Tip #1 to begin preparations for a journey where the signposts are unfamiliar, where the new worlds you see reveal elements in yourself that you never knew existed.
“To know life in every breath, every cup of tea ...
that is Bushido.”
“The perfect blossom is a rare thing,
you could spend your life looking for them.
And it would not be a wasted life.” --from The Last Samurai
I sat at their low table covered with a shitgake*, joining Miuki Hadano’s family for a traditional cup of tea. Arranged by the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund, it was my first homestay in Japan. At the kotatsu table with me were her two children, her parents, her sister and two children, a traditional three generation Japanese household.
*Usually found in the center of the home, the modern kotatsu involves a low table with a special shitagake table cover placed over it. An electric heater is attached beneath which keeps your lower body toasty warm. In attempts to save energy the Japanese heated table and blanket concept has taken off in a big way. Cheaper to run than an electric heater, it’s a wonder that much of the rest of the world hasn’t caught on to the joys of taking a book and a cup of tea under the kotatsu. https://japanobjects.com/features/kotatsu
Her father, Tokuji-san, I found sitting across the corner from me quietly stopped the conversation and beckoned me to take a sip of tea. All was silent. He followed sipping his tea. Then he beckoned me to have a taste of dessert pastry. He followed again then said:
“Like life.” he said, “bitter, [sipping the tea again] and sweet.” [tasting pastry].”
Looking back across my 9 trips to Japan, all the families I stayed with were living in 3 generation households.** At the end of the war, 100 percent of families lived in three generation homes, today ...
**In Japan, 58% of people 60 years of age and older lived with at least one of their children in 2001, a figure 3 to 10 times greater than that found in comparably developed Western societies such as the United States.
にも (read nimo) means "even in". So far we have the phrase hakuiki hitotsu nimo meaning "even in every breath".
生命 (read seimei) meaning "one's life; one's existence"
が (read ga) is a grammatical element specifying the previous word as the subject of the verb. The verb yadori is the present form of 宿る (read yadoru) meaning to "to dwell; to exist within".
The Japanese phrase "hakuiki hitotsu ni mo seimei ga yadori" was made popular in the movie "The Last Samurai" and this is a direct quote. The phrase is composed of the word 吐く息 (read hakuiki) meaning "one's breath", 一つ (read hitotsu) being a counter for "one". So this is "one breath". The grammatical element にも (read nimo) means "even in". So far we have the phrase hakuiki hitotsu nimo meaning "even in every breath". The next word is 生命 (read seimei) meaning "one's life; one's existence" and が (read ga) is a grammatical element specifying the previous word as the subject of the verb. The verb yadori is the present form of 宿る (read yadoru) meaning to "to dwell; to exist within".
“To know life in every breath, every cup of tea,
life in every breath... that is Bushido.”
“The perfect blossom is a rare thing,
you could spend your life looking for them.
And it would not be a wasted life.” --from The Last Samurai
to paraphrase from the Last Samurai:
“Remember our ancestors who have held this sword and what they lived for." We cannot forget who we are, or where we come from. Let me tell you how they lived.
Live, deeply. Find a small measure of peace, which few of us will find.
to paraphrase:
Do you believe we can change our destiny?
I think we should do what we can until our destiny is revealed.
[holding a samurai sword] I belong to the teacher in whom the old ways have joined the new... this is Bushido
20 words, only in Japan https://www.etsy.com/listing/459118150/life-in-every-breath-japanese-scroll#:~:text=The%20Japanese%20phrase%20%22hakuiki%20hitotsu,this%20is%20a%20direct%20quote.&text=So%20far%20we%20have%20the,or%20%22in%20every%20breath%22.
Honeybees, I've observed have four gears, four speeds.
First gear is "overnight" the slowest movement, just enough to keep their hive warm and cozy.
Second gear is normal daytime activity that includes hive brood maintainance.
Third gear is nectar speed older sister field bees return to the hive and transfer nectar to their younger sibling hive bees.
Fourth gear is a kind of a bee hyper speed overdrive when the oldest super pollen carrier big sisters have returned home with bulging loads of pollen to unload. Their younger "tween" sisters pack the pollen away in a kind of rainbow over the brood nursery honey comb.
Before I started teaching, I had a pretty standard image of the classic classroom: rows of desks facing the podium in front of the room. Later came the typical college style lecture hall. At best, uninspiring institutional architecture.
Then I took my first class with Dr. Barbara Clark in Martin Luther King Memodrial Hall, California State University Los Angeles. Her’s was a wide departure from the norm:
I walked into a large room covered by a brightly colored area carpet, soft furniture including students seated in bean bag chairs, others on the carpeted floor in a circle. Inspirational posters on the walls but not a single desk in the room. It felt like we were meeting in Barbara’s home or in a traditional Japanese home instead of an institution.
