2. According to the records of the Akashi town officials in 1618, “Miyamoto Musashi, a retainer of Ogasawara Ukondayu, delineated the town.” It was also noted that he knew very precisely how to arrange the samurai quarters beyond the inner moat and the town beyond the outer moat. Musashi was an expert in conflict, and did not confine his thoughts to conflicts of one-on-one encounters. Nor did he stop at the problems of armies on the battlefield.
3. There is some evidence here that, after the sixty bouts of his youth, the climactic fight at Ganryu Island and the horribly bloody fighting at Osaka, Musashi began to see his life in a different light—that he began to distance himself from simple carnage and to see his own art in terms of an altogether broader sense of Art. Further, his fight with Sasaki Kojiro had involved the prestigious and artistic Hosokawa clan and an entire system—boats, lodging, official permission, and observers—rather than simply an unobserved bout with another shugyosha on the road; and it is likely that he was now aware of himself as having the possibility of taking a place in history. It is also likely that his contemplation of all these events stimulated a deeper interest in Buddhism in general and Zen in particular. Musashi had by this time met a number of priests and generals who manifested the effects of their Zen practice, and he implicitly understood that this practice could have the same effect on his own life. Thus, on the one hand his life was coming into clearer focus, and on the other he was finding other mediums to express that focus. The Ogasawara family was clever enough to see this in Musashi, and to commission him to extend his art from the martial into the aesthetic area of garden design.
4. The word “samurai” comes from the classical Japanese verb saburau (侍う), meaning “to serve.” Although Musashi “served” both the Ogasawara and Honda, it was in a limited capacity, and one that did not tie him down to a lifelong commitment. In this sense, Musashi was a warrior and an artist, but not particularly a samurai.
5. Gunbei is said to have been pushed into this fight by Honda Masatomo, brother to Tadamasa, and an avid swordsman.
6. Purple Robe Affair: In 1627, the government cancelled the emperor’s prerogative to appoint priests to the highest ecclesiastical positions, taking that right for itself. This came to a near crisis in 1629 when the emperor Go-Mizunoo abdicated in protest of this insult. Takuan also let his opposition to this governmental move be known, and was temporarily banished to Dewa for his efforts. Purple robes were worn only by the very highest ranking abbots.
7. “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom” is included in Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2012).
8. Fudo Myo-o is a manifestation of the central cosmic Buddha Vairocana. His angry countenance is there to scare off the enemies of Buddhism: greed, hate and ignorance. In his right hand he holds a sword to cut through our ignorance, in his left a rope to tie up our passions.
9. According to the Sekisui zatsuwa, Mikinosuke was a descendent of Nakagawa Shimanosuke, a family retainer and shogunate administrator of the fudai daimyo (hereditary vassal to the Tokugawa shogunate) Mizuno Katsunari; he may have been related to Musashi through his father. He was said to have been an expert in the two-sword style, and received a stipend of seven hundred koku. According to one story, before Mikinosuke was employed by the Honda clan, Musashi had already been hired as Tadatoki’s martial arts instructor. When he resigned, he recommended Mikinosuke, who is said to have done very well in fulfilling this position. This would indicate how much he had learned from his adoptive father.
10. The genealogy of Iori’s grandson states that Iori was, in fact, the second son of Musashi’s eldest brother, Tahara Jinbei Hisamitsu, and therefore Musashi’s nephew. According to this document, he was born 21 October 1612 in the village of Yoneda in Harima. Thus, the story of the boy with the mudfish may be a fictionalized account giving additional color to Musashi’s already colorful story. The account, however, is found in the Nitenki.
11. Another theory has it that Yoshinao dismissed Musashi after the bout because of the thorough beating the latter gave to the Tokugawa retainer. The high officials observing the match considered this a breach of etiquette on Musashi’s part, and it was determined that Musashi’s services would not be needed, particularly given Yoshinao’s observation that “Musashi’s appearance is somewhat strange and his character eccentric.”
