What is BUSHIDO? Loyalty, Honor, Respect, Courage, Honesty, Righteousness - Tea Ceremony Experiences in Japan MAIKOYA (2023)

What is the Bushido Code?

Bushido is the way of the warrior, the samurai code of feudal Japan that promoted the importance of loyalty, honor and martial arts. The Bushido philosophy refers to not fearing death and dying for bravery. It is sometimes criticized for not respecting human life.

Based on the book by Inazo NitobeBushido, the lives of samurai warriors were governed by7 principles called Bushido. These 7 rules wereJustice, Loyalty, Honor, Respect, Honesty, Courage and Consistency.

1. Justice (義gi). Justice is the most important virtue for the samurai. A true samurai will not attack the enemy without good reason.
2. loyalty (chūgi loyalty).Loyalty is the second most important thing in life. The samurai must always be loyal to his master. The samurai must also believe that his duty to protect his master is the meaning of life.
3. Honra (Honra Meiyo).A life without honor is no life. If a samurai makes a mistake, he must honor his name by committing suicide. (Example: The Tale of 47 Samurai (the Ako Incident).
4. Respect (礼 king). A samurai must always respect his enemy. A samurai respects his opponent before and after combat. Even when a samurai kills his opponent, he has great respect for the corpse.
5. Honesty (Makoto sei).A samurai never lies. "Deception" doesn't exist in a samurai's book.
6. Mut (永 yū).A samurai fights to the end. A samurai is not afraid of anything. He is not afraid of death. A samurai is always brave because he is fighting for something he believes in.
7. Consistency (Makoto).A samurai never changes his path. He is like a dragonfly, he is always moving forward, never turning back.

The Book of Bushido

Bushido has always existed and thought about itHarakiri e Seppukuby samurai for centuries. However, the term was coined in the early 1900s by a Harvard scholar, Inazo Nitobe, who came from a samurai family. Anycriticizedthis book as a propaganda tool for suicide bombings during World War II. Some from Nitobe said they were

• "Bushido. The sense of honor that cannot bear to be belittled as a lesser power was the strongest motive.”
• "Human life has sorrows;" "He who meets must part" "He who is born must die"
• "Shame is like a scar on a tree that only grows with time instead of dying out." Menzius"
• “Tranquility is courage at rest. It is a static manifestation of value, as bold acts are dynamic. A truly brave man is always serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing disturbs his equanimity of mind.
• “A really brave man is always composed; he is never surprised; nothing can shake his equanimity of mind. In the heat of battle, he keeps his cool; amidst disasters, he keeps his mind clear. Earthquakes don't shake him, he laughs at storms.
• "Underneath the instinct to fight hides a divine instinct to love."
• "Pity, which is considered one of the two chariot wheels of Japanese ethics - loyalty is the other."

Bushido and not afraid of death

One of the most important aspects of bushido is accepting the fact that the samurai will die on the battlefield and the day of death may come very soon. The samurai's life is like the life of a sakura tree: beautiful, glorious, but short-lived.Das Buch Hagakureis the oldest record of Bushido talking about thedeath triviaas follows

• “Bushido is performed in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other justification.”
• "Unless a warrior is bound by life and death, he is of no use. The saying "all faculties come from one mind" seems to have to do with sentient matters, but it is really about not being bound by life and death. death. With such detachment, one can achieve any achievement.”
• “Human life is indeed a short affair. It's better to live with the things you like. It's silly to live in that dream of a world that sees inconvenience and only does things you don't like."
• “The way of the samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be done daily. Every day, when the body and mind are at peace, one should meditate on being torn apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, being carried away by violent waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightning. , being shaken to death by a massive earthquake, falling off cliffs thousands of feet high, dying of illness, or committing seppuku after one's master dies. And every day you should definitely think that you are dead. This is the substance of the samurai way.” (From the movie Ghost Dog adapted from the book Hagakure)
• “It's a good point of view to see the world as a dream. If you're having some sort of nightmare, you'll wake up and tell yourself it was just a dream. They say the world we live in is no different from this one.” (From the film Ghost Dog, adapted from the book Hagakure)
• “Surely there is nothing but the sole purpose of the present moment. A person's whole life is a series of moments. When you completely understand the present moment, there is nothing left to do and nothing left to pursue.” (From the film Ghost Dog, adapted from the book Hagakure)

Traces of Bushido: 400 Years of Samurai Blood in Kyoto

In 1600, the largest army in western Japan left Osaka and headed north to fight the Tokugawa. Kyoto's Fushimi Castle, controlled by Tokugawa ally Mototada, was on its way. Mototada Castle was surrounded by this army, which is an enemy of Tokugawa, but it fought hard. They held out for days without outside help. However, the castle eventually fell and Mototada was killed. His men, about 380 samurai, did not want to surrender. So they ended their lives Bushido-style. So many samurai committed seppuku (hara-kiri) in the same room.