I learned from Barbara that teachers were in the wonderful and unusual position of being able to redesign their classrooms to be student centered. Now this was an environment that felt like a good place to learn.
Over the years, I realized that I was unconsciously following the same code of conduct that my samurai ancestors did historically.
My teacher code of conduct is the same as the 7 samurai virtues:
1. Respect
2. Sincerity
3. Honesty
4. Honor
5. Loyalty
6. Justice
7. The Courage to conduct your life by the first principles.
8. 良い例 Some say there might be an 8th Virtue:To set a good example.
Popular media portrays samurai as loyal and fierce warriors, but according to everything I’ve read, samurai spent less than 3% of their time in warrior mode. Most of their duties were administrative, building community, taking care of those needing help. In fact the word samurai means servant.
Two ways of writing the word samurai in Japanese.
The word samurai is composed of two component kanji radicals:
a man on the left, on the right a temple.
It comes from the word “saburai” rooted in the verb “saburau” meaning “to serve”.
Yagyu Munenori lived from 1571 to 1646 and served as the sword master and a key leader in the Tokagawa Shogunate (essentially serving as the director of intelligence and the author of a key book on swordsmanship called the Heiho Kadensho, one of the most influential martial arts books ever written.
Munenori established the idea of a “killing sword” and a “life-giving sword.” Using the life-giving sword, a martial artist does not lose but also does not strive to win.
One of the strongest principles Yagyu Munenori instilled in his students was the idea that swordsmanship was not a skill learned to kill but rather to fully realize one’s true self.
At this point, after 9 visits to Japan I sense that while popular media has focused on the "life-taking”sword, setsunin-to, the essence of sword resonates with the... “life-giving sword, katsujin-ken --Toby Manzanares
Bushido. Samurai Virtues.
At their peak, Samurai numbered less than 10% of Japan's population yet their teachings can still be found today in everyday life.
In 1274 and 1281 Mongols and Chinese mounted great military expeditions to cross the sea and attack Japan but each time typhoons destroyed their fleets and doomed theinvasions. The only times the Great Kubla Khan was defeated. These great invasion attempts unified the many Japanese clans against the threat of external invasion for the first time in their history.
While samurai were trained in strategy and the martial arts, a measure of how they spent their time shows they were administrators, leaders, teachers for more that 99% of their duties.They employed their training and were dedicated to the arts of helping people. Take a look at the code of bushido. All 8 virtues are community centered.
As a sensei, a teacher we have the same code of virtues.
人 PEOPLE
“Your great grandfatherKobayakawa was Samurai.” -- Tamaki Patricia Ishihara to her son.
His code of conduct:
Benevolence and compassion in taking care of and protecting people.
1. Respect
2. Justice
3. Honesty
4. Honor
5. Loyalty
6. Sincerity
7. The Courage to conduct your life by the first principles.
8. 良い例 Some say there might be an 8th Virtue:To set a good example.
http://www.thebushidocode.com/loyalty.html
BUSHIDO: originally... to serve
Following Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan drew on its strong sense of honor, discipline and devotion to community–in order to rebuild itself and reemerge as one of the world’s greatest economic and industrial powers. https://www.history.com/topics/japan/samurai-and-bushido
The unwritten Samurai code of conduct, known as Bushido, held that the true warrior must hold that loyalty, courage, veracity, compassion, and honor as important, above all else. An appreciation and respect of life was also imperative, as it added balance to the warrior character of the Samurai.
Though some scholars have criticized Nitobe’s work as romanticized yearning for a non- existent age of chivalry, there’s no question that his work builds on extraordinary thousand-year-old precepts of manhood that originated in chivalrous behavior on the part of some, though certainly not all, samurai. What today’s readers may find most enlightening about Bushido is the emphasis on compassion, benevolence, and the other non-martial qualities of true masculinity.
Here are Bushido’s Eight Virtues as explicated by Nitobe:
I. Justice
Bushido refers personal justice, is one of it’s central virtues, one’s power to decide upon a course of conduct in accordance with reason, without wavering. Without justice neither talent nor learning can make samurai.’
II. Courage
Bushido distinguishes between bravery and courage: Courage is worthy of being counted among virtues only if it’s exercised in the cause of Justice. Confucius said: ‘Perceiving what is right and doing it not reveals a lack of Courage.’ In short, ‘Courage is doing what is right.’
III. Benevolence or Mercy
Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, are traits of Benevolence, the highest attribute of the human soul. Both Confucius and Mencius would have said the highest requirement of a teacher is Benevolence.
IV. Politeness
Courtesy is rooted in benevolence: Courtesy and good manners have been noticed by every foreign tourist as distinctive Japanese traits. But Politeness should be the expression of a benevolent regard for the feelings of others.The highest form Politeness approaches love.
V. Honesty and Sincerity
Bushido encouraged thrift, not for economical reasons so much as for the exercise of abstinence. Luxury was thought the greatest menace, and severe simplicity was required of samurai.
