SAMURAI

WISDOM
 Thomas Cleary
SAMURAI
WISDOM
Lessons From Japan’s Warrior Culture

Five Classic Texts on Bushido

TUTTLE PUBLISHING
Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with
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Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Cleary All rights reserved. No part of this

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Samurai wisdom : lessons

from Japan’s warrior culture / translated by Thomas Cleary. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.).
ISBN 978-0-8048-4008-8 (hardcover)
1. Bushido--Early works to 1800. 2. Military art and science--Japan--Early
works to 1800. 3. Martial arts--Japan--Early works to 1800. I. Cleary, Thomas F.,
1949-II. Tsugaru, Kodo, 1682-1729. Buji teiyo. English. III. Yamaga, Takatsune,
1650-1713. Budo teiyo. English. IV. Yamaga, Soko, 1622-1685. Selections.
English. 2009.
BJ971.B8S24 2009
170’.440952--dc22
2008036913

ISBN 978-0-8048-4008-8

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 Contents
INTRODUCTION

Bushido: The Way of the Samurai Warrior ...9

BOOK ONE: The Way of the Knight

By Yamaga Soko

1. Establishing the Basis... 34

2. Aspiring to the Way ... 36

3. Striving to Put Aspiration into Practice ...37

4. Mental Techniques: Cultivating Mood and Maintaining Will...

38

5. Distinguishing Righteousness from Profiteering ...46

6. Making Peace with Destiny ...48

7. Integrity ...50

8. Honesty ...52

9. Firmness and Constancy ...53

10. Refining Character and Perfecting Ability, Devotion to

Loyalty and Filial Piety ...54

11. Rely on Humanity and Justness ...58

12. Thoroughly Understanding Things ...60

13. Broad Study ...62

14. Self-Examination and Self-Discipline ...64

15. Detailing Dignified Manners; Unfailing Respectfulness
...65

16. Circumspection in Looking and Listening ...69

17. Circumspection in Speech ...71

18. Be Careful of Appearances ...81

19. Moderating Consumption of Food and Drink ...96

20. Dignified Housing Design ...106

21. Clarifying the Uses of Implements ...116

22. Dignified Manners in Ceremonial Functions ...123

23. Circumspection in Daily Activities: General Discussion of

Everyday Affairs ...126

24. Correcting a Day’s Activities ...127

25. Use of Money; Ethics of Receiving and Giving ...130

26. Prudence at Parties ...132

BOOK TWO: The Warrior’s Rule

By Tsugaru Kodo-shi

I. The Basis of Order ...136

1. Martial Virtues ...136

2. Warrior Wisdom ...140

3. Warrior Justice ...141

4. Warriors’ Work ...143

5. Warriors’ Preparedness ...145

6. The Courage of the Warrior ...145

II. The Way of Rule ...147

1. Establishing Will ...147

2. Personal Cultivation ...150

3. Ordering the Home ...152

4. Knowing People ...153

5. Promoting People ...160

6. Ordering Offices ...162

7. Understanding Affairs and Objects ...164

8. Establishing Regulations ...165

9. Civil Administration ...166

10. Review and Perceptivity ...170

11. Studying Military Science ...171

12. Reward and Punishment ...174

13. Acculturation ...177

14. Great Government ...178

15. Transmission of Authority ...179

BOOK THREE: Essentials of Military Matters

Compiled by Yamaga Takatsune

1. The Origin of Military Education ...186

2. Transmission of the System ...187

3. The Law of the Warrior ...192

4. The Basic Aim of Leadership ...193

5. The Main Bases of Teaching and Training ...195

6. The Main Aims of Military Training ...196

7. Questions and Answers on Military Education ...200

BOOK FOUR: The Education of Warriors

By Yamaga Soko

Author’s Preface ...216

I. The Universal Sources ...216

1. The Source of Humanity ...216

2. The Source of the Way ...217

