Book review: Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai

The last two book reviews I have written (The Escape Artist and Wrecking Machine) had a common theme: the role of an amateur competitive sporting pastime in the busy life of a modern person.

The Escape Artist leaned towards viewing sport as an enjoyable but guilty pleasure.  Wrecking Machine saw it as the key to discipline, focus and self-confidence.

And that was that.  So now for something completely different.

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Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

I thought about reading Hagakure (Amazon affiliate links: UK, US) again when I wrote a little about Ghost Dog a couple of weeks ago.  In the film Ghost Dog, the main character adopts the Way of the Samurai as his code to live by and reads regularly from The Book of the Samurai as a result.

Hagakure was originally written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, a Buddhist priest and former samurai, in the early 18th century.  It is a collection of very short sayings and stories illustrating certain points.

While there is some order to the collection, in that the sayings are grouped into chapters, there is no obvious theme to the different groups and the sayings don’t build on each other to form a comprehensive whole.

The book of the Samurai

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So how does it hang together?

Well, there are themes that underly the various stories and sayings.  Some of those themes are in the background because they are assumed by the writer.  These include certain world views and a very strict moral code.  Others are specific to the samurai themselves.   Those specific themes are:

• the realisation that death is inevitable and meditation on that fact;
• problems don’t need to be deliberated long and hard over if your compass is well calibrated;
• swift and decisive action is better than procrastinating unduly;
• consistency in approach is key.

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OK.  Sounds different.

It is very different.  It’s also quite hard to give you an idea of what it’s like without some examples.  Here are some of my favourite passages.  There are also some great passages in Ghost Dog and I’ll try not to reproduce too many of those here, although they are some of the more memorable ones.

• If someone were to ask, “What is the true meaning of the Way of the Samurai?”, the person who would be able to answer promptly is rare.  This is because it has not been established in one’s mind beforehand.  From this, one’s mindfulness of the Way can be known.  Negligence is an extreme thing.
• Throughout your life, advance daily, becoming more skillful than yesterday, more skillful than today.  This is never-ending.
• It is not good to settle into a set of opinions.  It is a mistake to put forth effort and obtain some understanding and then stop at that.
• By inconsistency and frivolity we stray from the Way and show ourselves to be beginners.  In this, we do much harm.
• There is something to be learned from a rainstorm.  When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road.  But by doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet.  When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.
• There was once a man who liked pictures of dragons and his clothing and furnishings were all designed accordingly.  His deep affection for dragons was brought to the attention of the dragon god and, one day, a real dragon appeared before his window.  It is said he died of fright.
• Master Ittei said, “Confucius was a sage becuase he had the will to become a scholar when he was fifteen years old.  He was not a sage because he studied later on.”
• A warrior should not say something fainthearted even casually.  He should set his mind to this beforehand.  Even in trifling matters the depths of one’s heart can be seen.
• Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction.  Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else but got to the extent of living single thought by single thought.
• Human life is truly a short affair.  It is better to live doing the things that you like.  It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.

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What I like about the book

I have to confess that I do like many of the sentiments expressed here and elsewhere in the book.  I think that we can learn a lot today from the emphases on consistency, constant improvement (both physical and mental), stoic mindset and focus on the task in hand.  And ultimately, we should pay attention when he tells us that human life is a short affair, not to be wasted doing things we don’t enjoy.

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