The Lone Samurai

by William Scott Wilson

  There were, however, no special secrets of swordsmanship passed on to special students. His disciple Furuhashi Sozaemon makes this clear in the following statement:

  Musashi passed away on May 19, but he called the three of us [Furuhashi and the Terao brothers] together on the twelfth. He told us that he supposed we had written down various things he had discussed every day concerning the martial arts and that we would be using them as memos. Nevertheless, there was to be no secret book for us and so he asked us to burn those notes and to throw away the ashes.

  Thus, while The Book of Five Rings and The Thirty-five Articles of the Martial Arts were given as gifts and mementos to the Terao brothers, what Musashi really passed on to each student was his own spiritual resolution to solve the matter of life and death.

  With such a legacy, a true school with rules, degrees, and diplomas could not be founded. Musashi could teach his techniques and give advice, but in the end each disciple was required to assess his own strength, find his own Way, and make that Way truly his own. So while the “Musashi style” is still taught today, the actual lineage of the Niten Ichi-ryu died with its founder. It could have been no other way. As Yagyu Hyogonosuke observed when he was teaching in Owari: “Musashi’s sword is for himself alone; it is not something that could be taught to other people.”

  MUSASHI’S CHARACTER

  Except for short periods when he stayed in Kyoto or various castle towns and the last five years of his life in Kumamoto, Musashi spent his life on the road. Travel broadened his perspective on his environment and on human nature, as it would for the traveler-poet Basho nearly a century later. Although many people traveled the roads of Japan at this time, Musashi was far more observant than the average sojourner. His paintings, The Book of Five Rings, and the story of his life all bespeak a man who dismissed no experience and who noted everything that crossed his path. When he enjoined his disciples not to turn their backs “on the various Ways of this world,” he was speaking of far more than just formal studies. The life of a traveler was Musashi’s way of ensuring that he would continue to have broadening experiences. A safe position with a local daimyo could never have provided him the same opportunities. For Musashi, it was not happenstance that the Chinese character 道 (in Japanese, do or michi; in Chinese, tao) meant both “Way” and “road.”

  The great amount of time Musashi spent traveling points to another facet of his character that has often been ignored; that is, that he must have been a congenial man who made an interesting and valued guest. With the self-confidence of a superb swordsman, the sensitivity of an artist, and the experiences of a well-traveled man, he was no doubt as welcome at farmers’ homes as at the castles of the Ogasawara and Honda. As a shugyosha, he carried no money for room and board. Thus in more humble lodgings, he no doubt paid for his meals of rice, country vegetables, and maybe a dried trout by “chopping wood and carrying water,” or, because he was highly literate, writing letters for uneducated farmers to their relatives. For townsmen, he might have left small paintings, much as Buson and Basho did on their journeys, and it is not difficult to imagine him polishing the floors of the long wooden corridors at temples where he passed an evening. Local daimyo would surely have had work for him in their dojo teaching their retainers swordsmanship, strategy, or both. What is certain is that a man could not survive long on the road without the goodwill of those who might provide lodging and food. Most shugyosha looked toward that happy day when they would no longer have to put up with such insecurity, but Musashi seemed to relish these conditions. No doubt many of his benefactors were sorry to see him leave and looked forward to the next time he might be passing through. Since he continued these peregrinations for about forty years, it is safe to say that his reputation would have preceded him everywhere he went.

  Although Musashi’s detractors have described him as hot-blooded and even sociopathic, a more measured consideration of his life argues otherwise. Surely he was hot-tempered as a teenager and surely he killed a number of men during his lifetime. But those who died by his sword were all men who would have killed him if they had been able. The shugyosha who wandered the country were looking for bouts to perfect their martial arts, and the understanding was that the bout, if to be a true lesson, might well result in either man’s death (or the death of both, in some cases). Such men were not practicing safely in the dojo, but were out in the world truly testing their skills against one another. Thus the death of one man was not necessarily an indication of any particular ruthlessness of his opponent.

