Winning without Fighting — Learning from the Samurai “No-Sword School” and Zen Meditation
Let's stop fighting with ourselves — and accept ourselves as we are.
Samurai Ideal
Etymologically, the word “samurai” originates from the Classical Japanese verb “saburau,” meaning “to serve.” Who do Samurai serve? Their masters, the feudal lords. A fighter without a master to protect him is called a “rōnin,” a word people who are familiar with the movie “47 Rōnin” with Keanu Reeves might know.
The Hollywood version was modified greatly from the original story, but the film is about 47 rōnin who have lost their lord due to a political conflict. They get revenge on their political enemy even though they know they will be ordered to commit harakiri suicide by the shogunate.
Generally, this story is highly respected among Japanese people as a representative example showing what an ideal samurai is like. They maintained their loyalty to their lord. However, I personally don’t like this story, because it beautifies the death of Samurai. I think that 47 rōnin should have killed neither their enemy nor themselves.
I firmly believe that fighting doesn’t cause any good in any circumstance. However, a Samurai was a professional on the battlefield. They had to fight against other Samurai, didn’t they? In fact, ideally speaking, the answer is NO. But then why do Samurai always carry a sword?
Various Swords in Buddhist Traditions
It is said that the sword is the “soul of a Samurai,” and there are several reasons why. For Samurai, the sword is not just a tool to harm people. It is also considered a symbolic tool for self-cultivation. D.T.Suzuki describes two functions of the samurai sword:
(1) The sword that destroys anything that opposes the will of its owner. This is called “the sword of killing” and led to the devilish force (e.g., militarism).
(2) The sword that sacrifices all the impulses that arise from the instinct of self-preservation. This is called “the sword of life” and associated with the sacred force (e.g., loyalty). Samurai were supposed to protect their lord before trying to protect themselves.
According to Suzuki, (1) has to be controlled by (2). In order to accomplish this task, strong will-power and self-cultivation are needed. That is why Samurai practiced Zen strongly, and some of them became well-known Zen masters (D.T.Suzuki. Zen and Japanese Culture, p. 89).
This idea applies to people in the modern world as well. The sword can be understood as a metaphor to express our conscience or will to overcome negative psychological states. Our psychology can be affected by unfortunate incidents or people who have bad intentions. We are also attacked by undesirable impulses such as anger and greed that can devastate our lives. We need to triumph over all these negative factors.
No-Sword School
However, attacking back against negative psychological states doesn’t result in the best solution. Struggling to become a better state often results in reinforcing another conflict. What can we do then?
The Japanese word “bushi,” which indicates both a Samurai and a rōnin (samurai without a master to protect) is written in Kanji (Shino-Japanese characters) as 武士. The second character means a person. Then what the first character means is:
Therefore, Samurai originally meant “a person stopping to use a sword.” Ideally, with the sword of life mentioned above, Samurai are brave enough to control themselves to avoid unnecessary conflicts. Here is a famous story by Tsukahara Bokuden:
Bokuden was crossing Lake Biwa in a boat with a rough-looking samurai who was bragging of his martial prowess to all the passengers who would listen. Bokuden sat as if dozing and ignored the man.
The angry Samurai noticed that it was well-known sword-master Bokuden. He challenged him — Bokuden tried to ignore him, but finally agreed to go to an island to fight where no bystanders could get hurt.
As they landed on the island, the braggart jumped off the boat, drew his sword and was ready for combat.
Suddenly Bokuden took the oar, and pushed off, leaving the angry Samurai stranded. Bokuden, smiling as he rowed into deeper water, remarked, “This is my ‘no-sword’ school.” (D.T.Suzuki. Zen and Japanese Culture. pp. 74–5.)
The motto of Bokuden’s no-sword school is “winning without fighting.” It is the ideal spirit of Samurai. He reached this level after training for long years and having enough experience on the battlefield.
“No-Sword School” in the Modern World?
Ok, that sounds good. But it sounds like a difficult task to defeat internal and external conflicts without fighting. We live in a modern world that is similar to a battlefield. We always get into conflicts with other people in this competitive society. How can we practice this “no-sword” tactic in our modern life?
Fortunately, we still have the opportunity to perform meditative traditions such as Zen, mindfulness, and others. These meditative techniques have worked throughout history because they are universal methods for human growth, i.e., expanding awareness. By performing Zen meditation, we become mindful of our impulsive motivations. In other words, we don’t lose ourselves because we keep distance from the devilish force.
Yesterday I was attacked by anger when a reckless driver on the highway suddenly cut me off. Because I always perform Zen meditation, I was able to be aware of the moment of getting angry — and then the anger was no longer mine. It just disappeared with no effect on my psychology. I triumphed over my anger without fighting.
Likewise, we can stop struggling with any psychological conflict by just observing our thoughts and emotions. Our psychological suffering is caused by friction between “what we want” and “what we are.” When we compare our undesirable states and desired state, we are often dissatisfied in recognizing a gap between an ideal and reality.
We often say to ourselves: “I wish I were better,” “I hate myself!” “This isn’t supposed to be like this…,” and so on. We keep struggling like that. How can we stop this habitual way of thinking? As long as we wish to become something other than what we are, our psychological battle will continue.
Therefore, we need to deal with the psychological issue of the Samurai “No-Sword” attitude. We should stop fighting with ourselves!! Instead, we should accept ourselves as we are!!
Conclusion
We live in a world that is full of information, technology, and distractions. Yet, we can live like a Samurai because samurai ethics, as discussed above, is a universal principle flowing throughout history.
The practices of Zen Buddhism are methods to achieve the principle and bridge between the Samurai and us. The Samurai’s ideal attitude of “winning without fighting” can be compared to the Zen or mindfulness practice of “letting go off thoughts and emotions” — both are great methods to resolve internal and external conflicts.
By performing Zen meditative practice regularly, we will eventually possess the sword of life or sword of cutting the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom, carries the sword of cutting all defilements:
And Mahāvairocana, the cosmic Buddha, has the symbolic sword of cutting dualistic thinking. S/he has no physical sword, but itself IS the sword of overcoming the world of duality.
When we overcome an illusionary cognition based on duality, we can realize that the conflict with other external factors is actually a reflection of our internal conflict. Therefore, by resolving the internal friction, we can avoid unnecessary struggles with external factors.
At that time, we will master the bushidō, “the way of the samurai” that maintains the Way (Dao), Zen mind, non-duality, principle, or whatever it is called. We will then become the master of life in the modern world as well.
Finally, we become one with the sword of enlightenment. That is the ultimate Way of happiness.
