Samurai Miyamoto Musashi Quotes

I dreamt of worldly success once.

There is even rhythm in being empty.

The sword has to be more than a simple weapon; it has to be an answer to life's questions.

Becoming the opponent means you should put yourself in an opponent's place and think from the opponent's point of view.

As you get the rhythm you discern how to win.

What is essential is to suddenly make a move totally unexpected by the opponent, pick up on the advantage of fright, and seize the victory right then and there.

Per otto anni ho vagato, senza accorgermi dell'avvicendarsi delle stagioni. Sono solo una foglia che appassisce, secca, muore, eppure l'albero rimane: modello di vita.

See to it that you temper yourself with one thousand days of practice, and refine yourself with ten thousand days of training.

Musashi and Takuan both believed that the great mistake was being slowed or rendered immobile by what one sees, hears, feels, or thinks.

Thus the student leaves by the same door through which he entered, and is no different than before. Yet, having internalized all of his practices, he is totally changed.

In my school, no consideration is given to anything unreasonable; the heart of the matter is to use the power of the knowledge of martial arts to gain victory any way you can.

When the Mind is correct, the brush will be also.

do not let your frame of mind be any different from your everyday mind.

We must be careful not to create our own fetters or our own inflexibility.

What, really, do we do with our lives?

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.

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

The teacher is a needle, the disciple is as thread. You must practice constantly.

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.

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. Yet, can it be the True Way if it has been made into a saleable item?

Think without any dishonesty. 2. Forge yourself in the Way. 3. Touch upon all of the arts. 4. Know the Ways of all occupations. 5. Know the advantages and disadvantages of everything. 6. Develop a discerning eye in all matters. 7. Understand what cannot be seen by the eye. 8. Pay attention to even small things. 9. Do not involve yourself with the impractical.

Intorno a lui, le tranquille risaie riflettevano le stelle come lastre di ossidiana, e lui smaniava dalla voglia di sfoderare la spada e squarciarle; tagliare le stelle e tagliare il cielo e l'universo, solo perché sapeva che era in grado di farlo.

Miyamoto Musashi’s actual burial ground was in close range. According to legend he had been buried in full samurai regalia clutching his faithful sword. The last line of the translation: He died lonely. The Japanese liked loneliness. It had a different quality than our dreaded isolation. More like one with the void, alone with the Alone, no longer separate from anything. It was the final compliment to describe him this way.

My dear friend and colleague Chris gave me the novel Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa, translated by Charles S. Terry. It’s about real life seventeenth-century samurai Miyamoto Musashi, who wrote The Book of Five Rings (which my father had in his library), and I came across a passage in the novel that I think captures the living void beautifully:

We are samurai, Lord. Death defines us. We must become a master of dealing it to our enemies, yes, but most of all lose all fear of our own.

Nansen was asked by Joshu, ‘What is the Way?’ He replied, ‘Your everyday mind is the Way [Heijoshin kore do].

The sixteenth-century Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi won countless fights against feared opponents, even multiple opponents, in which he was swordless. In The Book of Five Rings, he notes the difference between observing and perceiving. The perceiving eye is weak, he wrote; the observing eye is strong.

The sixteenth-century Samurai swordsman Miyamoto Musashi won countless fights against feared opponents, even multiple opponents, in which he was swordless. In The Book of Five Rings, he notes the difference between observing and perceiving. The perceiving eye is weak, he wrote; the observing eye is strong. Musashi understood that the observing eye sees simply what is there. The perceiving eye sees more than what is there.

In strategy, your spiritual bearing must not be any different from normal. Both in fighting and in everyday life you should be determined though calm. Meet the situation without tenseness yet not recklessly, your spirit settled yet unbiased. Even when your spirit is calm do not let your body relax, and when your body is relaxed do not let your spirit slacken. Do not let your spirit be influenced by your body, or your body influenced by your spirit. Be neither insufficiently spirited nor over-spirited. An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit.

By the middle of the 17th century in Japan the concept of focus had evolved to a high level of sophistication and had taken on the psychological overtones that we will examine later in this chapter. In his classic on strategy, A Book of Five Rings (1645), the samurai who is best known in the West, Miyamoto Musashi, removed the concept from the physical world entirely by designating the spirit of the opponent as the focus: Do not even consider risking a decision by cold steel until you have defeated the enemy’s will to fight.59 This is a revealing statement by a man reported to have won some sixty bouts, virtually all of which ended in the death of his opponent (not surprising, when you consider that the samurai long sword, the tachi, was a four foot blade of steel, sharp as a modern razor, and strong enough to chop cleanly through a water pipe.) Once you accept Musashi’s dictum as a strategic principle, then you might ask how to carry it out, how to actually defeat the opponent’s spirit. Musashi was no mystic, and he grounded all his methods in real actions his students could take. We will encounter him and his techniques many times in this book. The ability to rapidly shift the focus of one’s efforts is a key element in how a smaller force defeats a larger, since it enables the smaller force to create and exploit opportunities before the larger force can marshal reinforcements.

