Chapter Three

Bushidō — The Ethics of Death and Honour

第三章 — 武士道・死と名誉の倫理

Introduction — Zen Meets the Warrior

The Zen of the previous chapter did not remain among the monks who sat in zazen alone. It flowed deeply into a wholly different world — the world of the warrior, who girds a sword and lives on the field of battle.

Why should Zen, a religion of meditation, have taken hold of the warrior's heart? Because the two met at the same single point: to hold fast to the "here and now," and to let go of all clinging to life. For the Zen monk, this was the path to awakening; for the warrior, it was the support of the heart by which to live through days that stood next to death.

This chapter is the second axis of this essay — the way of the warrior, bushidō. How did the spirit of Zen bind itself to the ethics of a warrior who gazes at death, and what did it bring forth? Here we wish to depict one of the high points of the Japanese spirit. We note that bushidō changed greatly with the ages, and that its understanding is much debated among scholars; this chapter aims to grasp its inner core as culture.

I. What is Bushidō — The Ethics of One Who Stakes His Life

"Bushidō" is the whole of the ethics that the warrior class cultivated as its way of life.

One thing set the warrior decisively apart from other stations: his was a calling in which one staked one's life.¹ Precisely because life was at stake, a deep philosophy was born there, and a power to move others dwelt within it.¹ To guard the peace and order of society and to be a model for the people — this grave responsibility demanded of the warrior an ethics of his own.

Yet "bushidō" was no single, fixed doctrine. It was something like a code that each warrior house, or each individual samurai, set for itself, and it changed greatly with the times.² In the medieval age of war it appeared as an ethics of fighting fair and square upon the field — single combat, the calling-out of one's name.³ When the peace of the Edo period came, the warrior became a kind of public official, and the centre of gravity of bushidō shifted to the question of how a warrior should live in a world without war.⁴

Three spiritual sources supported the root of this bushidō: Confucianism, Shintō, and — Zen.

II. What Zen Brought — A Heart at Home with Death

The one who spoke most clearly of Zen's influence upon bushidō was Nitobe Inazō, who wrote Bushidō in the Meiji era.

Nitobe set down what Buddhism — and Zen above all — brought to the warrior. It was "a calm trust in fate," and a deep spirituality that "quietly accepts the inevitable."⁵ Zen, Nitobe says, brought the warrior "a heart that does not cling to life, and is at home with death."⁵

Here lies the joint between Zen and bushidō. As we saw in the previous chapter, Zen is a spirit that lets go of attachment and holds fast to the "here and now." For the warrior who faced death on the field, this spirit was no idea but a pressing necessity. To fear death and cling to life is to dull one's judgement and disorder one's movement. Conversely, when the warrior let go of all clinging to death, he could act, even in the midst of danger, with composure and precision.⁵

The Zen spirit of "nothingness" — casting off attachment to the self, facing the instant before one's eyes with the whole body — became a practical power that decided the warrior's life or death. A religion of meditation became the backbone of a warrior's ethics.

III. The Hagakure — The True Meaning of "I Have Found That the Way of the Warrior Is to Die"

The words that most vividly expressed the warrior's view of life and death are found in the Hagakure, which took form in the mid-Edo period. It is a work in eleven volumes, dictated by Yamamoto Jōchō, a retainer of the Saga domain, and set down by his disciple Tashiro Tsuramoto.⁶

Its most famous passage: "I have found that the way of the warrior is to die."⁶

These words have often been misunderstood — read as though bushidō meant not shrinking from death in pursuit of one's aim. Indeed, there is a history of these words being used during the Pacific War, at the time of the suicide attacks and the "honourable deaths."⁷ But that is utterly at odds with the true meaning of the original.⁷

Read the whole of the passage, and its meaning becomes clear. Jōchō goes on: "Morning after morning, evening after evening, dying again and again, dwelling ever as one already dead — then one gains freedom in the way of the warrior, fulfils one's duty without fault for a whole life long."⁸ If, morning and evening, one becomes as one dead and dwells ever as a "body already dead," one gains freedom instead, and fulfils one's office without fault for the whole of a life.⁸

That is to say, the "death" here taught is not actually to die, but to "become as one dead."⁸ By resolving upon death, a person is freed from the bonds of self-preservation and calculation.⁹ Only when released from the heart that fears to lose something can one face, head-on, what must be done now. The Hagakure does not extol death. It is, rather, a book about life — about how to live.⁷

IV. Gazing at Death, Living Life to the Full

Here lies a view of life and death peculiar to Japan, in which Zen and bushidō have melted into one.

The Hagakure holds another phrase that answers to this: "This very now is the moment of crisis; the moment of crisis is this very now."¹⁰ The hour of need is always in this present instant. And for that very reason — live this single instant to the full; here lay Jōchō's true meaning.¹⁰ To hold the resolve to die completely, and to live a single instant completely, are the two sides of one thing.¹⁰

This feeling may be called the crystallisation, within the warrior's way of life, of the Zen "here and now" seen in the second chapter and the "impermanence" seen in the first. All things pass (impermanence); even tomorrow's life is unknown. And for that very reason, one faces this present instant with the whole body (the here and now). To that end, one lets go of all clinging to death (Zen). Bushidō raised these spirits into a single ethics, lived out to the end within the reality of staking one's life.

