an angular or round container; it becomes either a drop or a great sea.

  Do not let your mind stand still, even when you are in repose.

  Let [the mind] sway peacefully, not allowing it to stop doing so, even for a moment.

  And, echoing Takuan’s writings, “Even when the action is extraordinarily lively on the battlefield, you should take the principles of the martial arts to the extreme and keep your mind unmoved.”

  Musashi and Takuan both believed that the great mistake was being slowed or rendered immobile by what one sees, hears, feels, or thinks. For them, even an instant’s preoccupation could be fatal. Both body and mind must be free to flow and to respond to whatever the situation demands. Again, in the Water chapter Musashi wrote specifically of the hands: “In all things . . . immobility is undesirable. Immobility means a dead hand; mobility means a living hand.” The same might have been said of the body and mind.

  In “The Lesson of Stance/No-Stance,” Musashi discussed how, with just a slight movement, one stance becomes another, and this invokes a constantly fluid situation: “This is the principle in which there is, and there is not, a stance. At its heart, this is first taking up the sword and then cutting down your opponent, no matter what is done or how it happens.”

  Fluidity means having no obstruction
, and particularly no obstruction from one’s own mind. We must be careful not to create our own fetters or our own inflexibility. Musashi expresses this principle in the following passages from the Wind chapter:

  The knowledge of sword techniques . . . is undesirable in the martial arts. Thinking of the various ways of cutting someone down confuses the mind.

  It is harmful to specialize in stances with the sword. Establishing hard and fast rules is not the Way of victory.

  As they fix their mind on one special place, they confuse the mind and inflict a malady on the martial arts.

  There is an interesting story about Musashi and Takuan that illustrates this principle quite well. Once when they were discussing the virtues of Zen as it applied to everyday life, the priest invited Musashi to attack him with a wooden sword. He would defend himself, Takuan said, with only a fan. Musashi, the story goes, grasped his wooden sword and took several stances facing Takuan, but the priest simply stood there with his arms lowered, one hand grasping the fan. After a long while, Musashi threw away his sword in disgust and declared that he had been unable to find an opening in which to strike. Takuan’s mind had been everywhere and therefore nowhere, and in this perfect state of fluidity he had become unassailable.

  Musashi must have thought over this “bout” for many years, and internalized the lesson. In the end, he could write from his own experience, “Without putting your mind anywhere, strike him quickly and directly.”

  This gives a slightly different slant to Chomei’s line—“The flow of the river is unending, but the water is never the same”—one that may have shocked the old recluse in his lonely hut.