The Way of the Samurai: Selections and Commentaries from the Hagakure - Part One, Everything is in the Present Moment

 The Way of the Samurai

Selections and Commentaries from Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure, the Classic Exposition on Zen and the Japanese Warrior Code of Bushido

Portrait of Yamamoto Tsunetomo

I. Everything is in the Present Moment

"There is nothing outside of the present moment.  Life is nothing but a series of moments following one after another.  If one becomes aware of this fact, there is no reason to be in a hurry and no reason to be searching around for anything.  All one has to do is hold to the present moment and get on with life.  Yet everyone lets the moment slip from their grasp, believing that there is something else over and above the present moment and hunting all around for it, losing their awareness of the here and now.  It takes a lot of practice to learn to hold continually to the present moment and to not let it slip.  However, once one has found this realm, even if one cannot remain in it constantly, it is already the real thing.  If one has truly understood that everything is in this moment, then one's life will become far less complicated.  The loyal heart is completely present in this moment."

                     ~The Hagakure, book two, part seventeen (Barry D. Steben translation, 2008)

Beginning with this first post, I plan to do a series of posts on my favorite "bushido" (or perhaps more accurately, "budo") text, Yamamoto Tsunetomo's Hagakure.  Although I'm also particularly fond of Takuan Soho's The Unfettered Mind and Kaibara Ekiken's Yojokun: Life Lessons from a Samurai, I feel that it's only the Hagakure which consistently delivers gems on each and every page.  Of course - you may well ask - why then did I use an excerpt from the seventeenth part of the second book as my first entry?  Because I think it best encapsulates the Zen message of the Hagakure.

Even though Tsunetomo was a samurai and not a Zen monk until late in life, and even though Takuan Soho was a Zen priest/monk his entire life, I feel as if it's Tsunetomo's work that is more Zen-like, in both its sparseness of writing on certain subjects, and its overall adherence to a very Zennish budo.  Perhaps Tsunetomo was addressing the Hagakure primarily to himself, whereas Takuan's work is written for a samurai - Yagyu Munenori - as correspondence, and thus brings up more/other philosophies that the samurai would have been equally familiar with, such as Confucianism and Shinto.

(NOTE: What follows is not going to be a thorough commentary of the entire passage, as that would suck some of the joy from just reading Tsunetomo without my comments.  But I want to offer comments on passages that can be confusing, or passages where I feel its important for the martial artist/Zennist/budoka to see that there may be much more beneath the surface of Tsunetomo's words than it first appears.  With that said, here goes...)

"There is nothing outside of the present moment."

"There is nothing outside of the present moment" means that the present moment is not just the only place where practice can occur, but it's also in the present moment where you can make advancements in your training, whether that training is in martial arts or in Zen - or simply in any kind of physical training.

Occasionally, in "spiritual" circles, you will hear/read things such as "the present moment is the only thing there is", "all that exists is the present moment", or something that is very similar.  This is usually from an association with - but also a blatant misunderstanding of - Zen Buddhism.  Tsunetomo - and Zen in general -  is not encouraging some kind of pseudo-stoic resignation to Fate.  He is not saying that "there is nothing but the present moment," but, rather, that it's only in the present moment where true budo can be practiced.  The past is already dead and gone - whatever you did, or didn't, do has led you to this moment.  And the future is uncertain - if you are going to shape it, and your life as a budoka, into something that has meaning then it starts right now, at this very moment.

The present is shaped by the past.  The future is shaped by the present.  So it's in the present where we must do our training.

"If one becomes aware of this fact, there is no reason to be in a hurry and no reason to be searching around for anything."

This is the importance of mindfulness - sati, to use the strictly Buddhist term -  when training.  Once you come to the acceptance that it's only in the present moment where progress can be made - and it doesn't really matter whether that progress is in the dojo/dojang or on the meditation cushion - you will have to work on staying in the present moment.  And this staying is the training itself of sati.  And it's also the training of a lifetime!

"It takes a lot of practice to learn to hold continually to the present moment and to not let it slip.  However, once one has found this realm, even if one cannot remain in it constantly, it is already the real thing."

Once a true budoka has discovered the present moment, and has learned to integrate - no matter how feebly, for it takes time to really build up the power of sati in your training - present-moment awareness into daily life, then, at this point, "it is already the real thing."

What does this mean?  This "already the real thing"?  It means that you have discovered what is the really real.  And thus, even when you forget to be mindful, it won't stay forgotten, for you know that there is more than just this ephemeral world.

At this point, even when you occasionally forget your mindfulness, you know that you will come back to it.  It will become your safe haven, and it will also be your beacon, so that in remembering to mindful, the light of the beacon will always lead you back to the really real, and then lead you back to your true Self.