Zen has long had a great influence
upon Japanese culture. Many aspects of this culture are touched upon by Zen
including art, literature, and specific ceremonies such as the one concerning
tea. During the Kamakura period of Japan, another area of culture began to be
affected by Zen; the martial arts of the samurai class.
Somewhere along the line, the samurai
realized the ease with which the monks of Zen Buddhism dealt with issues such
as mortality and then began to seek these methods of discipline for themselves
for the purposes of becoming less concerned with their physical well-being.
However, as D.T. Suzuki noted, it was "not mere recklessness, but
self-abandonment, which is known in Buddhism as a state of
egolessness."
This is the ideal which the samurai warrior sought; a state of being wherein
life and death were meaningless and all that he had to concern himself with was
his duty to his master, or if he was ronin (rogue samurai without a master),
with his duty to his own code of honor.
In order for the Zen master to pass
on this state of mind to the eager to learn samurai, the master had to equate
the state of mushin (empty mind and egolessness) with something familiar to the
warrior. And what is more familiar to a warrior than his weapon, most often a
sword such as a tachi (long-blade), katana, or iaito? From the first time that
a samurai blade is picked up by its owner until the day the owner dies, it is
his goal to so completely master the blade and make it as much a part of him as
his own hand that there is seemingly no effort in using it. As stated by
Takuan, a Zen master from the Tokugawa period, "you must follow the
movement of the sword in the hands of the enemy, leaving your mind free to make
its own counter-movement without your interfering deliberation." Herein
lies the simplicity of Zen teaching in respect to all things, both exceptional
and common; think not, merely do.
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