The Way of combat in Nitō Ichi-ryū is made clear in the Ether Scroll.1 The Ether is a place where there is nothing. I consider this emptiness as something which cannot be known. Of course, Ether is also nothing. Knowing what does exist, one can then know what does not. This is what I mean by “Ether.” People tend to mistake this notion of Ether as something that cannot be distinguished but this is not the true Ether. It is simply confusion in everybody’s minds. So too in the Way of combat strategy, ignorance of the laws of the samurai by those who practice the Way of the warrior is not represented as emptiness. Likewise, those who harbor various doubts explain it as “emptiness,” but this is not the true meaning of Ether. The warrior must scrupulously learn by heart the Way of combat strategy and thoroughly study other martial arts without forgoing any aspect related to the practice of the warrior’s Way. He must seek to put the Way into practice each hour of every day without tiring or losing focus. He must polish the two layers of his mind, the “heart of perception” and the “heart of intent,” and sharpen his two powers of observation, the gazes of kan (“looking in”) and ken (“looking at”). He must recognize that the true Ether is where all the clouds of confusion have completely lifted, leaving not a hint of haziness. When you are impervious to the true Way, faithfully following your own instead thinking all is well, be it Buddhist Law or secular law, you will stray further from the truth. When the spirit is uncurled and compared with overarching universal principles, it becomes evident that a prejudiced mind and a distorted view of things have led to a departure from the proper path. Know this mind and use what is straight as your foundation. Make the sincere heart your Way as you practice strategy in its broadest sense, correctly and lucidly. Ponder the Ether as you study the Way. As you practice the Way, the Ether will open before you. There is Good, not Evil in the Ether There is Wisdom There is Reason There is the Way The Mind, Empty

Victory is achieved in the way of conflict by ascertaining the rhythm of each opponent, by attacking with a rhythm not anticipated by the opponent, and by the use of knowledge of the rhythm of the abstract. Miyamoto Musashi, samurai strategist, 17th century Japan; Nihon Services Group trans.

Miyamoto, en la provincia de Mimasaka.

samurai y bushi. La palabra samurai procede del verbo japonés saburau, que significa «servir como ayudante». La palabra bushi es una palabra chinojaponesa que significa «pequeña aristocracia armada

La palabra carpintero se escribe con caracteres que significan «gran pericia» o «gran maestro». Puesto que la ciencia de las artes marciales implica una gran habilidad y una planificación con maestría, la describo en términos comparativos a la carpintería.

Antiguamente éstos se llamaban tachi y katana, o el gran sable y el sable; actualmente se llaman katana y wakizashi;

Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things. As if it were a straight road mapped out on the ground ... These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard

Musashi, being the second son of Tahara Iesada, was given up for adoption to Miyamoto (Shinmen) Munisai. In this way, one person at least from the Tahara line would retain samurai status, something that was a matter of pride. It was a logical arrangement considering the tangled strands of the Akamatsu bloodline connecting them all in one way or another.24 Thus, Munisai’s background is as obscure as Musashi’s and most information about him also appears in contradictory texts written long after he died. Many still argue over whether he was a Hirata or a Hirao. Nonetheless, it is evident from what can be pieced together that Munisai was an accomplished martial artist known for his courage in battle. He reputedly took the heads of seven enemy warriors in one battle with a jūmonji-yari (crossed pike). As recorded in the Shinmen-kaki, “When Muni advanced with his yari [lance], seven warriors among the enemy sought to strike Muni down with their yari, but he skillfully took hold of their yari, running down as many as three warriors, taking their heads and giving chase to the remainder, thereby defeating the Kusakari forces.”25 He created a style of swordsmanship utilizing two swords in unison, which he named Tōri-ryū.26 Such was Munisai’s renown in battle that he was invited to demonstrate his skill in front of the last Muromachi-era shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru. Pitted against the shogun’s personal instructor, Yoshioka Kenpō, Munisai won two of the three bouts. This impressed the shogun, who then bestowed on Munisai the lofty designation Hinoshita Musō (“Peerless Under the Sun”). It is unknown when Munisai died, but it was most certainly after Musashi’s duel with Kojirō for reasons outlined below. Musashi clearly learned his trade under the wing of a formidable warrior.

That attitude was consistent with the teachings of Miyamoto Musashi, the renowned samurai swordsman of the sixteenth century. “As far as attacks made on you are concerned,” Musashi had advised, “let opponents go ahead and do anything useless, while stopping them from doing anything useful. This is essential to the art of war.

Valley of the Damned (# 1 The 'Halla) As she sat teary, another story arose, Young and full of vigor hewed with manymanymany years of repose. “Comrades” she brightened, “listen again to my tale, Of courage and power, and how evil can never prevail. —Valkyrie Kari, Saint of the Blade Chapter 15, Valley of the Damned Footnote: In one form or another, everybody hears but very few listen. It is a lost art. Like developing a taste for classical art, music or fine wine, listening is a skill, a ‘taste’ to develop, an “acquired sound.” Valley of the Damned et al.

the great is beyond ten feet square, the small enters the tiniest atom.