3. The Source of Phenomena ...217

II. Essentials of Leadership ...219

1. The Office of the Lord ...219

2. Three Tasks ...220

3. Admonition ...220

4. Establishing Offices ...220

5. Selection and Training ...221

6. Military Preparedness ...223

7. Rules and Regulations ...226

8. Internalization and Examination ...227

9. Reward and Punishment ...228

III. War Strategy ...228

1. Military Education ...228

2. Planning and Intelligence ...228

3. Principles of Warfare ...229

4. Battlegrounds ...229

5. The Time to Fight ...234

6. Practicalities of Combat ...235

7. Essentials of Combat ...237

BOOK FIVE: Primer of Martial Education

By Yamaga Soko

1. Rising Early, Retiring at Night ...240

2. Living at Ease ...241

3. Speech and Interaction ...241

4. Walking, Standing, Sitting, Reclining ...242

5. Clothing, Food, and Housing ...243

6. Money and Material Th ings ...244

7. Food, Drink, and Sexual Desire ...244

8. Falconry and Hunting ...245

9. Giving and Receiving ...245

10. Instruction of Heirs ...246

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...249

INDEX ... 251

 INTRODUCTION
Bushido: The Way of the Samurai Warrior

The warrior culture of the Japanese samurai caste, emerging from

centuries of civil war and martial law, produced a complex blend of
philosophy and self-discipline now called Bushido, the Way of the Warrior.
This name is a combination of terms for samurai training systems coined
in the 17th century, when the third dynasty of warlords completed military
control over Japan and Bushido was articulated as an elite way of life.

An essential purpose of Bushido was to balance the civil and martial

aspects of personal, social, and political organization of the samurai
regime. The need for this balance was articulated in terms of restraining
martial prowess from degenerating into aggression while preventing civil
deference from deteriorating into weakness. In between the poles of war
and peace, however, lay unavoidable uncertainties in the warrior’s way,
giving rise to divergent paths in practice. The philosophical spectrum of
Bushido therefore represents a diverse range of attempts to confront
contradictions generated by disparities between civil and military
experience and outlook.
When Bushido was developed as a distinct domain of discipline, a
critical concern for the leaders of the dominant warrior class was to
preserve their authority within a civil state while maintaining terms of
truce among themselves. This implied honing their secular skills while
maintaining their martial discipline and military preparedness.
The civil authority of the samurai caste required attention to public
opinion, imagery and appearance, as well as to social organization and
legal structures. Redefining the role of the samurai in society, Bushido
came to emphasize conceptions of moral and intellectual leadership
along with martial supremacy. Its literature abounds in prescriptions for
the education of the warrior class, to prepare samurai technically for
advisory, administrative, and judicial roles in governing bodies, and to
prepare them ethically for leadership and social service by instilling
personal and professional values of civility, dignity, integrity, and nobility
of character and conduct. In this manner the samurai developed new
syntheses of the traditional doctrines of Confucianism, Buddhism, and
Shinto.

Confucianism and Bushido

The civil side of Bushido, both personal and professional, was steeped in
the world view and social outlook of Confucianism, which had been a
standard source of political discourse for centuries before samurai took
over the reins of government.

