The Lone Samurai

by William Scott Wilson

  16. It seems certain that Musashi saw either Liang K’ai’s painting or Yusho’s or both, but even a quick look at the three renditions shows that Musashi’s rendering of Hotei is radically different from those of the other two artists. Musashi’s Hotei is intense, concentrated, alert, and intelligent, while the Hotei of Yusho and Liang K’ai seem almost to be transported to simple and childlike wonderment. Musashi’s Hotei is clearly aware of the consequences of the cocks’ action, while the Hotei of the other two seem totally oblivious of the matters of life and death. Both reactions are, perhaps, valid Zen Buddhist views, but Musashi’s Hotei seems to have been at the borderline between the two realms.

  17. The inscription over the napping figure of Hotei reads:

  Tossing aside body and mind, forgetting one’s self-nature,

  For the moment propping up both hands, taking a light afternoon nap;

  His bag on his staff, he’s utterly negligent,

  Dreams filled with the Heavenly Palace, when called he won’t be surprised.

  The first half of the first line is a recounting of Dogen’s famous dictum that Zen is the dropping off of both body and mind; the second half of this line perhaps alludes to his saying in his essay, Genjo koan, that “to study Buddhism is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.” The second half of the third line is no doubt based on the Chinese understanding that Zen is “eating when hungry, sleeping when sleepy.” Finally, Hotei’s dreams are of the palace in the Tsushita Heaven, so he’ll have time to nap before he’s called.

  Again, Musashi seems to have been attracted to birds, and especially the kingfisher, whose concentrated gaze here is immediately familiar. He watches the golden scales of the fish in the pond with the same No-Mind with which the swordsman would have watched his opponents, and will drop just as quickly on his prey.

  18. An enigmatic painting to say the least, as the eccentric Hotei is sometimes depicted as napping or even possibly sleeping one off. As the incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, however, there is another dimension to his yawn. Buddhist lore has it that this bodhisattva currently lives in the Tsushita Heaven, and will come into the world for its salvation 5,670,000,000 years after the Buddha Shakyamuni’s passing (about 2,500 years ago). Thus, he has a long time to wait and may be permitted a yawn from time to time.

  19. Although Hotei was the subject of many unorthodox paintings in both China and Japan, Musashi’s painting of him riding an ox seems to be unique. Musashi seems to have been thinking of the Ten Oxherding Pictures, a series of twelfth-century paintings by the Chinese Buddhist master, Kuo-an Shih-yuan, allegorically depicting the monk’s progress in the realization of his true nature. The sixth painting depicts the oxherd astride the bull, and is accompanied by the comment (translated by Paul Reps),

  Astride the bull, I observe the clouds above.

  Onward I go, no matter who may wish to call me back.

  This is an appropriate quote for the once-wandering Musashi, who was now paying so much of his attention to meditation. Tellingly, the tenth of Kuo-an’s twelve paintings does not include an ox at all, but instead shows the oxherd talking with—Hotei! The verse (also translated by Paul Reps) reads:

  Barefoot and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world. My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful. I use no magic to extend my life; Now, before me, the dead trees come alive.

  This could also be Musashi toward the end of his life, perhaps without the “ragged and dust-laden clothes,” but walking and mingling with the people of Kumamoto, free from his former cares.

  20. This statue has taken on a smoky gray color over the centuries, and manifests an explosive energy rising to just below its surface. It seems to be the very substance of determination. One theory has it that Musashi carved this piece during his self-imposed isolation after Tadatoshi’s death, either as an offering to Fudo in thanks for his own immovable mind or as a meditation to gain such.

  21. For clarity’s sake, a portion of the previous quote by Takuan has been repeated here.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  The Way of Life and Death: Reigan Cave

  1. One theory has it that Musashi was too sick to finish the final chapter of The Book of Five Rings, and that it was left to his disciples to arrange it as well as they could. Both the chronology of Musashi’s last days and the chapter itself would seem to argue against this. If the language is sparse and difficult to follow compared to the rest of the text, consider the subject itself. Zen Buddhism (and Buddhism in general) has always contended that the Void is beyond any ability of language to describe, and yet Buddhists have been writing about it for millennia. The reader must understand that his words are a guide to be meditated upon, that they are directed toward the intuition rather than the intellect. This, again, is the failure of language, not of the writer or his disciples.

