Bushido Part 2: Prepared to die and serve your lord

Sunday 05/05/2024 | 18:40 PM

In this article, I will discuss the mindset: “Be prepared to die as a samurai and think of your lord’s favor as a vassal”. This is considered important in bushido.

Bushido, the teachings of the samurai, required them to be prepared to die at any moment and to always be on their guard, based on the premise that their lives were in the service of their lord.

To put it in extreme terms, this means that one must always be aware of death from the beginning of the year, New Year’s Day. The samurai valued the awareness that their lives were to be used for the sake of those they cared about.

To use a modern-day analogy, if your company (your lord) was in jeopardy, you should make a desperate effort to save it. To prevent the company from getting into trouble in the first place, it is recommended that you constantly act with the company in mind. I also think that we can look at the “lord” in modern times as a family member, friend, or associate, rather than as a company.

If we consider the best thing we can do is to recognize ourselves and to serve those who love us with “compassion,” then we will not have time to worry about someone we don’t know, and we will not have to fight over trivial matters.

If you are prepared to die at any moment, you will know what you should do. This is one of the ways of thinking necessary for your life to end successfully with no regrets remaining.

Bushido is not a way of thinking about death, although many people mistakenly think it is. It is a way of thinking about how to live a good and fulfilling life and to be ready for death when it comes.

I believe that what we need to do today is to live seriously in the present, accept the environment we are in, and give it the best we can. It has been more than 40 years since I was born, and I always live with this idea in mind. The important thing is to be conscious of living for the world and for others.

Based on the points above, I would like to summarize the mindset of the modern way of Bushido that one should be aware of,

  1. Death comes to all
  2. You never know when you will die
  3. Always be aware of “death” and live with gratitude to those around you

I think we can say that these three points are important for bushido theory to survive today.

 

 

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