Way of the Warrior

This past weekend, we drove to Detroit to pick up my mother-in-law who made her intercontinental trip from Japan to the US. The following day, we drove to Windsor, Ontario where my mother-in-law visited her third country in as many days. While in Michigan and Ontario my wife was telling her mom that I am not big on chit chat and may come across as being rude since I have no time for socializing with strangers. But at the same time, dedicate 100% of my attention to family and love ones as I did this weekend. My mother-in-law said I had the Spirit of the warrior, Bushido.

Please read the following that was written and researched nearly five years ago.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006
"Way of the Warrior,": INTRODUCTION
Bushido, literally translated "Way of the Warrior," developed in Japan between the Heian and Tokugawa Ages (9th-12th century). It was a code and way of life for Samurai, a class of warriors similar to the medieval knights of Europe. It was influenced by Zen and Confucianism, two different schools of thought of those periods. Bushido is not unlike the chivalry and codes of the European knights. "It puts emphasis on loyalty, self sacrifice, justice, sense of shame, refined manners, purity, modesty, frugality, martial spirit, honor and affection" (Nippon Steel Human Resources Development Co., Ltd. 329).
ORIGINS AND INFLUENCES
Bushido comes out of Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism, and Shintoism. The combination of these schools of thought and religions has formed the code of warrior values known as Bushido.
From Buddhism, Bushido gets its relationship to danger and death. The samurai do not fear death because they believe as Buddhism teaches, after death one will be reincarnated and may live another life here on earth. The samurai are warriors from the time they become samurai until their death; they have no fear of danger. Through Zen, a school of Buddhism one can reach the ultimate "Absolute." Zen meditation teaches one to focus and reach a level of thought words cannot describe. Zen teaches one to "know thyself" and do not to limit yourself. Samurai used this as a tool to drive out fear, unsteadiness and ultimately mistakes. These things could get him killed.
Shintoism, another Japanese doctrine, gives Bushido its loyalty and patriotism. Shintoism includes ancestor-worship which makes the Imperial family the fountain-head of the whole nation. It awards the emperor a god-like reverence. He is the embodiment of Heaven on earth. With such loyalty, the samurai pledge themselves to the emperor and their daimyo or feudal landlords, higher ranking samurai. Shintoism also provides the backbone for patriotism to their country, Japan. They believe the land is not merely there for their needs, "it is the sacred abode to the gods, the spirits of their forefathers . . ." (Nitobe, 14). The land is cared for, protected and nurtured through an intense patriotism.
Confucianism gives Bushido its beliefs in relationships with the human world, their environment and family. Confucianism's stress on the five moral relations between master and servant, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and friend and friend, are what the samurai follow. However, the samurai disagreed strongly with many of the writings of Confucius. They believed that man should not sit and read books all day, nor shall he write poems all day, for an intellectual specialist was considered to be a machine. Instead, Bushido believes man and the universe were made to be alike in both the spirit and ethics.
Along with these virtues, Bushido also holds justice, benevolence, love, sincerity, honesty, and self-control in utmost respect. Justice is one of the main factors in the code of the samurai. Crooked ways and unjust actions are thought to be lowly and inhumane. Love and benevolence were supreme virtues and princely acts. Samurai followed a specific etiquette in every day life as well as in war. Sincerity and honesty were as valued as their lives. Bushi no ichi-gon, or "the word of a samurai," transcends a pact of complete faithfulness and trust. With such pacts there was no need for a written pledge; it was thought beneath one's dignity. The samurai also needed self-control and stoicism to be fully honored. He showed no sign of pain or joy. He endured all within--no groans, no crying. He held a calmness of behavior and composure of the mind neither of which should be bothered by passion of any kind. He was a true and complete warrior.
These factors which make up Bushido were few and simple. Though simple, Bushido created a way of life that was to nourish a nation through its most troubling times, through civil wars, despair and uncertainty. "The wholesome unsophisticated nature of our warrior ancestors derived ample food for their spirit from a sheaf of commonplace and fragmentary teachings, gleaned as it were on the highways and byways of ancient thought, and, stimulated by the demands of the age formed from these gleanings a new and unique way of life" (Nitobe, 20).
BUSHIDO AFTER THE SAMURAI
After the time of the samurai, Japan went through many changes. However, Bushido values could still be seen. During W.W.II, Japanese suicide pilots, known as kamikaze, looked to the samurai and Bushido for their inspiration. The word kamikaze means "divine winds." During the 11th century when the Mongols were trying to invade Japan a series of storms stopped their invasion. These were thought to be divine winds which were sent by the gods to save Japan. The Japanese again believed that these pilots were sent to save Japan. Kamikaze pilots had no fear of death. Their loyalty to their country made them willing to die.