  2. Enso: A circle, or symbol of the Absolute reality.

  3. Shingon meditation was not unknown to the swordsmen of Musashi’s time. Recall that both Yoshioka Seijuro and members of the Yagyu clan had disciplined themselves in these practices.

  4. The principles covered in The Book of Five Rings have also been viewed as a glimpse into the more than sixty bouts Musashi fought in the first thirty years of his life. Though he chose not to write about them in historical detail, he did write about them in terms of what he had learned. In this sense, The Book of Five Rings can be read as something more than a book of strategy.

  5. Musashi’s motives for writing The Book of Five Rings have been questioned by almost everyone who has written about him, and there are more than a few theories. It would seem that his most immediate motive was his sense of the fatal disease that would soon take his life, and thus the knowledge that he had little time left in the world to leave a written legacy. The question that writers have often asked, however, is to whom this legacy was addressed.

  The cynical but not uncommon explanation is that, despite his disease, Musashi still hoped to the very end to be awarded some sort of official position in keeping with his talents and accomplishments, thus validating his life in the manner that was most accepted in the society of his time. This theory is part and parcel of the idea that what Musashi had wanted all his life was just such a position, and that his greatest effort toward this desire and the most disheartening rebuff for him was his fight with Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryu Island, the motive of which was actually to get Sasaki’s job as sword master to the Hosokawa.

  If there was ever a warrior to carry himself in a manner that would least likely bring him such a position, however, it was Musashi. The samurai employed in official positions by the great daimyo were always expected to be properly dressed and groomed as both a discipline and as representatives of their fiefs. Their clothes were clean and neat, and the hair on their foreheads was cut back in the familiar style seen in period pieces in Japanese cinema. A hundred years after Musashi, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, writer of Hagakure, informs us that it was even a practice of the samurai to apply a little rouge to their cheeks in order to give the appearance that they were healthy and looking properly ready to die for their lords.

  Musashi, on the other hand, was widely reported never to have bathed, never to have washed his hair, and, in general, never to have carried himself as any bureaucratically-positioned official would have in his lord’s attendance or anywhere else. If he had felt rebuffed after his defeat of Sasaki Kojiro and had wanted to change his position badly enough, he had over twenty years to make a personal adjustment—which he quite clearly did not.

  Nor did Musashi’s life as an artist and sculptor appear to be in harmony with a settled position. His mind would have demanded a wider margin to his life, not the cramped and conformist life in a hierarchy. He seems, above all, to have been a free spirit, and one who knew the consequences of his actions from early on.

  Finally, although The Book of Five Rings includes instructions for those who would command great
armies, it fundamentally deals with the problems of the martial arts as a discipline of the mind during combat. This means that it is intended for those in armed conflict, regardless of circumstances, and not necessarily for those who are in service to one lord or another. The emphasis of this book is on the warrior, or bushi (武士), literally the man stopping the enemy with a spear, not the samurai (侍), whose very nomenclature is derived from the word “to serve.” Thus, the theory that The Book of Five Rings was written not to keep his students from making mistakes in combat but in desperation for an official position appears to disregard the man’s life, work, and the book itself.

  6. A ri is a traditional measure of distance equaling 2.44 miles.

  7. Musashi’s declaration of not having used the “old words and phrases of the Confucianists or Buddhists,” both here and in The Book of Five Rings, may have been a gentle stab at Yagyu Munenori, whose book on the martial arts, The Life-Giving Sword, was peppered with quotes from Zen Buddhist books and sages.

  8. Two different theories exist concerning the name of the cave. One is that it was named for the spirit of Ganryu Sasaki Kojiro, hence 霊巌洞 (literally, “Spirit Gan Cave”). The other theory is that the cave already had this name long before Musashi’s time. At any rate, the site had been used as a place for mental training since the Heian period (794–1185).