And this paradox — that by gazing at death one lives life more deeply — did not remain the warrior class's alone. The warriors were but six or seven percent of the population, yet their way of living passed to the common people and seeped in as a norm for the Japanese.⁴ To this day, the Hagakure is read on by people in business, as a resolve to set aside self-preservation and face one's mission, and as a posture of concentrating upon what must be done now.⁹

Conclusion — From the Ethics of Battle to the Ethics of Beauty

What we have seen in this chapter is the second axis of this essay — bushidō.

The Zen spirit of "letting go of attachment" and the sensibility of "impermanence" crystallised into one within the ethics of a warrior who lived next to death. What the Hagakure taught was not the praise of death but a paradoxical way of living: that by gazing at death one becomes, on the contrary, free, and lives the present to the full. It is one of the high points of the Japanese spirit.

What is striking is that this severe ethics of death was, at the same time, inseparably bound to "beauty." The warrior laid his own way of life over the falling cherry blossom. To bloom without reserve and to fall without reserve — that aesthetic was one with the heart that holds impermanence tender.

In the next chapter, we depict a world in which that "beauty," leaving the field of battle, crystallises into another high point: the way of tea. Born of the same Zen spirit, bushidō turned toward "death and honour," while the way of tea turned toward "hospitality and wabi." When the sword is set down and one faces a single bowl of tea, Japanese spiritual culture reaches its most serene beauty.

Notes & Sources

This is the third chapter of the white paper "The Japanese Spiritual Worldview." The facts stated rest on the sources cited. We note the scholarly argument that bushidō changed greatly across the ages, and that Nitobe Inazō's Bushidō (1900) is a Meiji-era reconstruction that does not directly reflect the realities of the medieval and early-modern warrior. Though the Hagakure's "I have found that the way of the warrior is to die" was, historically, misused for suicide attacks and "honourable deaths," this essay treats it in accordance with the original's true meaning — freedom from self-preservation, and living a single instant to the full — and draws a clear line against any beautification or praise of death. Primary sources (the texts of the Hagakure and Bushidō) will be reinforced in future revisions.

"Learning to 'Live the Instant' from Bushidō," Matsushita Institute of Government and Management (on the warrior as one whose calling staked his life; on a deep philosophy and persuasive force being born precisely because life was at stake; and on bushidō seeping in as a norm even among the common people). https://www.mskj.or.jp/report/2652.html ↩ ↩²
"Bushidō and the Hagakure," Tate School (on bushidō as the literary-and-martial discipline and responsibility demanded of the warrior under the Edo status system, the whole of an ethics set as a code by each warrior house and individual). https://tate-school.com/archives/484 ↩
"What is Bushidō? The History of Its Formation and Change," Liberal Arts Guide (on bushidō arising in the medieval age, alongside customs such as single combat, the calling-out of names, and death in battle, as an ethics of fighting fair and square). https://liberal-arts-guide.com/bushido/ ↩
"The Forbidden Book! What is the Hagakure?," Gōshinkan Kyoto / "Learning from Bushidō," Matsushita Institute (on the mid-Edo period as a peaceful world without war in which warriors lived like public officials; on the Hagakure teaching the warrior's bearing in such a world; and on warriors being 6–7% of the population, their way of living passing to the people). https://www.aishinkankyoto.jp/hagakure-bushido/ ↩ ↩²
"Confucianism and Zen, the Sources of Bushidō," Nagoya Touken World (on Nitobe Inazō's Bushidō recording that Buddhism — Zen — brought the warrior "a calm trust in fate," a spirit that "quietly accepts the inevitable," and "a heart that does not cling to life and is at home with death"). https://www.meihaku.jp/bushido/jukyo-zen/ ↩ ↩² ↩³
"Hagakure," Wikipedia (on the Hagakure as a mid-Edo work in eleven volumes, dictated by the Saga retainer Yamamoto Jōchō and set down by Tashiro Tsuramoto; and on "I have found that the way of the warrior is to die" as its famous passage). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/葉隠 ↩ ↩²
"The Passage of the Hagakure is Misunderstood," Kokoro ni Nokoru Kazoku-sō / "Hagakure," Wikipedia (on this passage being mistaken for "to not shrink from death is a virtue," which is wide of the mark; on its misuse during the Pacific War at suicide attacks, "honourable deaths," and self-killings; and on the Hagakure teaching the warrior's way of living and dying). https://www.sougiya.biz/kiji_detail.php?cid=1675 ↩ ↩² ↩³
"'I Have Found That the Way of the Warrior Is to Die,'" Rekijin Magazine (on the passage "morning after morning, evening after evening, dying again and again, dwelling ever as one already dead, one gains freedom in the way of the warrior, fulfils one's duty without fault for a whole life long"; and on the Hagakure's "death" meaning not actual death but "becoming as one dead" — jōjū shinimi). https://rekijin.com/?p=23791 ↩ ↩² ↩³
"Without Souring Even in Adversity! The Secret of the Working Person, Read in the Classic Hagakure," Nikkei BizGate (on "I have found that it is to die" teaching freedom from the heart of self-preservation, bonds and constraints; and on its being read by today's businesspeople as a book of self-cultivation). https://bizgate.nikkei.com/article/DGXZZO7439905002082021000000 ↩ ↩²
"Famous Sayings, No. 4: Hagakure," Kotonoha-an (Nōbunsha) (on "this very now is the moment of crisis; the moment of crisis is this very now" [Kikigaki II / 47]; and on Jōchō's true meaning being "to die completely, live this single instant completely," death's resolve and the living of an instant being two sides of one). http://nobunsha.jp/meigen/post_27.html ↩ ↩² ↩³