Confucianism originated in pre-imperial China during a time of accel

erating civil and political disintegration, as an educational endeavor
aiming for cultural renaissance and moral reform. Subsequently
systematized to train bureaucrats in imperial China, state-sponsored
Confucianism became a powerful conservative force in its allegiance to
political authority and social order.
As a doctrine for samurai in their capacity as civil servants, Bushido
draws on the Confucian belief that leaders should cultivate personal
character, conduct, and capacities emotionally, intellectually, and morally
so as to be able to perform their public duties ably and impartially, order
their peer relations peacefully, and earn the admiration, allegiance, and
obedience of their people.
One of the central concerns of Confucianism is the preparation of
people for public service. This orientation stimulated and guided the
development of education throughout East Asia, creating a cultural
foundation for secular humanism with an underlying ideology of social
responsibility. The purpose of education, in this view, was not to
encourage abstract intellectual endeavor for its own sake, but to mold the
character of political leaders, civil servants, and socially responsible
citizens. Government was not merely an administrative exercise, but an
extension of personal character and conduct.
The basic Confucian construction of the individual as an intrinsically
social being underlies a species of secular humanism as well as an
acceptance of hierarchical authoritarianism. This sense of organic
connection between the person and the state, and the responsibility
structure conceived to flow from that relationship, are fundamental to the
Confucian outlook. Confucian doctrine was commonly typified as the
practice of specific civic virtues in the context of certain central social and
political relationships. The system is essentially hierarchical, ranking
people by status, age, and gender, all of which made it seem suitable for
the samurai structure.
The original Confucian concept of government envisions the individual
and collective internalization of moral values as the key element of social
order, without which, according to Confucius, the external imposition of
law would foster cynicism and hypocrisy. This was to change with time,
however, as later Confucians declared human beings intrinsically unruly
and adopted an approach to order based on punishment and reward,
similar in this respect to the Chinese doctrine of Legalism, which
emphasized the absolute rule of law.
Study of history, literature, and ritual formed an important part of
Confucian practice, whether of the old ethical model or the imperial
authoritarian type, as education was believed to develop capacity and
conscience in the individual as a member of society. The idea that
government should be based on character and ability inspired the
establishment of state schools and official examination systems to recruit
scholars into civil service. In Japan, before the rise of the samurai
warlords, this concept was originally applied to developing a sector of the
ancient theocratic clan aristocracy into a cadre of educated officials to
administer a secular bureaucratic state.
For the Japanese warrior caste, Confucianism would provide a
principal source of concepts of civic virtue, critical to the development of
Bushido as code of conduct for samurai. As the dominant intellectual
tradition of state ideology and social science in China, Confucianism was
formally introduced to official Japanese political discourse by the 7th
century, in the process of developing a centralized bureaucratic state on
the Chinese model.
After the reunification of long-divided China under the Sui dynasty in
the late sixth century, the Japanese regent Prince Shotoku (574-622)
inaugurated the practice of sending missions to absorb Chinese culture,
law, and organizational methods. One of the most revered figures in
Japanese legend and history, Prince Shotoku is credited with composing
the first constitution of Japan. Promulgated in 604, this document extols
typical Confucian virtues of harmony, obedience, cooperation, courtesy,
and consultation, while decrying factionalism, fractiousness, and
antisocial self-interest.
 To inculcate these values, a state university was founded by the end
of the century to train scions of the ruling class for civil service. Confucian
ideology can soon be seen in the announcements of Japanese emperors
themselves. A declaration by Emperor Tenchi (r. 661-671), in whose reign
the college system is believed to have begun, reflects a classical
Confucian contract model of authority, in which the devotion of the ruler
to the welfare of the people is asserted to legitimate the demand of the
ruler for the obedience of the people:

Those who wish to help myriad people punish one person, while
those who wish to kill myriad people pardon one person. We
constantly belabor Our mind for the sake of myriad people; even in
minor matters such as the poetry We recite, there is nothing but
concern for the suffering multitudes. As the parents of the nation,
how can We not be concerned for the children of the country? As
children, do not disobey your parents’ instructions!

The concept of societal responsibility of rulership is even more

pronounced in a declaration by Emperor Saga (r. 809-823), in terms
reminiscent of the humanist Confucian sage Mencius,1 a central source
of Bushido philosophy:

We indicate to rulers of men after Us, that rather than punish the
country’s deviants, instead consider the poverty of the multitudes
and relieve their misery, and then criminals will disappear. The
reason why ordinary people act badly comes from widespread
inability to survive day to day. There is no source of criminality in the
country but waste of natural resources. There is a reason why
ignorant underclasses are not honest; it’s because the rulers, who
should be honest, are not.

The imperial college burned down in 1177 and was never rebuilt. In 1180,
a widespread civil war erupted, consuming nearly a decade. In the midst
of this turbulence, a separate military government was set up between
1182 and 1185 by a dominant faction of warriors, lead by the Minamoto
clan. This organization never dismantled the imperial system, and
couldn’t command all the samurai in Japan, but the general pattern of
domination by military rule that it confirmed would continue for centuries,
under three successive dynasties of warlords: the Kamakura Era (1185-
1333) under the Minamoto and Hojo clans; the Muromachi Era (1338-
1573) under the Ashikaga clan, and the Edo or Tokugawa Era (1603-
1867) under the Tokugawa clan.