  9. “The Way of Walking Alone” has been criticized by various writers as being no more than shallow articles of common sense scribbled down by a dying man. Musashi, as has been noted, has not been without his detractors, both while he was alive and after his death; and he might have answered this criticism with the following short story from the Chinese Zen work, the Tao rin yulu:

  Po Chu-i [a great Tang-period poet who would have been about eighty years old at this time] asked the Buddhist Master Tao-lin, “What is the great meaning of the Buddhist teachings?” The Master said, “Do no evil, but do what is good.” Po replied, “Even a three-year-old child understands that!” The Master then said, “Although a three-year-old child is able to say this, even an eighty-year-old man is unable to do it.” Po bowed and departed.

  “The Way of Walking Alone” was not written to be a list of common sense suggestions on living well, but was rather the final notes on Musashi’s intense life, and not to be taken lightly. Its emphasis on repressing one’s own desires, not being jealous of others, not taking a liking to “things” like utensils, antiques, and unnecessary property showed that Musashi, not unlike Zen priests, considered such to be distractions and illusions. Furthermore, the conscious inclusion of these items may indicate that he himself was not immune to these distractions, and this would seem to make him all the more human. Certainly by 1645, with the world at peace and the economy prospering, material goods and their concomitant emotions of greed and jealousy were becoming the obstacle then that they are today to a life dedicated to anything other than contented consumption. This was not Musashi’s Way.

  Finally, it may be mentioned that a large bronze plaque containing “The Way of Walking Alone” stands a few yards to the left of Musashi’s grave at the Eastern Burial Mound.

  10. There are two official burial sites for Musashi in Kumamoto today: the Eastern Burial Mound, which is situated in the suburbs and is considered to contain his remains; and the Western Burial Mound, which is closer to the center of the city and may simply be a marker to the great man. But there are uncertainties with the Eastern Burial Mound as well: some say that Musashi’s body was eventually dug up and cremated, and that his ashes were then re-interred at the site; others say that his ashes were spread elsewhere. Still others declare that his body was not buried there at all, but was taken by his disciples to a secret grave still unknown to anyone.

  APPENDIX

  1

  Life After Death

  1. Compare his comment to Musashi’s expressed antipathy in The Book of Five Rings toward schools of swordsmanship that made exaggerated claims.

  2. It is interesting to note that Musashi has been incorrectly identified as a retainer to Kato Kiyomasa even into modern times, no doubt through the influence of kodan. Kiyomasa was lord of Kumamoto until his death in 1611, but there are no reliable records tying Musashi to Kumamoto at this time.

  3. The reference here is to Rokkaku Yoshikata (1521–98), a member of the Sasaki Clan in Omi. He was indeed an important man in Omi and had his own school of the martial arts, the Sasaki-ryu. In 1559, he shaved his head and took the name Jotei. Toward the end of his life, he seems to have wandered from province to province. There is no mention in historical dictionaries of his having been Sasaki Kojiro’s father.

  4. Recall, however, that being thrown in jail and escaping by one’s own wits was considered to be one of the disciplinary practices of a shugyosha.

  5. Again, there is no historical record of Musashi’s ever having met Ittosai.

  6. Tsukahara Bokuden was the progenitor of the Shinto-ryu, receiving his instructions from a god in a dream after ensconcing himself in the Kashima Shrine for a thousand days. He was an instructor to the thirteenth and fourteenth Ashikaga shoguns, and also taught the prestigious Kitabatake and Takeda clans. Tradition has it that he traveled around the country with an entourage of over eighty men, fought at least nineteen duels with naked blades, participated in thirty-seven battles, and killed over 212 opponents, never once being defeated.

  7. Perhaps this coup de grâce allowed him to do in fiction what a number of commentators thought he should have done in reality.

  8. The lessons that the characters Myoshu and Yoshino Tayu are giving here are in fact taken directly from The Book of Five Rings.

  9. “Not One Thing.” Recall Musashi’s poem written while residing in Nagoya.