  Moreover, psychiatrists inform us that the corner to true maturity—both physically and psychologically—is turned at just about the age of thirty. This seems to have been true in Musashi’s case as well, for far fewer of his duels resulted in fatalities after his match with Sasaki Kojiro, the Demon of the Western Provinces. It will be recalled that a number of times Musashi simply led his opponents around until they realized the futility of the match, and that once he even tended the wounds of a man who had arrogantly challenged him against his will. Even the famous Tsujikaze’s death was caused not by Musashi’s sword, but by a fall from a balcony. Also consider the way he taught his students: with a spirit of understanding and with no abuse. These were not the actions of a man bent on seeing blood flow.

  It seems clear, however, that Musashi was an idealist and as such could be strict and unbending, especially with himself. That he refused to leave the Reigan Cave and had to be carried down the mountain is an example of this. Musashi had come to his ideals through his life experiences and believed in them as we believe boiling water is painfully hot. If he swayed from his principles from time to time, it might have been simply because he was human.

  His idealism notwithstanding, Musashi had his character weaknesses, perhaps the greatest of which was pride. He is considered to have had his fair share of this trait, even into old age. Witness his reaction to the hapless Hoki at the Noh performance. Unable to turn his cheek to a public insult, Musashi humiliated his tormentor in front of all present. Throughout his life, Musashi was quick to defend his honor—sometimes, as in the case of Yoshioka Matashichiro, with dismaying results. Still, he certainly had cause for pride: he had made his way completely on his own, a feat that few samurai could claim.

  Paradoxically, at times Musashi seems to have possessed a self-deprecating sense of humor, as displayed in the get-up he wore when leaving Kumoi for Shimabara. His paintings of the smiling Hotei likewise display a humor that could only have come from deep within the artist himself.

  In the end, we cannot fully know Musashi’s character. Widely differing assessments and conjectures have been made about the man, from his own day to the present, and this in itself is an indication of his complexity. If we need a final image of him, however, we might see him as he no doubt was from time to time: seated informally on the tatami in a ten-foot-square tea room in Kumamoto Castle, speaking respectfully but openly in his low, quiet voice with the daimyo Hosokawa Tadaoki and the young Zen priest Shunzan. It is a crisp autumn afternoon, and of the three men, only Musashi can identify the bird that sings in the garden outside. The black Chojiro tea bowl that Tadaoki so highly regards and which Musashi has carefully examined rests momentarily in the swordsman’s calloused hands, while in the alcove hangs a scroll with a short line of calligraphy taken from the Kannon Sutra:

  An unending sea of blessings

  福寿海無量

  AFTERWORD

  1

  It is about ten o’clock in the morning in late October, and I am standing on a seawall near the Straits of Kanmon in the city of Shimonoseki. This is on the southwestern tip of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The sun has been intermittently covered and then uncovered by a combination of white and deep purple clouds, but the wind is down and the air is cool. Maybe a dozen antique fishing boats a little less than twenty feet long are tied up, bow toward the seawall, wooden sides and trim nearly colorless from long exposure to salt water and air. I wait patiently for the capta
in of my boat to arrive, which he does after ten minutes or so. He is round-faced and sixtyish, with close-cropped gray-and-white hair; and he is riding a rusty, creaking old bicycle.

  The captain boards his boat from a plank extended from a seawall, but pulls the craft around lengthwise to a larger boat tied to a floating dock so that I can step on over the other boat and avoid the precariousness of the plank. Once I am seated on a board in the front of the boat, the captain stands behind his tiny enclosure of a cabin and pulls out into the straits. Although swift currents run through these waters, the dark surface is relatively calm, and the only waves are the periodic wakes from other passing vessels. Nevertheless, you can feel that the mid-morning wind is picking up.

