Bushido, The Soul of Japan by Nitobe
Ref: Inazo Nitobe (2009). Bushido, the Soul of Japan. Merchant Books.
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Bushido as an Ethical System
Summary: Bushido as the origin and source of Japanese chivalry; its character and teaching; its influence among the masses; and the continuity and permanence of its influence.
Bu-shi-do (Military- Knight- Ways): the ways which fighting nobles should observe in their daily life as well as in their vocation; in a word, the “Precepts of Knighthood,” the noblesse oblige of the warrior class.
Samurai: Similar to the old English cniht (knecht, knight), guards or attendants.
When I tell you that war is the foundation of all the arts, I mean also that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties of men. It is very strange to me to discover this, and very dreadful, but I saw it to be quite an undeniable fact...I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word and strength of thought in war; that they were nourished in war and wasted by peace; taught by war and deceived by peace; trained by war and betrayed by peace; in a word, that they were born in war and expired in peace.-Ruskin in the Crown of Wild Olive.
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Sources of Bushido
Buddhism furnished a sense of calm trust in Fate, a quiet submission to the inevitable, that stoic composure in sight of danger or calamity, that disdain of life and friendliness with death. The teaching was more than the dogma of a sect, and whoever attains to the perception of the absolute raises himself above mundane things and awakes “to a new Heaven and a new Earth.” What Buddhism failed to give, Shintoism offered in abundance. Such loyalty to sovereign, such reverence for ancestral memory, and such filial piety as are not taught by any other creed, were inculcated by the Shinto doctrines.
Intellect itself is considered subordinate to ethical emotion.
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Rectitude or Justice
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Courage, the Spirit of Daring and Bearing
To run all kinds of hazards, to jeopardize one’s self, to rush into the jaws of death- these are too often identified with valor, and in the profession of arms such rashness of conduct- what Shakespeare calls “valor misbegot”- is unjustly applauded; but not so in the precepts of knighthood. Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a “dogs’ death.”
The spiritual aspect of valour is evidenced by composure- calm presence of mind. Tranquility is courage in repose. It is a statical manifestation of valour, as daring deeds are a dynamical. A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him; he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril, or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice is taken as an infallible index of a large nature- of what we call a capacious mind (yoyu), which, far from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more.
Nietzsche spoke for the Samurai heart when he wrote, “You are to be proud of your enemy; then the success of your enemy is your success also.” Indeed, valour and honour alike required that we should own as enemies in war only such as prove worthy of being friends in peace. When valour attains this height, it becomes akin to benevolence.
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Benevolence, the Feeling of Distress
Love, magnanimity, affection for others, sympathy and pity, were ever recognized to be supreme virtues, the highest of all the attributes of the human soul.
Confucius would say- “Let but a prince cultivate virtue, people will flock to him; with people will come to him lands; lands will bring forth for him wealth; wealth will give him the benefit of right uses. Virtue is the root, and wealth an outcome.” Again, “never has there been a case of a sovereign loving benevolence, and the people not loving righteousness.”
The different between a despotic and a paternal government lies in this, that in the one the people obey reluctantly, while in the other they do so with “that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of exalted freedom.”
We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude. Masamune expressed it well in his oft quoted aphorism- “rectitude carried to excess hardens into stiffness; benevolence indulged beyond measure sinks into weakness.” Fortunately, mercy was not so rare as it was beautiful, for it is universally true that “the bravest are the tenderest, the loving are the daring.” “Bushi no nasake”- the tenderness of a warrior- had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us; not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being, but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse, but where it recognized due regard to justice, and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind, but where it was backed with power to save or kill.
Modesty and Complaisance, actuated by respect for others feelings, are at the root of politeness.
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Politeness
Politeness is a poor virtue, if it is actuated only by a fear of offending good taste, whereas it should be the outward manifestation of a sympathetic regard for the feelings of others.
