Hagakure: The Book That Will Make You A Warrior

[Music] living and dying with honor and bravery is the basis for hagakure a series of secret texts written by the 18th century samurai yamamoto sunotomo you may have first heard of this book from the film ghost dog way of the samurai that movie was about an assassin for the mob who lived according to the principles of this book this is how i first came across this book and since then it's been a big part of my life hagakure for many years was a secret known only to the namashima clan to which the creator belonged the original hague cure consisted of thirteen hundred short texts that sunitomo dictated to a younger samurai student over the course of seven years between 1710 and 1716. tsunatomo was samurai of the saga domain in the haizen province under his lord mitsushige namashima he served as his master's retainer for 30 years yamamoto devoted his life to the service of his lord and clan when tsunatomo was young he was regarded as sickly and not likely to live long but he made it to the age of 60 which at the time was regarded as pretty good the boy received the usual samurai training as he grew it included swordsplay calligraphy and poetry composition tsunatomo followed his father's footsteps into the service of the naboshima clan his first official position was as paige to his lord mitsuhige by the age of 20 he had trouble finding a suitable position as a retainer he was basically told that he looks too smart so he devoted an entire year on trying to look more tough and badass it was about at this time that he encountered the zen buddhist priest tanen a man of outstanding integrity who greatly influenced the young samurai in the namashima clan sunitomo also secured a position as a deimos librarian unlike with medieval europe japan never developed a separate clerical class so the samurai had to fulfill both military and administrative jobs in year 1700 sunitomo had been a samurai when his original master namashima mitsushige died and he wanted to commit junchie is a term for when a retainer follows their master into death by way of sepuku most of you already know this but in case you don't know what sepuku is it's a ritualistic suicide where you take a knife and cut across your stomach then someone chomps your head off mitsushige was famous for forbidding janji and so soon atomo listened and instead of committing seppuku he became a monk and wrote this awesome book hagakure summarizes the wisdom gained in his entire career hakukuri is a word that can be translated as either in the shadow of leaves or hidden leaves hagakure was not widely known during the years following sunitomo's death but by the 1930s it became one of the most famous representatives of bushido that was taught in japan in 2011 a manga adaptation came out it was called hagiker the manga edition and it was also translated by william scott wilson some viewed sunitomo as a man of immediate action and this was due to his quotes in his book he even criticizes the carefully planned akko vendetta of the 47 ronin a major and famous story in his lifetime he called it a delayed response hagga cured completely summarizes the wisdom gained in sunitomo's long career william scott wilson has selected and translated 300 of the most representative original texts to give us the most accessible guide of sunitomo's teachings this is the best translation of the text into the english language once again i chose to go the audio route and it's always been a preference of mine and it's narrated by the talented brian mishi who also did training the samurai minds this book consists mostly of passages and they can range from anything from a few lines long to even pages and they cover all types of topics some of you even scratch your head over but most reflect on historical events proper behavior and zen and bushido the range of topics is appealing because you could just open the book at any time and read or listen until something touches your current mood one recurring theme that i found is the acceptance of human failure by analogy a wooden beam may be a little out of true or hold little knots and weeps but still be strong and sound perfect boards are rare and very rarely needed he also acknowledges that great genius matures late one cannot reach the highest achievements without 20 or 30 years of development another one that stuck out was was that young men should focus on vitality until the age of 40. then the main focus should become on wisdom the only bad thing about this version of hagakure is that it cuts the original 1300 plus passages down to just 300. it also abandons the traditional organization of these passages i appreciate the fact that he saves us a lot of time and just gives us the most important passages but one can't help but wonder what the other 1000 passages were like yamamoto sunatomo was a samurai born 60 years into the togagawa era it was a beginning of peace in japan and that would force the samurai class to change their role in society he emphasizes a lot of extremism and fanaticism as he answers through all the mediocrity laziness foolishness and self-interest that he sees in his fellow samurai of this new generation sunitomo is basically that grumpy old man that you know that just loves to rip on the newer generations and says things that you can get into a lot of trouble for yet regardless you're still fascinated and can't stop listening them i'm just going to get this out of the way and say that this is a very masculine book there's a strong coldness to the teachings throughout and honestly a lot of people will probably find this offensive sinatomo is coming from a generation that had to fight in battles and he speaks to this newer software generation that had the luxury and comfort of living during peaceful times when you think about it this book can actually be quite relevant and tsuna tamul can actually be speaking to today's generation as well our generation has seen peaceful times for decades and i could see the older generations seeing us as privileged and even weak this book does get criticized a lot and it's mainly to its extreme tone it has a lot of offensive cut and dryness to it throughout however true the criticisms may be it still overlooks the wisdom and life of sunitomo's writings while at times you'll see him insist on brashness over hesitation and violence and capital punishment over cowardice will also see moments where he advocates repeatedly to live and act with a compassionate attitude and to lighten a punishment on a condemned man when fitting there's also a passage that stood out to me and it was about giving a second chance to a man who makes a mistake because it is better for a man to learn from error than one who has never made a mistake to learn from sunitomo's main focus is investigating what it means to be a samurai all the complications and problems discussed are meant for consideration not for finding straightforward answers he offers no answers but instead demands the proper attitude for a samurai i'll also add that if your main problem is struggling with productivity this book will no doubt motivate you a lot of the teachings tell us to focus on the moment he wants us to realize that there is nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment a man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment there will be nothing else to do and nothing else to pursue so live being true to the single purpose of the moment what also is discussed in this book has to do with acting not thinking it's really common for most people to sit and dwell on the subject people will rationalize this inaction by saying that they need to plan everything out in order to not make mistakes the problem of course is that the task never gets done at all and i personally struggle with this i think that a lot of people would get more done if they just acted without thinking and then just went from there one advice i'll give you before reading this is to not take everything word for word because some of the context with which tsunatomo talks about certain topics is centered around killing a guy and killing people doesn't exactly go with today's standards first time readers of this book may have a hard time understanding everything and it's tough to get past the time period this book has a lot of important lessons on taking action but they were mixed in with a lot of samurai stuff that would seem extreme by today's standards if you really want to get the most out of this book you have to understand that back then extreme activities were a way of life so just remember to use a little context when applying it to modern times there's also a lot of talk about supuku here say your master dies seppuku dishonor your family yeah supuku uh you forgot to do your clan's homework yeah definitely seppuku if this book came out today it would probably be labeled misogynist and probably be banned virtually everywhere and who knows it still might happen today so i'll grab a copy while i could [Music] one point i want to bring up is that there's currently a cultural war going on and it has to do with new standards being pushed and people who want to preserve the culture this culture war has actually been going on a lot longer than we think and this book really details it huggakura makes a lot of mentions about the old days when men were men there's a passage in the first chapter that reads according to a certain person a number of years ago matsuguma kaioen told this story in the practice of medicine there's a difference of treatment according to the yin and yang of men and women there is also a difference in pulse in the last 50 years men's pulses have become the same as women's noting this in the treatment of eye disease i applied woman's treatment to men and found that it was suitable when i observed the application of men's treatment to men there was no result thus i knew men's spirit had weakened and they had become the same as woman and the end of the world had come since i witnessed this with certainty i kept it a secret when looking at the men of today with this in mind those who could be thought of to have a woman's pulse or many indeed and those who seem like men are few because of this if one were to make a little effort he would be able to take the upper hand quite easily that there are few men who were able to cut well in beheadings is further proof that men's courage has waned and when one comes to speak of kaisaku it has become an age of men who are prudent and clever at making excuses 40 or 50 years ago when such things as matanuki were considered manly a man wouldn't show an unscarred died to his fellows so he would pierce it himself all of man's work is a bloody business that fact today is considered foolish affairs are finished cleverly with words alone and jobs that require effort are avoided i would like young men to have some understanding of this so yeah that's some pretty intense stuff apparently back then you weren't a real man if you weren't good at beheadings when you hear that kind of context it's almost funny but when you think about it that's some pretty scary stuff tsunatomo is not someone to mess around with [Music] another important topic in this book and one that stood out to me had to do with a passage about death sooner tsunatomo believed that becoming one with death in one's thoughts even in life was the highest attainment of purity and focus he felt that a resolution to die gives rise to a higher state of life if views of beauty and grace beyond the reach of those concerned with self-preservation the way of the samurai is found in death meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily every day when one's body and mind are at peace one should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows rifles spears and swords being carried away by surging waves being drawn into the midst of a great fire being struck by lightning being shaken to death by a great earthquake falling from a thousand-foot cliff dying of disease or committing seppuku at the death of one's master and every day without fail one should consider himself as dead this is the substance of the way of the samurai meditating and constantly [ __ ] about death sounds like a pretty emo way to live but it's a mind state that makes sense for anyone whose career involves constantly risking their life the fact is that the more you think about your own death the more comfortable you are with the fact that one day you will die death is inevitable and this practice will help you to live in the moment just like sunotomo teaches and you will become more appreciative of your own life this mindset can be applied to other topics besides death next time you are afraid to do a task at work or something just think about the worst possible outcome and keep replaying that in your head until it becomes familiar [Music] it's also worth noting that with this edition of the book the translator added a new introduction tsunatomo refers to bushido as a way of death this is a description that has held this morbid fascination for readers for years back in the day bushido was a subtle concept that related heavily to the zen concept of the death of ego the death of ego can be interpreted in many ways i think here it's used as a way for preventing your ego from getting in the way of your productivity and service samurai were all about productivity and service so this was important if you're someone like me who wants to become more productive and take more action then you might enjoy hagakure i only gave you a small sample of the passages from this book there were many more and you could get a lot of meaning out of them the samurai were very intense but they weren't just mindless barbarians that acted irrationally the fact that their knowledge from long ago can still be beneficial today is really saying something they had this code of values and honor and they believed in it and that's something that we can have a little more in in modern times this is probably the most important look into the samurai's heart and mind and i'm glad i found it this is a great yearly book that you could just read and over time get new meanings out of the passages i do not see that becoming a monk ended yamamoto sunatomo's life as a samurai it began it thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Bushido Blues

Views: 19,127

Keywords: Samurai, Hagakure, Bushido, Bushido Blues, Shogun, Book, Read, Audio, Warrior, Podcast, Philosophy, Japan, Japanese, Ghost Dog way of the Samurai, Movie

Id: wXL_Y9F7THg

Length: 17min 52sec (1072 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021