yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Miyamoto Musashi | A Life of Ultimate Focus


3m read
·Nov 4, 2024

Processing might take a few minutes. Refresh later.

Miyamoto Musashi is one of the most legendary samurai and famed as Japan’s greatest swordsman—undefeated in more than sixty duels. After he escaped death during the Battle of Sekigahara, Musashi became a ronin. Aside from being a swordsman, he was also a philosopher, artist, and well-learned Buddhist. Before he died, Musashi left us with twenty-one principles named Dokkōdō. These are timeless rules that can inspire us today to live well. The majority, if not all, of these rules help us to establish one thing: ‘focus’.

Focus is the quality of having a concentrated interest or activity on something. Needless to say, ‘focus’ was a crucial component in Musashi’s life, or what he called ‘the way’, which is a life of ongoing practice. His writings reveal that his lifestyle revolved around restraint, sacrifice, discipline, and not being swayed by pleasure. These virtues were all established by or in support of being able to ‘focus’. Especially when he spent time apart from society, Musashi was only concerned with perfecting his skill while aiming for enlightenment by the Way of the sword. This three-part series elaborates on the twenty-one principles from Musashi’s Dokkōdō. The first part explored the first seven principles. This second part will explore how to live a life of ultimate focus, based on the next seven principles.

Please note, the elaborations in this video are based on existing philosophies, the author’s interpretations, and reasoning, and are intended to be an inspiration for present-day life.

  1. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation. Separation can take place in several ways. We can be separated from someone temporarily because of traveling, relocation, or permanently because of death. We can also become separated from certain objects, like personal items or money. For most of us, the separation from what we love leads to suffering. As we’re attached to the object or person we’re separated from, we experience an intense feeling of lack, as we believe that what’s taken away from us belongs to us and is part of us.

In Buddhism, this idea of possession is delusional. Many Buddhists would agree that we don’t truly own anything outside of our mental faculties; even our bodies aren’t our own as we don’t fully control them. Musashi, being a ronin and a Buddhist, was probably aware of this delusion of possession, as well as the burden of attachment to objects and people. His way was one of solitude and practice, and therefore he couldn’t afford to be saddened by separations because life is full of separations: all things come and go, whether it’s people, stuff, or wealth—especially for a ronin who’s traveling from place to place.

Attachment to the people he met and the places he visited would have led to continuous grief. Instead, as a ronin, he had to embrace the temporary nature of things, including the inevitable conclusion of life, which is death. In his Book of Five Rings, Musashi wrote that the way of the warrior is the resolute acceptance of death. For a warrior, life is surrounded by death; the death of the people he slays, of the people that fight by his side, of the people he failed to protect, and, of course, the risk of being killed himself. Like no other, Musashi must have realized that death awaits us all. By being aware of this and accepting the impermanence of life, we'll have an easier time when we encounter it.

  1. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself or others. It’s very common for people to spend insane amounts of time resenting and complaining about the world. The traps of resentment and complaint are very easy to fall into. For one with a critical eye and strong opinions on how life should be, there’s always something to complain about. But when we find ourselves in a continuous state of resentment about the world, it means that we’re focused on others and not on ourselves.

For someone who’s dedicated to a life of ongoing practice, spending time resenting and complaining about the world, or one’s own life...

More Articles

View All
Action and reaction forces | Movement and forces | Middle school physics | Khan Academy
You’ve probably heard the phrase that for every force there’s an equal and opposite reaction force, and this is also known as Newton’s third law of motion. But it’s also one of the most misunderstood laws of physics. So that’s why we’re going to dig into …
The Stock Market Is About To Snap
Hey Graham, it’s our final attempt to reach you regarding your car’s expiring warranty. Guys, here. So anyway, we need to talk. If you’ve recently checked your stock prices and wondered why they’ve been violently dragged down for seemingly no reason at a…
The Best Aperture Videos of 2023
You wake up to the sound of the alarm on your iPhone, and annoyed that you couldn’t get more sleep, you grudgingly unlock your phone to see what’s going on in the world. There’s an email from Amazon telling you that your package has been delivered, so you…
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (with intro by President John Hennessy)
[Music] This program is brought to you by Stanford University. Please visit us at stanford.edu. It now gives me great pleasure to introduce this year’s commencement speaker, Steve Jobs. [Applause] The chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple and …
Warren Buffett Shares His 2,600 Year Old Investment Advice
First investment primer that I know of, and it was pretty good advice, was delivered in about 600 BC by Aesop. And Aesop, you’ll remember, said a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Incidentally, Aesop did not know it was 600 BC; he was smart, but …
Khan Academy Ed Talks with Kara Bobroff - Tuesday, November 9
Hello and welcome to Ed Talks with Khan Academy. I am excited today to talk with Kara Bobroff, who is the founder of the Native American Community Academy and NACA Inspired Schools. We’re going to talk about culture in education broadly and the education …