Others in Nagoya were not of the same mind, however, and Musashi’s popularity soared. Students lined up at his door, and he remained in Nagoya for three years. The following are two of the poems he wrote at this time:
After exhausting both
Principle and Reason;
The ancient “Not One Thing”
That knows not
The bright moonlight.
The “ancient ‘Not One Thing’,” (mu ichimotsu; 無一物) is a reference to the Sixth Patriarch’s stanza, “Fundamentally, not one thing exists” (honrai mu ichimotsu; 本来無一物), the defining phrase for Zen Buddhism from the T’ang Dynasty onward. This is the Void or Emptiness, about the inexpressible understanding of which Musashi would attempt to write further in The Book of Five Rings. This poem suggests that he had already found this transcendent quality to be the foundation of his own style.
Thoughtlessly
I approached
Human habitation;
Having visited the mountain depths
For so long.
This would seem to have been written just before he left Nagoya, or at least to indicate readiness to depart. Was it disappointment in his students, or with the Tokugawa family members in Nagoya? Or was Musashi just ready to be traveling again, and to plunge back into the full force of the natural settings he loved so much?
12. In 1601, Yagyu Muneyoshi (Sekishusai) sent a collection of his own poetry concerning the martial arts to his friend, Konparu Shichiro, the head of the Konparu style of Noh, on the occasion of the latter’s seventieth birthday. Titled Sekishusai’s One Hundred Poems on the Martial Arts, these poems express not only Sekishusai’s concerns about the martial arts but also his very real humility and sense of blending the martial with the literary. The following are a few poems from that collection. (It should be noted that the “stone boat” of the third and fourth of these poems is a pun on the name Sekishusai.)
Having no particular skill
for passing through this world,
I reluctantly entrust myself
to one sole refuge:
the martial arts.
Though you may be victorious
in the martial arts,
They are but a stone boat
that will not cross
the melancholy sea of life.
A good thing
to entrust oneself
To a refuge!
But the martial arts are useless
in discord and in strife.
The martial arts may be
an unfloatable
Stone Boat.
But I’m unable to discard
My weakness for this Way.
13. Another book, the Gekijo yoroku, took the same story of Musashi’s connection with Kumoi from the Dobo goen, but stated that the man who visited her was the “second-generation Musashi,” by whom he may have meant Iori.
14. There is yet another story about Musashi and the women in his life. In the summer of 1604, Musashi stayed at the Enkoji temple of Takino in Harima, and the chief priest of the temple, his younger brother Tada Hanzaburo, and a local samurai, Ochiai Chuemon, became his disciples. Tada Hanzaburo was three years Musashi’s senior, and Ochiai Chuemon was a year younger. The daimyo of the area had prepared a dojo in the temple grounds, and Musashi was the instructor there. Musashi had written the The Mirror of the Way of War and was at the point of giving it to Hanzaburo and Chuemon.
During this time, Musashi had a love affair with the priest’s oldest daughter. The two pledged themselves to one another, and the following year promised to become man and wife. In the end, however, Musashi could not settle down,
and left to roam the country while perfecting his art. It is also conjectured that the girl’s father and uncle had misgivings about her relationship with a man of doubtful origins, and made her break off relations with Musashi.
CHAPTER
THREE
The Way of the Brush: Kumamoto
1. A bare-bones road map for these family connections might be as follows:
2. It is also said that Musashi was drawn to the Hosokawa clan by the great efforts of Nagaoka Okinaga, who had previously facilitated the match with Sasaki Kojiro; and by the Kumamoto-fief warrior, Sawamura Daigaku. According to the records of the Terao clan, which continued Musashi’s style:
At the time he was going about the provinces, he came here and stayed thanks to his intimate friend, Sawamura Daigaku.
Thus, there may have been a number of people who hoped that Musashi would move to Kumamoto.