After the ascendancy of the warriors was established, emperors still

declared their own rank in terms redolent of Chinese myths of ancient
sage kings of Confucian ideal. A proclamation by Emperor Hanazono (r.
1308-18) asserts,

We always reproach Ourselves rather than Our subjects, so We do

know the Divine Order. As We think of close retainers and the
multitudes of the people with the same attitude with which We think
of Ourselves, there is no deviation; what is regrettable is for
someone who is a leader to spend a whole lifetime insincerely. For
one who is a mirror to others, to become a warning to others is a
truly lamentable matter. Let Our posterity understand this well and
clarify the path of the Emperor, and you will last as long as sky and
earth.

Emperor Komatsu the Latter (r. 1382-1412) also preached the same
principle of ruler-subject solidarity, espousing the classical Confucian
policy of meritocracy and the neo-Confucian emphasis on austerity as
means of executing this sovereign responsibility to the citizenry:

When the masters of the earth experience happiness and suffering

along with the people, make an ally of the sincerity of the deities, and
regard extraordinary amusements as enemies, then there will be no
sorrowing people in the nation. When there are no idle lords in the
country, and they heed and employ the wise even from among the
lower classes, while rejecting the dishonest even among the upper
classes, they will endure as long as heaven and earth.

Like the emperors of Japan, as masters of the military governments the

Shoguns patronized Confucian learning for civil service training. The
samurai leaders favored a new genre of Confucianism, however,
introduced to Japan in the 12th and 13th centuries by Zen Buddhist
pilgrims and Chinese refugees. Girding the Confucian ethical structure
with elements of Taoist metaphysics and Zen meditation, this neo-
Confucianism elevated the ideological status of the social order to that of
natural law, and cemented its views in the individual by the practice of
sustained mental concentration.

While this neo-Confucian philosophy is very prominent in the writings

of Bushido, Japanese political thinkers also echoed a harder line of
Confucianism incorporating elements of Legalism. Legalism was the
ideology of the first Chinese empire, emphasizing primary production,
military power, and rule of law. Legalistic Confucianism, historically
considered more pragmatic, is woven into the political science of the
warriors’ rule in Japan.
Emerging in a time of pandemic civil war in pre-imperial China,
legalistic Confucianism bases its belief in the need for education,
authority, and the rule of law on the premise that human nature is not
basically good but bad. Like pure Legalism, this genre of Confucianism
also emphasizes the need for practical adaptation to the times rather
than idealization of ancient models.
Legalistic Confucianism was never abandoned by Shoguns in their
capacity as lawgivers and their outlook as warriors. After the termination
of the second military government through a series of civil wars, however,
the early humanistic idealism of classical Confucianism was again
memorialized in the laws promulgated by the warlord Oda Nobunaga,
who virtually unified Japan in the late 16th century.
Stressing the importance of Confucianism for warriors in particular,
Oda’s legal code Kanto Hatto, or Laws for Eastern Japan cites the popular
Confucian philosopher Mencius to announce a new social order:

Widowers, widows, the alone and the orphaned, are the most destitute
people in the nation, having no resort. Their condition is most pitiful. It is
my deepest wish to be able to be compassionate to them. If any
such people have public concerns, they should be able to have them
considered, but in latter days lords and ministers have been
unprincipled, indulging in aggressive exercise of power, devouring
the weak. If there are complaints from any of those destitute people,
relatives and friends will also be held responsible. For it is said that
the government of sages extends its benefits even to insects—how
could it not include human beings?

In this code, promulgated in 1583, Oda officially designated

Confucianism the tradition to civilize the warrior class, asserting its
emphasis on education essential to the civil side of Bushido:

Men with the natural capacity to be prime ministers and generals are
most important. If there are men like this, they should study
Confucianism. The latter-day focus on military science alone is due
to failure to evaluate profit and loss in learning. Since we use the
expression Bun-Bu, Civil and Military, whose business is this if not
those who rule countries and keep peace in the world?