  The green mountains above Kokura on the island of Kyushu immediately appear, and I am struck as to how close the two great islands are. Far to the left the more distant blue mountains of these two islands come even closer together at the Bay of Dannoura. Musashi would have boarded his own boat from a neighborhood of Shimonoseki a mile or two farther to the left.

  In less than ten minutes, a small island appears in front of us, perhaps 750 yards in length. A small hillock covered with pines and a few deciduous trees rises near its northern shore, but for the most part, the island is flat. Here and there are groves of short-statured pines, goldenrod, and tiny purple wildflowers. Some of the shore has been seawalled, some is still sand and rocks. Again, it is surprising how close this island is to the starting point, and that Kokura itself must be only two or three times that short distance away. This island is still called Funa Island, as it was four hundred years ago, but anyone you ask will tell you that, yes, it is also well-known as Ganryu Island. Then they will often extend their forearms as if holding a sword, and smile.

  Walking over and around the island, I try—as any visitor would—to gain some sense of what happened on this place, 13 April 1612. The wind is now a little stronger, and the clouds seem to be moving faster. As I walk, I am again struck as to how small the island is, and how, except for the small tree-covered mound, the entire area is visible from any one point. How could a man’s life have climaxed here? How could one short bout on this little island have brought about an end to a career of deadly matches, and started a career of reflection and art? Although the captain has told me that the island has changed shape even in his time, I wonder just where Musashi and Kojiro would have met. The scabbard thrown into the water in anger.

  “Kojiro yaburetari.”

  As I move on, I inevitably look for something to take with me—a rock, anything to hold on to, to have in front of me. Everything else would be ancient records, stories, hearsay—all carried far away on the salt air.

  I am still wandering around over the stony beach when the captain finds me, and the two of us head back toward the boat. On the way, he shows me a well from a natural spring—the water is sweet and cold—and the former location of an old Korean temple that has been torn down and removed some fifty years ago. He knows the island well, he says: he came here to play often as a child, although he never thought to bring along a bamboo or wooden sword.

  Just as we approach the boat, the captain leads me to a low rise. We push aside the thin trees and bushes and walk up a short path to a twoyard high memorial stone, now hidden in the overgrowth. The Chinese characters engraved on the stone are weathered and lichen-covered, but you can still make out the name: Ganryu Sasaki Kojiro. A few old coins lie in the rusted offering box at the base of the stone, and next to it has been placed—some time ago—a One-Cup Ozeki saké can, now half-filled with murky water. Who still comes here to offer such things?

  The sun is higher now, and the captain, watching the current, turns the boat back toward Shimonoseki. A few plovers work the shore behind us. By this time of day, Musashi would have already won his match and left the island. The light is surprisingly bright on the wavelets running over the water, and the wind has picked up still a little more. The tide has turned, and crosscurrents agitate the surface of the deep.

  2

  To the west of the city of Kumamoto rises Mount Kinpo, not particularly high at seven hundred and thirty yards, but rather steep. The road leading up its western slope—itself called Mount Iwadono—has been constructed with a great number of switchbacks, some of which look over precipitous drops, and, so perhaps the mountain seems higher than it truly is. The atmosphere of the place is softened, however, by grove after grove of mikan trees, and, in the autumn, the entire scenery is dotted in orange by this seedless Japanese tangerine brought to Kyushu from China some four hundred ago.

  As my bus winds farther and farther up the mountain, I am impressed that this would not have been an easy trip from Kumamoto in the seventeenth century, either by foot or on horseback. This would have been a place to come only if you had wanted to get far away from centers of activity and perhaps from people altogether.

  I get off the bus at the highest pass and see that I still have some distance to go. The road curves up through still more mikan groves, and here and there flocks of large Japanese crows are enjoying the fruits of the farmers’ labors. Their laughter and sharp cawing are the only sounds to be heard.

