Large Fierce Mammal

Apply yourselves or I will SMITE you!

Miyamoto Musashi‘s teachings come down to us today through his Book of Five Rings, a short but very pointed bit of work that exists on store shelves in a variety of translations, most of which are little more than exercises in linguistics rather than being true interpretations rendered from any meaningful foundation of martial understanding. To my mind, the absolute best interpretation, bar none as of this date, is The Book of Five Rings – The Definitive Interpretation of Musashi’s Classic Book by Hanshi Stephen F. Kaufman. My own copy was published in 1994, has been re-read annually since then, and each year the Large Fierce Mammal who reads it is not the one of the year before. Seen in the light cast by another year of life, study, experience, and reflection, every year a new layer of enlightenment is added as Musashi, through Kaufman, speaks to the latest iteration of me. I’m presently in the midst of my 2012 foray into it, and unreservedly recommend its inclusion in everyone’s must read list. Where the words of Musashi are quoted in what follows, that was the source.

Musashi was perhaps the greatest swordsman who ever lived, and yet it would be a mistake to approach the Book of Five Rings as a guide to learning the most efficient methodology for killing with a sword. Likewise, it would be completely erroneous to say that what lies within its slim covers represents a bloody minded treatise born of an archaic mindset wherefrom ruthless extermination awaits anyone or anything that stands in our way. Being a swordsman, Musashi speaks from a swordsman’s perspective, but what he has to teach far transcends the narrow focus of physical conflict resolution by cold steel. His Truth is no dusty anachronism. In his words –

A man cannot understand the perfection and imperfections of his chosen art if he cannot see the value in other arts. Following rules only permits development up to a point in technique; to advance further the student and artist must learn and seek other knowledge. It makes sense to study other arts as well as those of strategy. Who has not learned something more about themselves by watching the activities of others? To learn the sword, study the guitar. To learn the fist, study commerce. To only study the sword will make you narrow-minded and will keep you from growing outward.

We live in a world where bullshit and glossy appearances are celebrated over substance. Where the reality of accomplishment through rigorous study is eschewed in favour of a superficial, quick fix approach to every endeavour by which one may learn to talk the talk well enough to tap dance around any necessity to ever be called upon to walk the walk. Now, as always, false teachers abound who promise this kind of success in exchange for a fee, and that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is no kind of success you should want anything to do with; neither as a practitioner nor as one who willingly accepts it on its own terms. In the lifelong pursuit of  that one who is the best version of you that you can possibly be, you owe it to you to be absolutely relentless in learning how to recognize its falsehood in others, but most importantly in yourself, and to be ruthless in cutting it out of your life with unflinching commitment and resolve. To quote Musashi again,

It is important to realize that technique is not the end of an art. Those good in technique, regardless of the art they pursue, are not necessarily able to teach the true meaning of an art. Beginning students who do not know this and think they are being brought to the threshold of understanding are not to blame so much as those who teach without understanding the inner and the outer worlds of the art of which they profess to be masters.It is useless for people who look good in play competition to think in terms of being masters. They appear to understand and as a result permit their own self-importance to convince them that they are bearers of the truth. Only through a constant search from within, based on one’s own lifestyle, can the truth be known. It is absolutely a personal thing. Commercialism does nothing to enhance the reality of truth, although it can lead one to the start of the path.

When a person achieves what passes for success today, it is said that they have “arrived”, as though their journey has ended, and their status is to be admired. The yardstick that measures such success is made of treasure and property, and the power they represent is the power to consume, without fear of limitation or consequence. Few today are of the sort who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps and never forget where they came from. Who continually strive to be a better creature of Nature than they were yesterday, and measure themselves against that one rather than anyone else. Who truly seek understanding of the Truths that lie outside the artificial constructs of men, and express them through their passions. Who bring those passions to everything they do.

The art and meaning of truly striving is lost in a society that has managed to infuse the next generation of people, those who will be expected to do the work that needs doing, with an expectation of instant, easy success, mostly by permitting them to pass through the public education system on the basis of work that was “good enough”, if it was done at all. Likewise, “education” has been permitted to assume the mantle of a sentence one is forced to serve before the fun starts, rather than the lifelong, joyful process it’s supposed to be. Worst of all, in schools full of mediocrity, lacklustre has been rebranded and sold as the new excellent.

We see a symptom of this in the fact that fast food counters are staffed by a seemingly endless succession of rude, listless, resentful children who, in spite of an exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement, can’t be relied upon to perform the simplest of tasks free from constant supervision because far too many of them are employed under protest against the unfairness of the world. Another is the commonly held view that spending money year after year on losing lottery tickets represents a valid expression of investment in one’s future, and still another, that the “reality show” genre is real entertainment instead of something to be ridiculed out of existence.

I’m reminded of the words of the second Spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol –

This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

Sadly, amid the clamour kicked up by the inadequate in their flailing pursuit of wealth and fame, and yet illuminated all too clearly by recent history and ongoing events, is another grim indicator – that being a director or CEO of a powerful corporation doesn’t mean you have any idea what you’re doing, and being wealthy doesn’t mean you’re smart or even particularly intelligent. As often as not, wealth and position come from fortunes of birth or death, marrying money, being well connected, how good you look naked, who you’re willing to have sex with, or any combination of those together. As Musashi said –

Everything is for sale, including men’s souls. A man cannot understand the art he is studying if he only looks for the end result without taking the time to delve deeply into the reasoning of the study. There is no purpose in trying to determine if one is better than another. If anything is anything, then everything is everything.

Coming from more modern times, I hear echoes of Musashi’s words in those of Martin Luther King, Jr. –

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Be where you are and be content there, but with the understanding that you will only ever be there in that moment. Be motivated to strive in pursuit of your Truth, and not out of dissatisfaction with the one you think you know. Measure not your Truth against that of others.

Apply yourself.