So it was that Confucius, to curb the forcefulness of a disciple in

government service, defined six corruptions:

If you like benevolence but not learning, the corruption from that is folly.
If you like wit but not learning, the corruption from that is license.
If you like trust but not learning, the corruption from that is theft.
If you like straightforwardness but not learning, the corruption from that is
strangulation.
If you like bravery without learning, the corruption from that is disorder.
If you like strength without learning, the corruption from that is wildness.

Furthermore, the idea that only Buddhists pursue scholarship is

arbitrary. To have even one scholar among warriors is most
important.

Oda’s military and political achievements were to be brought to a

conclusion by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who founded the third
Shogunate in the early 17th century. Following Oda’s lead in espousing
Confucianism, Ieyasu built a college for the neo-Confucian scholar
Hayashi Razan (1583-1657). Hayashi also served as a secretary of state
and advisor to the first three Shoguns of the Tokugawa regime.

A general conception of the contemplated Confucian contribution to

the melding of civil and military concepts in Bushido, extending even to
the point of virtual identification of civic and martial virtues, is set forth by
the famous scholar Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), couched in Confucian
terms addressed to warriors:

Warriorhood has roots and branches. Loyalty, filial piety, duty, and
courage are the roots of military science; these are martial virtues.
Discipline and strategy are military sciences. Discipline refers to the
disposition of troops and the way to carry out a military campaign, or
what is referred to as martial law. The techniques of weaponry, such
as sword, archery, spear, and so on, are the branches of military
science; these are martial arts.

It is best to include both roots and branches. Martial arts are

rooted in military science, military science is rooted in humanity and
justice. It is imperative to know these three elements, understand
their order, and know their relative importance.
If you cannot include these three things, then you should strive
for the martial virtues of loyalty, filial piety, duty, and principle. If they
have the courage of loyalty, filial piety, duty, and principle, even
people who do not know martial arts often perform feats in war that
earn them a warrior’s reputation. And even those who do know
martial arts can hardly achieve anything in war or win the repute of a
warrior if they are cowardly.
Superior people work on the roots. Hence the saying, when the
roots are established, the Way grows. While martial arts are indeed
to be learned and not to be abandoned, their practice has to be
rooted in martial virtues. It is imperative to realize that there are
differences in comparative importance.

Loyalty and righteousness, and strength and courage, also have

roots and branches. Master Cheng said, “People have to have a
humane and just mind before they can have the spirit of humanity
and justice.” A humane and just mind is the root; strength and
courage are the spirit of humanity and justice, the branches. If you
have a heart of humanity and justice, courage will come of itself. If
they are inclined to martial bravery without humanity or justice,
powerful people will start rebellions, while little people will become
bandits. Samurai who have no aspiration to loyalty, filial piety, or duty
are negligent of martial courage and lack morality, so they are
incompetent for public service. Also, those who are born in samurai
families but don’t know military methods or martial arts, are not
armed, and are lacking in military preparedness, will be negligent in
striving for martial bravery.
Confucian doctrines were woven into samurai education and culture at
various levels, from professors and advisers and tutors of lords to local
schoolteachers and physicians, in an attempt to guide the pacification of
society and reformation of culture through the support of the moral,
ideological, and intellectual underpinnings of Bushido. The civilizing
purpose, central implementation, and social impact of this policy on the
Tokugawa period is summarized in retrospect at the end of the era by
Saito Totsudo (1797-1865), an outstanding activist in civil and military
education:

When the late Tokugawa Ieyasu began to govern the country, he

thought it a wretched thing that people’s hearts had been so violent
since the Muromachi regime, with even retainers assassinating their
lords and sons murdering their fathers in many cases; so in order
that people might know the Way, he recruited Confucians and
promoted learning, having many classics and histories printed and
widely circulated. Thus famous scholars emerged, beginning with
people from the imperial house and the great ministers, as well as
lords and barons outside, eventually bringing about the present state
of peace. This is as different from the illiterate era of the Muromachi
regime as day is from night. The fact that this peace has never been
disrupted since it was established, compared to the chronic disorder
of the Muromachi regime, is like the difference between sky and
earth. The excellence of cultured qualities is evident.