  Eventually the road runs outs, becoming a trail, and I continue on up the mountain until suddenly the Ariake Kai—the “Sea of Dawn”—is visible between the slopes of the lower peaks. Although the sky is bright blue, a thin mist obscures the line between sea and sky, causing the two or three boats in the offing to appear to be resting on a void. After a moment of struggling to find detail that will not reveal itself, I turn down the path on a descending slope, and soon emerge in the small compound of a Zen Buddhist temple, Unganji. In the thirteenth century, a Chinese priest established this as a place of worship after finding a statue of a four-faced Kannon that had apparently floated to shore on a wooden plank. This statue was the Iwato Kannon that Musashi prayed to before taking up his brush to write The Book of Five Rings.

  But the statue is not in the temple, and neither did Musashi linger here.

  After passing through the temple gate, the path becomes a narrow stony outcropping that winds around the steep slope of the mountain. You must watch your footing, as a twisted ankle would make for a long and painful trip down, even just to the bus stop.

  Finally, the rocky path goes over a low rise, and I am standing beneath the Reigan Cave. Its mouth is expansive—perhaps forty feet or so—but after climbing the twenty-odd stone steps that now offer entry, I find that inside it is remarkably small: only ten feet high and thirteen feet deep, and the shrine enclosing the statue of Kannon takes up a good bit of that depth. A light drizzle has begun to fall, and it is immediately clear that during even a halfhearted storm, you would not be entirely comfortable here. Nevertheless, this must have been a very good place to be alone.

  Ink, inkstone, a brush, and paper to be made into five scrolls. What else did Musashi have here as he began to reflect on the fifty-nine years of his life? And two years later, when he selected this cave as his place to die, what would have comforted him other than his life of intense discipline? In the tree-lined ridge opposite the mouth of the cave, a few tiny birds—Japanese buntings—play among the branches and leaves.

  I stay for a while, not knowing what to do other than to examine each fold in the surface of the rock, but after placing some coins in the offering box and signing the guest book that rests on a small wooden table, I begin to navigate my way down the steep steps. The light rain has stopped momentarily. Reaching the bottom of the steps and looking back, I am suddenly aware of the dark energy residing in the cave above.

  3

  Four hundred years ago, the main road currently running through the eastern suburbs of Kumamoto was the way taken by the Hosokawa lords on their way to and from Edo, now called Tokyo, the capital city of the Japanese empire. Today it is lined with shops, gas stations, and private residences, although a few hundred yards from the pavement there are still rice and vegetable fields and even some open and unused land. Turn off th
is road and go down a narrow street lined with bright blue Higo morning glories, for which Kumamoto is famous. As the street becomes shaded with camphor, juniper, and pine trees, the morning glories thin out, and you come to an old wooden gate topped with loose cedar shingles. Carefully pushing the gate open and going through it, you are faced with the smooth back of a large grave marker rising out of a small mound. Go around to the front of the marker and you can see that the Chinese characters are quite clear, the early morning sun casting shadows inside the chiseled indentations: Shinmen Musashi. This is the place Musashi was finally laid to rest, dressed in full regalia to greet the Kumamoto daimyo on the way back from their biannual attendance upon the shogun. Lord Hosokawa Mitsunao, Tadatoshi’s son, is said to have selected this location himself.

  It was a thoughtful selection. Situated on a small rise, the shaded area around Musashi’s tomb opens to an expansive valley bounded by blue mountains in the distance. Dappled sunlight filters through the trees onto the large marker and several smaller ones nearby; and just below the area of the tomb, a clear quick-flowing stream runs down the slope, headed for the valley below. The atmosphere is one of intense quiet and peace. On the morning of my visit, no one is there except an old man and woman sweeping the grounds with brushwood brooms.

  I sit for a while on a low concrete bench, once again trying to absorb the moment and feeling of gratitude for having been able to come this far. How much farther had it been for Musashi from his birthplace near the Inland Sea to the Battle at Sekigahara to Kyoto and his wanderings throughout Japan? To Ganryu Island, Kokura, Kumamoto, the Reigan Cave, and finally to this place?

  What, really, do we do with our lives?