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The Way of the Modern Ronin, Part 15

 Essays and Thoughts on The Dokkodo
Part Fifteen
Do Not Hold Onto Possessions You No Longer Need



By this point in our commentary on The Dokkodo, you know the drill.  There is always something more to Musashi's work than at first glance.  Even for native readers in Japan, Musashi can seem paradoxical, quizzical in something akin to how a Zen koan might take a period of time to wrap one's thoughts around the nature of what is being read.  But this is even more so for those of us reading an imprecise English translation.  Once you couple this with the fact that Musashi seems so ancient to our time and day, hopefully you begin to see how one can't just dismiss Musashi as being outdated, or how you must not be so quick to translate Musashi into a meaning that you want his words to have.  That might make it more comfortable for us, but it's not going to bring about the changes that Musashi prescribes for us as modern martial artists.


Let's look at a couple of different translations aside from the one I used to help flesh out the meaning Musashi is getting at with this "basic" advice.


David K. Groff translates it as, "Do not hold on to old equipment in order to pass it down to posterity."


And Roshi Richard Collins translates it as, "Do not possess ancient objects intended to be preserved for the future."


With all three translations in mind, we can begin to see the depth of meaning Musashi has intended for the budoka.  The first, and the one I chose, of course, is very straightforward.  (While the reasons for not holding onto possessions are multi-disciplinary for the practitioner of Budo and/or Zen, the meaning is straightforward.)  Here, it is most about learning to let go of that which the budoka no longer needs.  One is keeping the items, clothing, weapons, or whatnot out of clinging, not because they are needed any longer.  Clinging to items that are longer needed is more akin to hoarding than it is "collecting."  The hoarder is about as far away as you can get from the warrior of budo.  While the budoka may have trouble with letting go, she also knows its necessity.  So it is not just physical items that need letting go, but ideas, thoughts, feelings, sensations, or any other thing that we tend to cling to.  And they must be let go of because, in so doing, one's mind can become clear, spacious, luminous, and free of worry or thought.  This allows the martial artist with such a mind to practice in a way that is spacious, luminous, free, etc.  This is the mind of a budoka who can practice with mushin, the very mind that Musashi extolls at the end of his Go Rin No Sho in the Book entitled "Void" or "Emptiness" (depending on translation).


The second two translations are closer to one another than they are to the first translation, and here it is clear that the budoka is not "hoarding" but is "collecting."  And the problem with this is that the budoka could convince herself that it is somehow not just "okay," but is even necessary in order for future generations to have these family, or martial-school, items.  But Musashi would say that this is just an excuse for not being able to let go.  The great sword-saint himself gave away all of his possessions at the age of 60, then retreated to a cave in order to write the Book of Emptiness that ends the Go Rin No Sho.  Some may be of the opinion that he did this because he also was aware that his death was approaching, but I don't believe this to be true.  He gave away all of his possessions because he could not attain the "no-thought," "no-mind" of mushin unless he not only let go of thoughts, opinions, theories, ideas, and so on, but also let go of the physical things in his life. He knew that his physical possessions, for the very reason that he did want to keep them, would hold him back from achieving his true desire of being a great samurai.  I also find it interesting that he let go of these possessions in order to pass down something even greater: his written works.  Because of this, you and I are able to reach back through time and place to read his works.  In this way, we all possess Musashi, and that, I believe, is exactly what Musashi had in mind.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think he ever would have thought that his works would have lasted this long, but he did want future budoka of his sword-school to be able to have his written words.  This is a possession that we can hold on to, and one that the martial world will always need.

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  1. Magnificent GREEN BodyFebruary 10, 2023 at 1:46 PM

    Hi Sloan, at 1st glance I thought "The Dokkodo" was a graphic novel but your essay got me interested. I tried googling the book to find it and I saw a variety of books with the same title but none with the image you posted on this post. Your interpretation of the book is very interesting and would like to take a gander at it myself. Any suggestion of where to get a hold of the book would be helpful.

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    Replies
    1. C.S. SloanFebruary 10, 2023 at 8:51 PM

      First, thanks for your interest in my commentary on The Dokkodo. As far as the image accompanying this post, I created it myself using Canva as the design tool. There are quite a few translations of The Dokkodo, and as I mention in this post, and others in my series, they can be quite different, as well! I like David K. Groff's translation, which you can find in his "Book of 5 Rings" translation. However, my personal advice is to acquire the book "No Fear Zen: Discovering Balance in an Unbalanced World" by Roshi Richard Collins (who is the abbot of the New Orleans Zen Temple). I quote from Collins extensively in my various posts on The Dokkodo, but the 2nd half of "No Fear Zen" is a translation, and commentary, of the work by Collins. His translation is good, and his commentary is even better since he's not a martial artist but a Zen Buddhist monk.

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