who had pulled them apart were banished.
In Yui Shosetsu's military instructions, 'The Way of the Three Ultimates,' there is a passage on the character of karma.' He received an oral teaching of about eighteen chapters concerning the Greater Bravery and the Lesser Bravery. He neither wrote them down nor committed them to memory but rather forgot them completely. Then, in facing real situations, he acted on impulse and the things that he had learned became wisdom of his own. This is the character of karma.
When faced with a crisis, if one puts some spittle on his earlobe and exhales deeply through his nose, he will overcome anything at hand. This is a secret matter. Furthermore, when experiencing a rush of blood to the head, if one puts spittle on the upper part of one's ear, it will soon go away.
Tzu Ch'an was on the point of death when someone asked him how to govern the country. He replied:
There is nothing that surpasses ruling with benevolence. However, to put into practice enough benevolent governing to rule the country is difficult. To do this lukewarmly will result in neglect. If governing with benevolence is difficult, then it is best to govern strictly. To govern strictly means to be strict before things have arisen, and to do things in such a way that evil will not arise. To be strict after the evil has arisen is like laying a snare. There are few people who will make mistakes with fire after having once been burned. Of people who regard water lightly, many have been drowned.
A certain man said, 'I know the shapes of Reason and of Woman.' When asked about this, he replied, 'Reason is four-cornered and will not move even in an extreme situation. Woman is round. One can say that she does not distinguish between good and evil or right and wrong and tum- bles into any place at all.'
The basic meaning of etiquette is to be quick at both the beginning and end and tranquil in the middle. Mitani Chizaemon heard this and said, 'That's just like being a kaishaku.
Fukae Angen accompanied an acquaintance of his to the priest Tesshu of Osaka, and at first said privately to the priest, 'This man aspires to study Buddhism and hopes to receive your teaching. He is a man of rather high determination.''
Soon after the interview the priest said, 'Angen is a man who does harm to others. He said that this man is a good man, but wherein is his goodness? There was no goodness visible to Tesshu's eyes. It is not a good idea to praise people carelessly. When praised, both wise and foolish become prideful. To praise is to do harm.'
When Hotta Kaga no kami Masamori was a page to the shogun, he was so headstrong that the shogun wished to test what was at the bottom of his heart. To do this, the shogun heated a pair of tongs and placed them in the hearth. Masamori's custom was to go to the other side of the hearth, take the tongs, and greet the master. This time, when he unsuspectingly picked up the tongs, his hands were immediately turned. As he did obeisance in his usual manner, however, the shogun quickly pot up and took the tongs from him.
A certain person said, 'When a castle is being surrendered, as long as there are one or two men within it who are determined to hold on, the defending forces will not be of one accord, and in the end no one will hold the castle. 'In the taking of the castle, if when the man who is to receive it approaches and the one or two men who are determined to hold on to it lightly fire on him from the shadows, the man will be alarmed and the battle will be on. In such a case, even though it is unwillingly done, the castle will have to be stormed. This is called being forced to besiege a castle by those besieged.'
The Buddhist priest Ryozan wrote down some generalities concerning Takanobu's battles. A certain priest saw this and criticized him, saying, 'It is inappropriate for a priest to write about a military commander. No matter how successful his writing style may be, since he is not acquainted with military things, he is liable to be mistaken in understanding a famous general's mind. It is irreverent to pass on misconceptions concerning a famous general to later generations.'
A certain person said, 'In the Saint's mausoleum there is a poem that goes: If in one's heart
He follows the path of sincerity, Though he does not pray Will not the gods protect him? What is this path of sincerity?'
A man answered him by saying, ''You seem to like poetry. I will answer you with a poem. As everything in this world is but a shame, Death is the only sincerity.
It is said that becoming as a dead man in one's daily living is the following of the path of sincerity.'
If you cut a face lengthwise, urinate on it, and trample on it with straw sandals, it is said that the skin will come off. This was heard by the priest Gyojaku when he was in Kyoto. It is information to be treasured.
One of Matsudaira Sagami no kami's retainers went to Kyoto on a matter of debt collection and took up lodgings by renting living quarters in a townhouse. One day while standing out front watching the people go by, he heard a passer-by say, 'They say that Lord Matsudaira's men are involved in a fight right now.' The retainer thought, 'How worrisome that some of my companions are involved in a fight. There are some men to relieve those at Edo staying here. Perhaps these are the men involved.' He asked the passer-by of the location, but when he arrived out of breath, his companions had already been cut down and their adver- saries were at the point of delivering the coup de grace. He quickly let out a yell, cut the two men down, and returned to his lodgings.
This matter was made known to an official of the shogunate, and the man was called up before him and questioned. 'You gave assistance in your companions' fight and thus disregarded the government's ordinance. This is true beyond a doubt, isn't it?'
The man replied, 'I am from the country, and it is difficult for me to understand everything that Your Honor is saying. Would you please repeat that?'
The official got angry and said, 'Is there something wrong with your ears? Didn't you abet a fight, commit bloodshed, disregard the government's ordinance, and break the law?'
The man then replied, 'I have at length understood what you are saying. Although you say that I have broken the law and disregarded the government's ordinance, I have by no means done so. The reason for this is that all living things value their lives, and this goes without saying for human beings. I, especially, value my life. However, I thought that to hear a rumor that one's friends are involved in a fight and to pretend not to hear this is not to preserve the Way of the Samurai, so I ran to the place of action. To shamelessly return home after seeing my friends struck down would surely have lengthened my life, but this too would be disregarding the Way. In observing the Way, one will throw away his own precious life. Thus, in order to preserve the Way of the Samurai and not to disregard the Samurai Ordinances, I quickly threw away my life at that place. I beg that you execute me immediately.' The official was very impressed and later dismissed the matter, communicating to Lord Matsudaira, 'You have a very able samurai in your service. Please treasure him.'
This is among the sayings of the priest Banker. 'Not to borrow the strength of another, nor to rely on one's own strength; to cut off past and future thoughts, and not to live within the everyday mind… then the Great Way is right before one's eyes.'
Lord Soma's family genealogy, called the Chiken marokashi, was the best in Japan. One year when his mansion suddenly caught fire and was burning to the ground, Lord Soma said, 'I feel no regret about the house and all its furnishings, even if they burn to the very last piece, because they are things that can be replaced later on. I only regret that I was unable to take out the genealogy, which is my family's most precious treasure.' There was one samurai among those attending him who said, 'I will go in and take it out.'
Lord Soma and the others all laughed and said, 'The house is already engulfed in flames. How are you going to take it out?'
Now this man had never been loquacious, nor had he been particularly useful, but being a man who did things from beginning to end, he was engaged as an attendant. At this point he said, 'I have never been of use to my master because I'm so careless, but I have lived resolved that someday my life should be of use to him. This seems to be that time.'' And he leapt into the flames.
After the fire had been extinguished the master said, ''Look for his remains. What a pity!''
Looking everywhere, they found his burnt corpse in the garden adjacent to the living quarters. When they turned it over, blood flowed out of the stomach. The man had cut open his stomach and placed the genealogy inside and it was not damaged at all. From this time on it was called the 'Blood Genealogy.'
According to a certain person's story, 'In the tradition of the I Ching, it is a mistake to think that it is something for divination. Its essence is non-divination. This can be seen by the tact that the Chinese character 'I' is read as 'change.' Although one divines good fortune, if he does evil it will become bad fortune. And although he divines bad fortune, if he does good it will become good fortune.
'Confucius' saying, 'By setting myself to the task for many years and in the end learning change [I], I should