3. The Kokura Hibun is still standing outside of Kokura at nearly the highest point on Mount Tamuke. It is about twenty feet high and so weathered that the Chinese characters are for the most part illegible. Off to its left is a much smaller modern monument to Sasaki Kojiro. The Inland Sea is just barely visible through the pines that cover the mountain ridge.
4. The full list of headings for The Thirty-five Articles of the Martial Arts is as follows:
—Calling this the Way of Two Heavens, One Style
—The Diagnosis of the Way of the Martial Arts
—The Method of Handling the Sword
—The Positions of the Body
—Movements of the Feet
—Use of the Eye
—Distance between Opponents
—Frame of Mind
—Knowing the Three Grades of the Martial Arts
—Itokane
—The Way of the Long Sword
—Striking and Hitting
—The Three Initiatives
—Crossing the Ford
—Exchanging the Body and the Sword
—Two Feet
—Stepping on the Sword
—Controlling the Shadow
—Moving the Light
—Releasing the Bowstring
—The Lesson of the Small Comb
—Knowing the Space of Rhythm
—Pushing Down the Pillow
—Knowing Conditions
—Becoming the Opponent
—The Remaining Mind and the Mind Released
—Striking the Connection
—Applying Lacquer and Glue
—The Body of the Autumn Monkey
—Comparing Stature
—The Lesson of the Door
—The Lesson of the General and the Soldiers
—Stance/No-Stance
—The Body of a Rock
—Knowing the Moment
—Ten Thousand Principles/One Void
It is interesting to note that there is another work ascribed to Musashi that may have preceded The Thirty-five Articles. The story goes that Musashi wrote a short “book” in 1604 at the age of twenty-three, while living in Edo. The work was called The Mirror of the Way of War and was an outline of the style that he had created, called the Perfect Enlightenment Style. Proof of this is said to be a certificate (inka), still extant, awarded to a certain Ochiai Chuemon that contains the phrase Enmei Ichiryu no Heiho (Martial Art of the Single Style of Perfect Clarity). The book was supposedly given to Ochiai the year before the presentation of this certificate.
The first edition of The Mirror contained only eighteen articles, but this was later amended to thirty-five. And while many consider it to be a forgery, it does bear similarities to The Thirty-five Articles and The Book of Five Rings, especially in its emphasis on taking the initiative, and it may have been Musashi’s prototype for the latter two works.
5. It should be noted that at Tadatoshi’s death, seventeen of his retainers committed junshi, or ritual suicide to accompany their lord, and the entire famous Abe clan followed him in death. Although junshi was later prohibited by the Tokugawa shogunate and many of the ruling clans, it was still permitted at this time. An outsider like Musashi, however, would never have been granted the same privileges as retainers who had been with the clan for generations, and he would never have even hoped for such privileges.
6. Can we know the depth of the painter’s spiritual attainment by observing his work? In the Emptiness chapter of The Book of Five Rings, Musashi wrote that “Knowing the existent, you know the nonexistent. This, exactly, is Emptiness.”
7. Watanabe Kazan, a warrior-painter renowned for his portraits, found this painting in a shop window of an antique store and was so impressed that he made the rounds of his friends in order to raise enough money to purchase it. It is perhaps Musashi’s most striking painting, and it so moved Kazan that he felt he was looking directly into the spirit of Bushido itself. Is Musashi the shrike, or is the shrike Musashi?
8. This twenty-page essay is included in Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind.
9. Art critics have seen the quality of No-Mind (mushin) in Musashi’s cormorant, contrasting it to the conscious and planning mind (ushin) of mankind. But there is also a hint of sadness in this bird’s expression, a sense later brought to poetry by the haiku poet Basho:
At first quite charming,
but in the end, sad:
the cormorant boats.
Omoshirote
yagate kanashiki
ubune kana.
10. Ch’uang T’zu, 180.
11. Musashi’s refusal to favor any weapon over another was further reinforced by Ch’uang T’zu’s lines that preceded the Chinese writer’s famous words on the owl:
From the point of view of function, if we regard a thing as useful because there is a certain usefulness to it, then among all the ten thousand things there are none that are not useful. If we regard a thing as useless because there is a certain uselessness to it, then among the ten thousand things there are none that are not useless.
