Miyamoto Musashi | A Life of Ultimate Focus
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.
- 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.
- 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...