Samurai

Other important qualities were self-denial and bravery in the face of hardships, and
maybe most valued of all, honor.  If honor was at stake or had somehow been lost, hara-
kiri (seppuku), another part of the samurai spirit and way of life, was the way to save face. 
There are numerous samurai stories that emphasize samurai living out Bushido.  One of
the more famous is about the 47 loyal samurai of Akou.  There are several versions of
this story but under the minor variants, each shows several facets of bushido: loyalty,
self-denial, and honor. 

The story starts with the Grand Master of the Shogun, Kira Yoshinaka, visiting the
daimyo Naganori Asano, the lord of the 47 samurai.  Yoshinaka made fun of Asano’s
lack of etiquette and was simply outright rude to him.  After a few days of this, Asano
made an attempt at Yoshinaka’s life.  He failed to kill him though, so Asano committed
seppuku out of honor.  The 47 samurai under Asano became ronin, unemployed samurai
with no master to serve.  The ronin came up with a brilliant plan though.  Yoshinaka had
spies watching them, so they become bums and drunks for a year until Yoshinaka no
longer considered them a threat.  One year later though, the ronin stormed Yoshinaka’s
castle, killing his guards.  Yoshinaka was given the choice of dying honorably by
committing seppuku but he refused and was killed instead by the 47 samurai.

The samurai as a ruling power may not exist in Japan anymore but the attitude and
character that defined the samurai of the past certainly still exists.  This can be seen in
everything the Japanese do: their sense of loyalty and duty in any of their endeavors, be it
for school or a company–students at cram school still sometimes wear a hachimaki (a
sign of perseverance) across their foreheads; the emphasis on filial piety, of the father
being the head of the household.  School clubs such as kendo, where students study
Japanese sword fighting with wooden swords, and kyudo, archery using a Japanese long-
bow, help keep the samurai spirit alive as well.    

Possibly the best example of self-sacrifice is the kamikaze pilots of World War II.  It
isn’t a knife across the belly, but the Japanese who drove their planes into the U.S. ships
had the same honorable intentions as a samurai committing seppuku and ultimately the
result was the same.  Feudalism may be gone but the ideals introduced by the samurai
remain today.

Footnotes

1.   Turnbull, Stephen.  The Samurai Sourcebook.  Bath Press: Great Britain, 1998.
2.    King, Winston L.  Zen and the Way of the Sword.  Oxford University Press: New York, 1993.