While this emphasis on culture and civility among the samurai was
considered essential to establish the peace and order of the Tokugawa
regime, the concern that this could also contribute to softness and
slackness in military matters is strongly marked in later Bushido, as
illustrated by this same author, writing as the world of the Shoguns was
confronted by the West after more than two hundred years of isolation:

Once the manner of a knight is correct, it is essential to cultivate the

spirit of a knight. While maintaining the manner of a knight is for the
purpose of cultivating the spirit of a knight, since manner is external,
however magnificent it may be it can hardly be relied upon to any
serious extent. A spirit that fills the body like blazing fire is somewhat
more reliable. So the manner of a knight can only be truly strong
when the spirit of the knight is flourishing. Even if your physical
 strength is more than average, if your spirit is weak you can’t act in
face of enemies; no matter how skillful you may be at martial arts, if
your spirit is weak you cannot employ them against enemies.

An elementary tension between the martial and civil cultures upon which
Bushido drew created a contradiction without a definite resolution, a fork
in the road that could appear at any time.

While the civil culture of Confucianism emphasized in the ethical

heritage of Bushido values honesty and transparency, the strategic
science embedded in the martial culture of Bushido can call for deception
and inscrutability. This internal tension amplified the potential for
contradictory behavior deriving from the difference between the two main
strains within Bushido, one emphasizing loyalty to the person of the
leader and the other emphasizing loyalty to public or transpersonal
ethical principles. Attempts to approach this problem in a systematic
manner produced the seeds of rational and scientific study of human
psychology and behavior, society and civilization.

Buddhism and Bushido

For samurai in their capacity as military men, Buddhism was of particular

interest in relation to self-transcendence and acceptance of death,
professional requirements of warriors. Buddhism also provided principles
of personal and political morality, and had a long history of cultural
contribution in Japan before the rise of the samurai caste.

While advocating the civic virtues of Confucianism, elevating the state

over the clan, Prince Shotoku’s constitution promoted Buddhism as a
universal source of social uplift and a species of state religion. The first
major Buddhist monastic establishment in Japan was completed in 607,
shortly after the promulgation of the constitution, and the state sponsored
several scholastic schools of Buddhism, welcoming learned monks from
Korea and China.
Conceived of in the available Shinto and Confucian terms, Buddhism
was patronized in hopes of both magical and intellectual support of the
state. In this capacity, as much a political tool as a cultural or religious
instrument, the early Buddhist orders in Japan formed an elite institution,
a parallel aristocracy, which would ultimately acquire immense authority,
both within and without the secular state structure.
In 794 a new capital was built in Japan on the model of the capital city
of Tang dynasty China, the fabled metropolis of Changan, whose name
means Eternal Peace. This new imperial capital of Japan [modern Kyoto]
was called Heian-jo, or City of Peace, and was to remain the capital city
and center of a wealthy and colorful aristocratic culture for nearly four
centuries.
Two dynamic new schools of Buddhism centered in the surrounding
mountains were also founded around this time, the Tendai school in 788
and the Shingon school in 816. These schools were to become extremely
prosperous and powerful, providing a subsidiary system of ownership,
rank, and privilege for aristocrats who were not in line for higher
appointments in the imperial bureaucracy.
Buddhist ordination also became a refuge for emperors who formally
retired into a religious order to maneuver behind the scenes through a
system of shadow government referred to as the Insei or Cloister
Administration. As stakeholders in the secular world, major Buddhist
monasteries came to maintain their own militias, the so-called sohei,
“soldiers of the sangha,” armies of monks, to support their territorial and
political interests.
The syncretic Shingon school, which contributed greatly to the
development of Japanese culture, including literature, music, and art,
also fortified the arsenals of warriors and would-be assassins with
magical weaponry. The name of the school, Shingon, means True Word,
a translation of the Sanskrit word Mantra, meaning a mystic spell.
Addressed to every conceivable purpose, mystic spells include items of
special interest to warriors, formulas for destruction of enemies,
incantations alleged to produce madness, incapacitation, alienation,
illness, and death.
Given the symbiotic relationship of politics and religion in Japan, the
complexity of the clan structure, and the preexisting Shinto practice of
noroi or curse-casting, the esoteric slaying spells of Shingon held a
particular allure for the Japanese aristocracy. This interest intensified with
the rise of the martial caste and the increasing militarization of Shingon
Buddhism, so much so that concern with this dark side of Buddhism
began to emerge in the literature of exoteric schools.
Eventually the question of magical murder was addressed by one of
the greatest of Japanese Zen masters in a dialogue with a famous
warrior and administrator in a vernacular classic of Japanese Buddhism,
called Muchu Mondo, or Dream Conversations. First published in 1344,
during the lifetime of the author, this book represents replies of Zen
master Muso Soseki (1275-1351), to the inquiries of Ashikaga Tadayoshi
(1306-1352), a distinguished war commander and civil administrator who
was a younger brother, erstwhile ally, and ultimately victim of Ashikaga
Takauji (1305-1358), founder and first Shogun of the second military
dynasty. The Zen master explains esoteric killing to the warrior in these
terms:

