The samurai class originated as an offshoot or specialization of the aristocracy. Generally speaking, a polygamous upper class normally produced more children than could be absorbed at the same level of society. Furthermore, only one son inherited the full privileges of his father. These factors created natural and social pressures toward differentiation in the career patterns of the scions of the upper classes.
In Japan, as in Europe and elsewhere, those sons of aristocratic fathers who did not inherit their paternal estate commonly became warriors or monastics. In Japan both of these specializations were originally conceived for the protection of the state; the ancient warriors were first called “samurai” or “attendants” because they formed the armed guard of the aristocracy.
Although samurai resistance and storms prevented a Mongol victory, the costs of the campaigns weakened the Japanese military government. In a feudal system such as it was, rewards for military service were customarily given in the form of land grants from expropriated territories. In fending off a foreign invasion, however, no new lands were taken, and there was nothing to plunder, so warriors could not be paid for their services in those forms. Resulting dissatisfaction among the knightly clans who had defended Japan against the Mongol invaders fatally destabilized the regime of the Ten Government of Kamakura, and it finally collapsed in 1333.
The century of civil wars is characterized by Japanese historians as a time of gekokujo, or “those below overcoming those above.” Many of the warlords who emerged during this era were of a new breed, risen from the lower ranks, even from the peasantry. Tokugawa was himself of humbler origins, and when he established himself as the first shogun of the new Tent Government in Edo, his government instituted measures to prevent any further social change or mobility.
One of the most telling moves of the Tokugawa regime was to transform the class system into a caste system. Japanese society had always been hierarchical, but personal and family fortunes rose and fell over the generations. Under the new system, the 4 main classes of warrior, farmer, artisan, and merchant were legally fixed as hereditary castes, whose lifestyles were defined by specific sumptuary laws for each caste.
The Tokugawa system was designed to undermine the possibility of formation of independent warrior bands in the provinces by having the samurai live in the precincts of the castle towns of their lords and receive their stipends in rice, rather than live directly on the land in the countryside.
To compensate psychologically for the urbanization and bureaucratization of the warrior class, martial arts were developed into highly theatrical, philosophically elaborated systems of mental and moral training.
One who is supposed to be a warrior considers it his foremost concern to keep death in mind at all times, every day and every night, from the morning of New Year’s Day through the night of New Year’s Eve.
As long as you keep death in mind at all times, you will also fulfill the ways of loyalty and familial duty. You will also avoid myriad evils and calamities, you will be physically sound and healthy, and you will live a long life. What is more, your character will improve and your virtue will grow.
If people comfort their minds with the assumption that they will live a long time, something might happen, because they think they will have forever to do their work and look after their parents — they may fail to perform for their employers and also treat their parents thoughtlessly.
But if you realize that the life that is here today is not certain tomorrow, then when you take your orders from your employer, and when you look in on your parents, you will have the sense that this may be the last time — so you cannot fail to become truly attentive to your employer and your parents. This is why I say you also fulfill the paths of loyalty and familial duty when you keep death in mind.
In any case, when you forget death and become inattentive, you are not circumspect about things. You may say something offensive to someone and get into an argument. You may challenge something you might as well have ignored, and get into a quarrel.
Or you may stroll about in resorts where you have no business, not avoiding the crowds, where you might bump into some oaf and get into an unexpected brawl. You could lose your own life, get your employer bad publicity, and cause your parents and siblings difficulties.
Parents and employers, familial duty and loyalty — these differ only in name, for there is no difference in the sincerity of the heart. So it is that an ancient is reported to have said, “Look for loyal ministers in homes with filial sons.” There is no such thing as someone who is disrespectful to his parents yet faithful to his employer.
A warrior who wears two swords at his side but does not put the spirit of combat into his heart is nothing but a peasant or a merchant wearing the skin of a warrior.
Acting wrongly and behaving badly is fun and familiar, so they drift toward things that are wrong and bad, and it becomes tiresome for them to do right and foster good.
The complete moron who cannot distinguish good and bad or right and wrong is not even worth talking about. Once you have determined something to be wrong and bad, to avoid demands and justice and do what is wrong is not the attitude of a knight. That is the epitome of the immaturity of modern times. Its origin might be attributed to lack of endurance in people. Lack of endurance sounds all right, but you will find that it comes from cowardice.
For a warrior whose duty is to restrain brigandry, it will not do to act like a brigand yourself.
For a warrior to take pride in being dependable is correct according to the chivalric code. Nevertheless, if you make a show of dependability for no good reason, showing up where you have no business, taking on burdens you shouldn’t trouble yourself with, then you are called a meddler, a busybody; this is not good at all. Even if it is some matter you think you might take some interest in, if you are not asked it is best not to get involved.
