Suzuki Shosan quotes - I

Suzuki Shosan is among the most dramatic personalities in the history of Zen. Born in the province of Misawa (present day Aichi Prefecture) in 1579, he became a retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1541-1616), who unified Japan after the battle of Sekigahara. At age 41, after being enlightened by deities claiming to be the Nió, the guardians of the temple gate, he became a monk and developed a highly original teaching style strongly imbued with the warrior spirit. The warrior’s life, Shosan believed, was particularly suited to Zen study because it demanded vitality, courage, and "death energy," the readiness to confront death at any moment. Emphasizing dynamic activity over quiet contemplation, Shosan urged students to realize enlightenment in the midst of their daily life.

Advice to warriors :

Do your job with your mind as taut as an iron bow strung with wire. This is the same as Zen meditation.

Use your mind strongly even when you walk down the street, such that you wouldn’t even blink if someone unexpectedly thrust a lance at your nose. All warriors should at all time be in such state of mind in everyday life.

There is a practice designed to enter the Way of Buddha by means of your profession. You should apply this idea, that a man born in a house of valor, polishing a sword and sporting a bow, should always exert the strongest attention, as if he were marching right into an army of ten million men.

The strongest men and the greatest martial arts masters are born that way, so no effort can attain that; but when it comes to exerting our whole heart and disregarding our lives, to whom should we be inferior? No one should think he’ll lose, even to the greatest warriors. Why is that? Because if you back off such a person, who will back off you?

Thus consider that you are always on duty, required to firmly apply your full attention. If you slack off, you’re useless. 

Remember such a stable and firm attitude is itself meditation practice. There is no other method of concentration to seek. Buddhism itself is about applying full attention steadily, without being disturbed by external things. Developing a confident attitude that is never pained or vexed or worried or saddened or altered or frightened is called attaining Buddhahood.

There are those who discuss the amount of rewards and size of entitlement of those who have exercised considerable military ability, put their lives on the line, ground down their bones, and become famous. They are foolish! Why not do a warrior’s deed, costly though it be, for the sake of loyalty? People who think of rewards are nothing but military merchants.

There are myriad different methods of practice, but essentially they amount to no more than overcoming thoughts of yourself. The source of suffering is ego, the thought of self. To know this is reason. Once you know the reason for suffering, your sense of duty evokes effort to extinguish the thought of self with a genuine courageous mind. Fools can’t understand the source of misery and happiness; people without a sense of duty cannot break the bonds of life and death.

3 Treatises on Swordsmanship - and Zen...

The Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600 cleared the path to the Shogunate for Tokugawa Ieyasu. Though it would take three more years for Ieyasu to consolidate his position of power over the Toyotomi clan and the daimyo, this battle is considered to be the unofficial beginning of the Edo period, or Tokugawa shogunate.

At the beginning of this period, 3 short treatises on swordsmanship appeared which would become influential far beyond what their authors originally intended.

The First classical treatise on swordsmanship was The Mysterious Record of Unmoving Wisdom, (Fudochi Shinmyoroku) written by Zen Master Takuan Soho around 1632. This treatise looks at Swordsmanship from the perspective of Zen. 
It specially emphasizes the importance of keeping the mind free of attachment and fixations.  
On the battlefield, this means keeping the mind from stopping on anything, whether the stance, the opponent's sword, the technique, anything that could prevent the mind from moving freely.

The Second classical treatise on swordsmanship was The Life Giving Sword (Heiho Kandensho) written by Yagyu Munenori around 1632 also. The philosophy of this treatise is based on the above mentioned Fudochi Shinmyoroku written by Takuan for his friend and disciple Munenori.

It emphasizes in a similar way the importance of keeping the mind free of attachment to details of techniques, or even to the idea of winning. This treatise is however much more technical in its description of certain techniques Munenori inherited from his father and his father's master, the legendary Kamiizumi Ise no Kami Hidetsuna.

The Third classical treatise was the famed Book of Five Rings (Gorin no Sho) written by Miyamoto Musashi between 1643 and 1645. Although the Philosophy underlying Musashi's book is also to keep the Mind Free from any attachment, Musashi puts high emphasis on the technique of Swordsmanship, and does not consider the willingness to win as a hindrance, but as a mean to complete one's duty to one's Lord, but the willingness to survive the fight as one attachment that could mean defeat. 

Yagyu Munenori was a disciple and friend of Takuan. It is not clear whether Musashi ever met Munenori, although they were together in Edo(Tokyo)in 1623. Musashi also very likely met Takuan around 1630 after he had been temporarily banished to Northern Japan.

Numerous translations of these treatises are available, but I particularly enjoy the ones by William Scott Wilson. 

These are :

The Unfettered Mind – includes the Fudochi Shinmyoroku and 2 other texts by Takuan.

The Life Giving Sword by Yagyu Munenori

The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi.

Mr Wilson gives us clean, accurate and lively translations of these 3 great texts. Although he is not himself a swordsman, the help he received from persons qualified in this domain make his translations very valuable for whoever is interested in how Martial Arts and Zen were related in 17th century Japan.