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Veracity and Sincerity
Without veracity and sincerity, politeness is a farce and a show. “Propriety carried beyond right bounds,” says, becomes a lie.”-Masamune.
Kyo-Rei (empty form): Sacrificing truth merely for the sake of politeness aka “deception by sweet words.”
The debarring of the nobility from mercantile pursuits was an admirable social policy, in that it prevented wealth from accumulating in the hands of the powerful (Montesquieu).
One cause of the decadence of the Roman Empire, was the permission given to the nobility to engage in trade, and the consequent monopoly of wealth and power by a minority of the senatorial families.-Drill.
Call one a thief and he will steal. Put a stigma on a calling and its followers adjust their morals to it, for it is natural that the normal conscious rises to the demands made on it, and easily falls to the limit of the standard expected from it.-Hugh Black.
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Honour
Dishonour is like a scar on a tree, which time, instead of effacing, only helps to enlarge.
Shame is the soil of all virtue, of good manners and good morals.-Mencius.
Magnanimity, patience, and forgiveness.
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The Duty of Loyalty
The individualism of the West, which recognizes separate interests for father and son, husband and wife, necessarily brings into strong relief the duties owed by one to the other; but Bushido held that the interest of the family and of the members thereof is intact- one and inseparable.
Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their conscience!
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The Education and Training of Samurai
Intellectual superiority was, of course, esteemed; but the word Chi, which was employed to denote intellectuality, meant wisdom in the first instance and gave knowledge only a very subordinate place. The tripod which supported the framework of Bushido was said to be Chi, Jin, Yu, respectively, Wisdom, Benevolence, and Courage.
Luxury was thought the greatest menace to manhood.
Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.-Confucius.
For wages and salaries can be paid only for services whose results are definite, tangible, and measurable, whereas the best service is done in education, - namely, in soul development (and this includes the services of a pastor), is not definite, tangible, or measurable. Being immeasurable, money, the ostensible measure of value, is of inadequate use.
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Self Control
The discipline of fortitude on the one hand, inculcating endurance without a groan, and the teaching of politeness on the other, requiring us not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by expressions of our own sorrow or pain, combined to engender a stoical turn of mind, and eventually to confirm it into a national trait of apparent stoicism.
To give in so many articulate words one’s inmost thoughts and feelings- notably the religious- is taken among us as an unmistakable sign that they are neither very profound nor very sincere. “Only a pomegranate is he who, when he gapes his mouth, displays the contents of his heart.”
Euthymia: the idea of self-restraint; to keep the mind level; which Democritus called the highest good.
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The institutions of Suicide and Redress
Seppuku aka Kappuku, popularly known as Harakiri: Self-immolation by disembowelment.
The syllogism of seppuku is easy to construct. “I will open the seat of my soul and show you how it fares with it. See for yourself whether it is polluted or clean.”
The high estimate placed upon honour was ample excuse with many for taking one’s own life.
“When honour’s lost, ‘tis a relief to die; Death’s but a sure retreat from infamy.”
A process by which warriors could expiate their crimes, apologize for errors, escape from disgrace, redeem their friends, or prove their sincerity.
Wakizashi: The short sword or dirk of the Japanese, 9.5” in length.
“Stabbing himself deeply below the waist in the left-hand side, he drew the dirk slowly across to his right side, and turning it in the wound, gave a slight cut upwards. During this sickeningly painful operation he never moved a muscle of his face. When he drew out the dirk, he leaned forward and stretched out his neck; an expression of pain for the first time crossed his face, but he uttered no sound. At that moment the kaishaku, who, still crouching by his side, had been keenly watching his every movement, sprang to his feet, poised his sword for a second in the air; there was a flash, a heavy, ugly thud, a crashing fall; with one blow the head had been severed from the body.
No one circle in the Inferno will boast of greater density of Japanese populations than the seventh, to which Dante consigns all victims of self-destruction!
Normal Seppuku does not savour of fanaticism, or madness or excitement, utmost sang froid being necessary to its successful accomplishment.