However, if they cultivate the arts of war wrongly, they get conceited about their knowledge, looking down on others around them. Spouting high-flown but untrue theories, they mislead the youth and spoil their dispositions. Although they speak words beyond their own capacity that may seem correct and true, in their hearts they are very greedy, always calculating gain and loss. Gradually their character degenerates, and there are those who even lose the mentality of warriorhood altogether. This is an error connected with the half-baked cultivation of military science.
If you are going to study military science, you should not stop halfway. You should practice until you reach the inner secrets, finally to return to original simplicity and live in peace.
A woman who was born in a warrior family and has reached marriageable age would never tolerate being punched if she were a man, but because of her low status as a woman she has no choice but to tearfully endure it. To abuse someone he sees cannot fight back is something a valiant warrior simply does not do. Someone who takes to what valiant warriors reject is called a coward.
Your proper attitude as a knight is not to distance yourself from them, but to keep up good relations and ask after them from time to time. To be an opportunist and a fair-weather friend, honoring the unworthy when you see them thriving and despising the worthy when you see them in decline, is the mentality of peasants and merchants; it is not right for a warrior.
However it may be among peasants and townspeople, a knight who is a skinflint is much despised. That is because someone who disdains to spend money — which is abundant in the world — even for worthy purposes would certainly not freely give up his one and only life. Thus the ancients have said that a miser is another name for a coward.
No matter how eloquent and intelligent you may normally seem to be, if you lose composure on the brink of death and die in an unseemly manner, your previous good conduct will all be in vain, and you will be looked down upon by serious people. This is a very disgraceful thing.
There are two levels of people in service in warrior houses. The low-ranking lackeys and squires are busy day and night, and they work hard, but there is no convention that they have to sacrifice their very lives for the interests of the overlord. Therefore if they act irresolutely on the battlefield, there is no particular opprobrium attachment to that in their case. So they can be called employees who sell only their bodies.
A knight, in contrast, has devoted his very life to service. Because lordship is originally a military office, in case of emergencies a lord is supposed to provide a militia corresponding to his status.
Having borrowed the authority of the overlord, when the knight has fulfilled the needs of the people and taken care of the overlord’s business, he should then return that authority promptly and go about his work discretely with the authority appropriate to his post. If, however, being treated with honor and having power behind him makes him greedy, eventually he winds up keeping the borrowed authority of the overlord. This is called stealing the overlord’s authority.
As people gradually rise in the ranks to watch commander and superintendent, however, their attitude changes. There have been men who were quite good knights when they were of minor rank, but who became unreasonable when they reached major rank, so that they lost favor with their overlords and perished.
If there is anyone who is determined to perform service beyond the capabilities of his colleagues, even at the cost of his life, that is a hundred times better than following the overlord in death. Not only is it good for the overlord, it is also a help to all the members of the establishment, great and small. Such a knight is of the highest grade, with everything needed to be an exemplar of latter-day warriors — loyalty, duty, and courage.
The third way the knight may delude his overlord is to captivate the overlord’s mind with women, claiming that it is good for alliances, and that there is nothing more important than having successors. The possessed knight gathers maids, without concern for their family backgrounds as long they are pretty, and also musicians and dancers, persuading the overlord that he needs relaxation and recreation. Even a naturally intelligent lord is easily seduced by sexuality, to say nothing of a lord who is deficient by nature. Before long he becomes indiscreet and thinks it is fun to play. Inevitably this gradually intensifies, until eventually the overlord is partying day and night, staying in his seraglio and neglecting the affairs of his household and his domain.
The fifth way the knight may delude his overlord takes place when he himself does not care for martial arts in an auspicious era of peace such as this, and so in spite of the fact that there is no way an overlord could be personally unskilled in martial arts, he persuades the overlord that there is no need for military preparations. Since they become accustomed to thinking that everything is fine as long as immediate needs are met, their establishment has none of the character of a house descended from a line of famous generals.
However, if you develop the wrong attitude about education, it usually turns into conceit. You look down on the uneducated and illiterate, and on top of that you develop a bias for exotic things. You think anything that comes from abroad is good, insisting on your prejudices, and you do not recognize that such things are impractical in our country today, even if good in theory.
Regarding the tea room, furthermore, the point is to enjoy a realm of detachment and serenity apart from worldly wealth, status, and glory; thus, no matter how rich people are, or even if they are officials of the central government, in their yards they copy the scenery of the mountains, forests, streams, and valleys. A forlorn austerity in decor is considered fundamental. Even the tea utensils and furnishings are not supposed to be beautiful; the idea is to disdain the materialistic world and just enjoy pure, free naturalness. Thus it seems that this can be a help in mellowing the way of the warrior.