VI. Honor
The sense of Honor, a vivid consciousness of personal dignity and worth, characterized the samurai, who were born and bred to value the duties and privileges of their profession. Fear of disgrace hung like a sword over the head of every samurai ... True patience means bearing the unbearable.’
VII. Loyalty
Only in the code of chivalrous Honor does Loyalty assume paramount importance.
VIII. Character and Inner Discipline
Bushido teaches that we should behave according to the highest moral standard, those that transcends logic. It is our obligation to teach children moral standards through the model of our own behavior: The first objective of samurai education was to build up Character. The subtler faculties
of prudence, intelligence, and dialectics were less important. Intellectual superiority was esteemed, but knowledge is nothing without action. Choosing compassion over confrontation, and benevolence over belligerence, teachers, samurai demonstrate ageless qualities.
Tim Clark blogs at Soul Shelter with novelist Mark Cunningham and is the author of The Swordless Samurai. https://acelebrationofwomen.org/2017/03/the-bushido-code-the-eight-virtues-of-the- samurai/
Master sword smith Gassan Sadatoshi at 5:36
This presentation on Kendo: The Principles of the Sword by Tusha Buntin contains the best perspective of Gassan Sadatoshi forging a samurai sword.
"Since ancient times, wood has been contemplated with reverence in Japan. Even after being cut, it’s been seen as a living being. Shinto, the country’s original religion, viewed trees as divine, a means by which the gods descended to earth. Later, Buddhism taught that the Buddha attained enlightenment outdoors, beneath a tree.”--Corinne Kennedy
George Nakashima's home: "One of the most iconic designers and craftsmen of the 20th century, George Nakashima (1905 - 1990) left a significant mark on modern design. In fact, the Japanese-American woodworker’s influence can be seen everywhere today. (The popular live-edge tables? That’s him.)
His hallmark was reusing parts of trees, sometimes leaving whole logs virtually intact. His belief was that when you made furniture, you created a new life for a tree." --by GOODEE (on Instagram). This Nakashima article contributed by Patricia Vining.
The last time we were in Tokyo Patricia and I took our friend Jim Reed to Isetan, our primier Tokyo department store where we saw a large "live edge” table top made extra beautiful by the "butterfly" inserts. It was a perfect example of Wabi sabi. See the video:
Patricia Vining and Jim Reed talk about Shabui and wabi sabi in Shinjuku Tokyo.
We found that table so appealing that when we returned home, Patricia was able to commission Brian Benham, a craftsman to make our "living edge” floating butsudan.
You can find Brian at... https://www.benhamdesignconcepts.com/
The beauty, as in wasabi comes from the imperfections that bring us closer to nature. George Nakashima learned about wabi sabi from Gentauro Hikogawa while they were imprisoned at Minidoka in Idaho during World War II. Let's find out how Brian Benham learned about "live edge”and “butterflies" along the arc of his journey. Stay tuned.
Floating “living edge” butsudon commissioned by Patricia Vining.
We found that table so appealing that when we returned, Patricia was able to commission Brian Benham, a craftsman to make our "living edge” floating butsudan (see above). https://www.benhamdesignconcepts.com/ The beauty, as in wasabi comes from the imperfections that bring us closer to nature.
"The object created can live forever,” Nakashima wrote in his 1981 autobiography, The Soul of a Tree. “The tree lives on in its new form. The object cannot follow a transitory ‘style’, here for a moment, discarded the next. Its appeal must be universal.”
Butterfly wedge photos by: Toby Manzanares
photo credit: Toby Manzanares
Most people from the west would see a "cracked or flawed" slab of wood, but the Japanese have a word for this type of beauty: wabi sabi. the imperfections that bring out the nature in all things. --tnm
Originally, Nakashima did it out of economic necessity as this meant he could use the cheaper cuts of wood available at lumberyards that nobody wanted. That resourcefulness — a result of the time he spent in an Idaho internment camp with his wife and newborn daughter during World War II — laid the groundwork for a prolific practice in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he built a workshop and home in 1947. [The site was officially designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014.] Working first with scrap wood and then with offcuts, Nakashima developed a style that embraced nature’s imperfections.
What was unprecedented when he started out — incorporating the natural edge of burled, knotted, or salvaged wood in a design — is now trending along with other eco-friendly furnishings. "The respect for the natural form of wood is very Japanese," his daughter Mira Nakashima explained. "Dad said that he thought he was a Japanese Druid. Druids worshipped the trees. But the Japanese Shinto tradition is very similar — that very deep respect for the things of nature and the forms of nature. Dad thought it was in his blood."
Today, following in her father’s footsteps as a woodworker, Mira runs the Nakashima studio and lives with her husband in a house that her father built on the family’s plot of land, surrounded by his creations. “Dad thought wood had a story to tell, even when it has been made into a table, it speaks to you.” credit: GOODEE on Instagram.