This temple is located opposite Kyoto Station and close to Sanju San Gen Do.

Blood was all over the floor and the castle was destroyed. Tokugawa Ieyasu asked villagers to take the pieces of wood soaked in samurai blood and distribute them to 7 nearby temples for people to pray for the deceased. Yogen In, which is not far from Kyoto Station, has blood caps similar to the ones in this photo. Yogen In also has many wooden pillars and structures originally used in Fushimi Castle.

Bushido Traits: 47 Samurai

The True Story of 47 Samurai perfectly encapsulates the Bushido values ​​of loyalty, honor and perseverance. This is the incident where 47 samurai were accused of seppuku for avenging their master. In 1701, Asano, a daimyo representing the Ako region, was insulted by a powerful official of the Tokugawa shogunate while visiting Edo Castle. Officer Kira insulted him for not being bribed by Asano. Faced with a series of insults, Asano couldn't contain himself and attacked Kira, injuring him in the face. Within hours, Asano was convicted and sentenced to seppuku for assaulting a government official in the shogunate. His execution took place on the same day.

The "Oniga-Wara" on the tiles of Sengakuji Temple. The temple is located near the Shinagawa high-speed station.

The burial ground of the 47 ronin who were forced to commit seppuku. The cemetery is at Sen Gokuji Temple.

Asano's 47 men swore to avenge their master, knowing that if they touched Kira they would all be executed. At the same time, they were suspected of doing something out of revenge and were pursued by Kira's spies. The leader of the 47 samurai spent some time in Kyoto and reportedly visited the Ichiriki Chaya geisha house on Hanamikoji Street. After a year and a half of waiting, the 47 samurai finally attacked Kira's residence in Edo. They captured Kira and killed him using the same word used for their master's seppuku. They themselves returned and the government decided that everyone should end their own lives by committing seppuku (hara-kiri).

The youngest ronin was discharged to keep the samurai blood and tell the people of Ako what happened in Edo. The tombs of the ronin are located at Sengakuji Temple near Shinagawa Station in Tokyo. A special memorial service is held at the temple every year in mid-December.

don't giveBuch Bushido, Alex Bennett emphasizes the 3 distinct periods in samurai history where the meaning of bushido changed

"In general, warlike ideals in Japan developed in three distinct phases:

• The warrior ethos before the Edo period (before 1600), an ideology forged in an environment of constant warfare. (The reader should note, however, that the term "bushido" did not yet exist!)
• Intellectual bushido was developed primarily by Confucius and military scholars during the Edo period (1603-1868), a prolonged period of relative peace when the warrior spirit returned to self-cultivation to maintain social order.
• The modern repackaging of bushido in the Meiji period (1868-1912) and beyond. This phase represents a dramatic reinterpretation of samurai culture in the formulation of a new Japanese national identity. To this day, many Japanese associate bushido with the Japanese and as the source of their noblest national characteristics.”

Review:

Many scholars have suggested using the Book of Nitobe as a handbook for Imperial Army soldiers to strengthen their nationalistic views and eliminate their fear of death so that they can easily carry out kamikaze attacks. Even today, Karo-ishi (death from overwork) is associated with the Bushido spirit, where one must obey superiors without judgment and place the honor of the company above all else. The following excerpts are from O. Yukie's dissertation

• Raised by their parents, who were people of Meiji Japan, both Kamikaze and Nisei soldiers maintained Japanese moral discipline, whether they were in Japan or the United States. First, they had a similar educational background. Through Shushin (moral education) courses, they learned Japanese virtues based on the Kyoiku Chokugo (Imperial Educational Rescript).”
• “Second, they shared similar cultural values ​​– filial piety and loyalty to the nation – that they inherited from their parents. Third, they have culturally adopted Bushido as a code of conduct and way of life for self-enlightenment.”
• “After all, they followed Confucianism, which taught respect for parents and superiors, duty to family and loyalty to friends. The concept of filial piety, loyalty, and patriotism played a crucial role in preparing not only young Japanese soldiers, but also Nisei soldiers to lay down their lives for the countries they owed. For these reasons, I have come to the conclusion that the distinctionJapanese cultureinstrumental in creating these two unforgettable volunteer units that exposed their soldiers to extraordinary dangers.”

Updated page:May 25, 2022