After W.W.II, the Japanese army was disbanded. A new type of warrior evolved: those who wanted modernization and industrialization. Huge companies called zaibatsu
Bushido values can still be seen today in Japan. The Japanese have the utmost respect and loyalty to their country, and they would not do anything to bring shame upon their family.
Today the two most popular religions in Japan are Buddhism and Shintoism. Both were great influences on Bushido. Zen Buddhism which was also an origin of Bushido, is a doctrine followed by many today.
THE SAMURAI AND THEIR USE OF BUSHIDO
In Japan the warrior class was known as samurai, also called bushi (hence bushido). They formed a class in and of themselves during the 9th and 12th centuries. They emerged from the provinces of Japan to become the ruling class until their decline and later total abolition in 1876 during the Meiji Era.
The samurai were fighting men, skilled in the martial arts. Samurai had extensive skills in the use of the bow and arrow and the sword. They could just as likely have killed you with their bare hands. Samurai were also great horsemen.
These warriors were men who lived by Bushido; it was their way of life. The samurai's loyalty to the emperor and his overlord, or daimyo, was unsurpassed. They were trustworthy and honest. They lived frugal lives with no interest in riches and material things, but rather they were interested in honor and pride. They were men of true valor. Samurai had no fear of death. They would enter any battle no matter the odds. To die in battle would only bring honor to one's family and one's lord.
Samurai usually would rather fight alone, one on one. In battle a samurai would call out his family name, rank and accomplishments. Then he would seek out an opponent with similar rank and do battle. When the samurai has killed his opponent he severs his head. After battle he takes the heads of his enemies back to show proof of his victory. Heads of generals and those of high ranks were transported back to the capital and displayed for the officials and others. The only way out for a defeated samurai was death or ritual suicide: seppuku. Seppuku--or disembowelment or hara-kiri (belly slicing)--is when a samurai stabs a knife into his abdomen and literally disembowels himself by cutting out his guts. After the samurai disembowels himself another samurai, usually a kinsman or friend, slices his head off. This form of suicide was "performed under various circumstances: to avoid capture in battle, which the samurai did not believe to be dishonorable and degrading, but generally bad policy; to atone for a misdeed or unworthy act; and perhaps most interestingly, to admonish one's lord" (Varley, 32). A samurai would rather kill himself than bring shame and disgrace to his family name and his lord. This was considered an act of true honor.
The samurai became the ruling class during the 1400s and the 1500s. In the 1600s there was a time of unification; warring in Japan had ceased. Then toward the end of the Tokugawa Era (the late 1700s), Japan began to move towards a more modernized and Western way of life. There was no need for fighting men, for warriors, for samurai. The samurai and their way of life was officially abolished in the early 1870s, but it was not forgotten.
WHAT IS BUSHIDO?
This term refers to the moral code principals that developed among the samurai (military) class of Japan, on a basis of national tradition influenced by Zen and Confucianism. The first use of the term apparently occurred during the civil war period of the 16th century; its precise content varied historically as samurai standards evolved. Its one unchanging ideal was martial spirit, including athletic and military skills as well as fearless facing of the enemy in battle. Frugal living, kindness and honesty were also highly regarded. Like Confucianism, Bushido required filial piety; but, originating in the feudal system, it also held that supreme honour was to serve one's lord unto death. If these obligations conflicted, the samurai was bound by loyalty to his lord despite the suffering he might cause to his parents.
The final rationalization of Bushido thought occurred during the Tokugawa period (17th century ff.), when Yamaga Soko (1622-85) equated the samurai with the Confucian "superior man" and taught that his essential function was to exemplify virtue to the lower classes. Without disregarding the basic Confucian virtue, benevolence, Soko emphasized the second virtue, righteousness, which he interpreted as "obligation" or "duty". This strict code of honour, affecting matters of life and death, demanded conscious choice and so fostered individual initiative while yet reasserting the obligations of loyalty and filial piety. Obedience to authority was stressed, but duty came first even if it entailed violation of statue law. In such an instance, the true samurai would prove his sincerity and expiate his crime against the government by subsequently taking his own life.
By mid-19th century, Bushido standards had become the general ideal, and the legal abolition of the samurai class in 1871 made Bushido even more the property of the entire nation. In the public educational system, with the emperor replacing the feudal lord as the object of loyalty and sacrifice, Bushido became the foundation of ethical training. As such, it contributed both to the rise of Japanese nationalism and to the strengthening of wartime civilian morale up to 1945.

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