Bushido, A Historical View, Lesson #1

One of my interests, one of my passions, is Bushido: to read about it, to study it, to practice it (as best one can in a modern context), to write about it, and to teach it as a philosophy to others who are interested in learning of the old ways so that they can apply them, and their heritage, to the new ways. From time to time I will write here about Bushido as I understand it – my view of it – and thus, share my thoughts with you.. Actually, much of what I will write here is from a book I am writing, and which I hope to have finished soon, called The New Bushido: Modern and Ancient Wisdom for the New Samurai. I hope you will enjoy my thoughts and perhaps will find them stimulating.

~A Historical View of Bushido ~

Japanese culture is generally considered unique both by visitors to that country; students of things Japanese, and also by the Japanese people themselves. Such distinctiveness is often times attributed to the geographic location of Japan which is separated from the rest of Asia, notably China and Korea, by the often dangerous waters of the Japan Seas. A further contributor of this “uniqueness” was the policy of sakoku, or isolationism, by the Tokugawa shoguns from 1639 until 1854. In many respects, one of the most powerful historical influences on Japanese culture, even to the present time, has been the long duration of military rule or government in Japan, most notably the Tokugawa shogonates. The evolution of the samurai as an independent, and the dominant class, referring to themselves as bushi (meaning knights or warriors) and their eventual taking over the reins of government from the aristocracy, has had profound cultural and psychological affects on that country’s people, casting great influence on the entirety of Japanese society through its role as ruler and law-giver and through its patronage of much, if not most, cultural and educational activities. Even today, one cannot turn a blind eye to the residual influence of those “Samurai Centuries.” There is a certain irony of the Tokugawa era in that it signified the end to the persistent warfare that had inflicted itself on Japan, but also was the start of an era where there was now time to enjoy material prosperity – recognized by many elders as a weakening of the warrior spirit. In a society where the rulers where, themselves, warriors, the elders could not but interpret the decline of “knighthood” as a threat to the general moral and social order of the nation. It then followed, that a codification of traditional practical philosophies was made a part of the culture of the Tokugawa era.

In this modern day, “Business Is War” is the new cry even as real war becomes again common. It may be seen that much of the isolation problems of the world are due to misinformation and misunderstandings, and at the same time, much that is traditionally Japanese, much of what is missing in other cultures, is under attack or otherwise threatened from without as well as from within. This work is an attempt to reevaluate, and to reaffirm traditional precepts of personal responsibility, family relations, public duties, education, finance, and ethics within a modern context, yet drawing from many of the ancient sources that the original Bushido Shoshinshu drew from including: Zen Buddhism, Confucism, Shinotoism, Taoism, as well as drawing from some Christian ethics and simply contemporary experience.