  10. Alternative translations for “lustful old man” include “dissolute person,” “rake,” and “satyr.” The movie has since been lost, so we are in the dark as to whom or what Musashi subjugated here.

  11. The small monument dedicated to Kojiro close by the Kokura Hibun is inscribed with a poem written by Murakami Genzo.

  12. The NHK Taiga Drama on the Yoshikawa Musashi ran throughout 2003. It drew an enormous viewing audience all year and resulted in an explosion of sales of Musashi-related books and of tourism to Musashi-related sites.

  GLOSSARY

  adauchi (仇討): A vendetta, usually between two clans or families. A popular subject of Edo Period (1603–1868) drama.

  Akamatsu clan: Ancient warrior clan in the Harima area that came to an end in 1441. Musashi’s progenitors through his mother Yoshiko.

  Akiyama: Swordsman from Tajima. Killed in a match with the sixteen-year-old Musashi.

  Arima Kihei: Swordsman of the Shinto-ryu. Killed in a match with the thirteen-year-old Musashi.

  Arima Shinto-ryu. See Shinto-ryu.

  Ashikaga shogunate (1336–1573): Founded by the general Ashikaga Takauji (1305–58), and ruled Japan from the Muromachi district in Kyoto. Known both for high cultural achievements, such as the development of Noh, and for its devastating civil wars.

  Battle of Sekigahara. See Sekigahara.

  Bennosuke: Musashi’s given name until his late teens.

  Bessho clan: Junior line of the Akamatsu clan.

  Book of Five Rings, The (Gorin no sho; 五輪書): The book on swordsmanship that Musashi wrote toward the end of his life. Much of the undercurrent of the book is based on Musashi’s understanding of Zen Buddhism and the importance of the psychological approach in this art. Considered to be the most accomplished book on swordsmanship in Japanese history.

  bunraku (文楽): The puppet theater developed during the Edo period (1603–1868). The puppets are about one-half to two-thirds life size, and are manipulated by handlers who wear gauzy black robes and hoods, and who, by agreement with the audience, are “not seen.” Hand drums and a shamisen make up the music, while the puppets are given voice by chanters, who also recite the narrative.

  chanbara (ちゃんばら): Cinema and television dramas usually depicti
ng fictional events during the Edo period (1603–1868), including much action and swordplay. Perhaps equivalent to American Westerns.

  chudan. See jodan.

  Chujo-ryu (中条流): Swordsmanship style established during the Kamakura period (1185–1333) by Chujo Hyogonosuke. It is considered the ancestor of a number of different styles.

  daimyo (大名): The lords of territories who were allotted an annual income of ten thousand koku of rice or more, they were for the most part military rulers from the warrior class. The size of their estates varied widely: for example, Yagyu Munenori held title to an estate which raised a revenue of 10,000 koku, while the Hosokawa territory raised 540,000.

  Daruma (Sanskrit, Bodhidharma): Said to be born as prince in either south India or Persia, he became the twenty-eighth patriarch of Buddhism and is considered to be the first patriarch of Zen. He brought Zen to China about 520 C.E. A favorite subject of Zen painters.

  Dening, Walter: Wrote the first “novel” about Musashi, published in 1887. Entitled Japan in Days of Yore: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi, it was based on the tales of the professional Japanese storytellers. See Appendix 1.

  dojo (道場): Literally, “place of the Way.” Once a place for meditation in Buddhist temples, or a separate hall for the same purpose in temple compounds, then a training hall for the martial arts. A Zen and tea saying has it that “The straightforward mind, this is the dojo.” Jikishin kore dojo.

  Dorinbo: Musashi’s maternal uncle, a priest residing at the Shoren-in temple near Hirafuku. Tutored and looked after Musashi in his early years.

  Edo: Before the arrival of Tokugawa Ieyasu, a small fishing village far to the north-east of Kyoto. With Ieyasu, it became the capital of the Tokugawa shogunate. It is now called Tokyo, the current capital of Japan.

  Edo period: (Edo jidai; 江戸時代). The period of the Tokugawa shogunate, from 1603 to 1868.