We immediately understand why Musashi reached for a piece of firewood in his match with Muso Gonnosuke, a master of the five-foot staff.
12. It has been suggested that this painting was based on the famous tale of the noble geese in the Jakata Tales, a collection of stories about the Buddha in former incarnations. According to this story, before his incarnation as Gautama, the Enlightened One, the Buddha took birth as a virtuous king of the geese living on a lake in India. A local human monarch, hearing of the wonders of this bird, was determined to capture him for his own. Creating a lake even more beautiful and attractive than the one where the geese lived, the monarch hired a skillful fowler to set traps that would ensnare them. The curiosity of the flock was enough for them to migrate to the beautiful new lake, but the king of the geese alighted first in order to test for safety. Caught in one of the traps, he let out a pitiful cry and sent the rest of the flock into flight. Only one goose, the king’s loyal commander-in-chief, remained pleading with the fowler to take him in place of the king. The fowler, though a hardened hunter, was not made of wood or stone and, feeling great pity, released the goose to freedom. But now the fowler’s fate was in jeopardy, and so the two geese volunteered to go freely to the monarch, even though it might mean ending up as the main dish on the dinner table. When the birds were brought before the monarch and the story brought to full light, he was so impressed with the selflessness, loyalty, and courage displayed by the geese that he dismissed them with kind and honorable words. Both monarch and fowler were said to have become saintly men themselves, and the king of the geese and his commander-in-chief were later reincarnated as the Buddha and his closest disciple, Ananda.
These screens—with their depiction of selflessness, loyalty, and courage—were no doubt displayed in a place of honor, affording contemplation and reflection to all those who saw them.
13. This painting gives the impression of a mountainlike Daruma, immovable and steady with solid concentration and a stonelike will. A number of writers have pointed out that this particular D
aruma brings to mind Musashi’s symbol of a certain mentality in swordsmanship: the body of a rocky crag. In The Thirty-five Articles of the Martial Arts, Musashi states: “The body of a rocky crag does not move, its mind is strong and expansive.”
Nevertheless, although the first impression of this Daruma is its solidity, in the mouth and eyes there is something else. Could it be warmth or an internal ease? Or could it be the “great doubt” spoken of in Zen? Musashi leaves it to the viewer to come to his own conclusion.
14. Although the Chinese word pi-kuan (壁観) has been interpreted a number of ways over the centuries, it is popularly understood as “wall contemplation,” in reference to Daruma’s nine years of sitting meditation in a cave near the Shaolin Temple. The various sects of Zen have put this legendary action to various degrees of practice. When Dogen (1200–53) brought the Soto sect to Japan from China, he said, in what is probably the most radical declaration on zazen meditation ever made, that it is not just the means to the Buddha’s state of mind, but that it is that state of mind, itself. All sects, however, employ the practice liberally, much to the discomfort of beginning students.
Musashi himself was quite experienced with zazen, and meditated the last several years of his life at the Reigan Cave outside Kumamoto. He was so familiar with the subject that there can be little doubt that the parallels between his experience and that of the founder of the Zen sect would not have escaped him. The painting he has executed is within the tradition of the “Wall-Facing Daruma” in that it shows the upper body of the patriarch viewed either from the side or diagonally. As the story of Daruma at the wall was meant to transmit the core teaching of Zen Buddhism, paintings of this type are considered to be the best symbols of that teaching.
15. Musashi’s triptych, with floating ducks on either side of Daruma, is said to be without precedent. Certainly, it seems that the painter was happy to have included the animals he had observed along the rivers in the Kumamoto area or in his peregrinations through the provinces of Japan, indicating his affection for nature’s other inhabitants. Despite being flanked by these animals, the cast of his eyes gives the central figure of Daruma a sense of loneliness that Musashi himself must have felt many times in his life.
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