This, then, was the Bushido teaching- Bear and face all calamities and adversities with patience and a pure conscience; “When heaven is about to confer a great office on anyone, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil; it exposes his body to hunger and subjects him to extreme poverty; and it confounds his undertakings. In all these ways it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetency’s.”-Mencius.
“It is a brave act of valour to condemn to death, but where life is more terrible than death, it is then the truest valour to dare to live.”-Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici.
Vengeance- the only Supreme Court existing.
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The Sword, the Soul of the Samurai
The very possession of the dangerous instrument (the sword) imparts to him a feeling and an air of self-respect and responsibility. “He beareth not the sword in vain.” What he carries in his belt is a symbol of what he carries in his mind and heart,- loyalty and honour. The two swords, the longer and the shorter,- called respectively daito (katana) and shoto (wakizashi) never leave his side.
The Ultimate ideal of knighthood was peace.
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The Training and Position of Woman
A young woman, taken prisoner, seeing herself in danger of violence at the hands of the rough soldiery, says she will obey their pleasure, provided she be first allowed to write a line to her sisters, whom war has dispersed in every direction. When the epistle is finished, off she runs to the nearest well and saves her honour by drowning. The letter she leaves behind ends with these verses: “For fear lest clouds may dim her light, should she but graze this nether sphere, the youngest moon poised above the height, doth hastily betake to flight.”
Until we learn to discriminate between differences and inequalities, there will always be misunderstandings.
The respect man pays to woman has in Western civilization become the chief standard of morality.
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The Influence of Bushido
Bushido had its esoteric and exoteric teachings; these were eudemonic, looking after the welfare and happiness of the commonality; those were aretaic, emphasizing the practice of virtues for their own sake.
Social evolution, in so far as it is other than biological, may be defined as the unintended result of the intentions of great men”; further, that historical progress is produced by a struggle not among the community generally, to live, but a struggle amongst a small section of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the majority in the best way.-Mallock, Aristocracy and Evolution.
Religion is no more than morality touched by emotion.-Matthew Arnold.
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Is Bushido still Alive?
Have you seen in your tour of Japan many a young man with unkempt hair, dressed in shabbiest garb, carrying in his hand a large can or a book, stalking about the streets with an air of utter indifference to mundane things? He is the shosei (student), to whom the earth is too small and the heavens are not high enough. He has his own theories of the universe and of life. He dwells in castles of air and feeds on ethereal words of wisdom. In his eyes beams the fire of ambition; his mind is athirst for knowledge. Penury is only a stimulus to drive him onward; worldly good are in his sight shackles to his character. He is the repository of loyalty and patriotism. He is the self- imposed guardian of national honour. With all his virtues and his faults he is the last fragment of Bushido.
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The Future of Bushido
Callings nobler and broader than a warrior’s claim our attention today. With an enlarged view of life, with the growth of democracy, with better knowledge of other peoples and nations, the Confucian idea of benevolence- dare I also add the Buddhist idea of Pity? - will expand into the Christian conception of love.
The profit and loss philosophy of utilitarian’s and materialists finds favour among logic-choppers with half a soul. The only other ethical system which is powerful enough to cope with utilitarianism and materialism is Christianity.
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Chronology
27-28 May, 1905: The Battle of Tsushima Strait; the Japanese Navy defeats the Russian Baltic fleet at Tsushima Strait, convincing the Russians of the futility of stopping Japanese imperialism in mainland Asia. The battle is followed by peace talks at Portsmouth, NH, which are mediated by POTUS TR.-Bushido by Nitobe.
1603-1868: The Japanese Tokugawa or Edo Period: Japan is under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the nations 300 Daimyo.-Bushido by Nitobe.
Bushido is systematized as an ethical code by Confucian scholars including Yamaga Soko.-Bushido by Nitobe.
1184: The Battle of Sumanoura (aka the second battle of Uji) in Japan.-Bushido by Nitobe.
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