In the esoteric sect, the method called subduing means using secret
arts to subdue the minds of malevolent and misguided people, to
introduce them to the true principles of Buddhism. Sometimes, when
people who interfere with Buddhism cannot be converted from their
evil designs no matter what, first they are deprived of their lives to
enable the true religion to remain in the world, then expedients are
used to introduce even those evil people into Buddhism.

Sometimes someone is seen to be prevented from entering

Buddhism by the aggravation of others’ enmity, so his enemies are
subdued to enable him to enter into Buddhism. When bodhisattvas
practice this sort of antisocial action, it is always for the sake of
promoting religion and helping people. It is not for worldly fame or
profit.
The Nirvana Scripture says, “When Shakyamuni Buddha was a
king in a past state, there were a large number of evil monks who did
all sorts of bad things to a monk who practiced true religion and
excited their jealousy. At that time the king himself fought those evil
monks, defeated them, and rescued the monk who practiced true
religion. He incurred no sin in doing so, because his intention was
only to spread true religion.” This was also the reason why Prince
Shotoku of our country attacked Mononobu Moriya, who opposed
Buddhism.
If you have no intention of spreading true religion, but just pray in
order to assassinate your enemies to flourish in the world yourself,
as a result of your action you won’t be able to keep the world for
long. There will also be ill consequences to come in the future. The
 Nirvana Scripture says, “To requite enmity with enmity is like using oil
to put out a fire.”
Some people say it is a sin to kill with weapons but a virtue to kill
with the power of esoteric spells. This is a major heresy. Even killing
with weapons is indeed virtuous if it is done with an intention, like
that of Shakyamuni Buddha in the past, of destroying evil monks for
the spread of true religion, and Prince Shotoku’s attack on Moriya.
But even if esoteric methods of religion are employed, if your interest
is in worldly name and gain, it is all sinful. This is what is meant by
the statement of the Brahmajala Scripture forbidding murder, “even
killing by spells.”

Since Buddhist establishments were themselves worldly powers, and

different sects disputed and disagreed about which version of Buddhism
was true, legitimizing magical murder by the intention to protect
Buddhism did not necessarily add moral clarity to the matter in the eyes
of all alike. A similar doctrine of the end justifying the means had already
been articulated nearly a century earlier to rationalize violence in
Buddhism by the Tendai monk Nichiren (1222-1282), who founded the
sect now bearing his name. Nichiren made a parallel argument regarding
material weaponry in his seminal work Rissho Ankoku Ron, or Treatise on
Establishing Orthodoxy and Securing the State:

The Nirvana Sutra says, “Those who would preserve true religion
should not be subject to the five precepts [forbidding murder, theft,
adultery, lying, and drinking alcohol] and not cultivate their conduct,
but carry weapons.” It also says, “Those who keep the five precepts
cannot be called members of the Great Vehicle. Protecting true
religion, even without keeping the five precepts, is called the Great
Vehicle. Protectors of the religion should carry arms. Even though
they carry arms, I call this keeping the precepts.”

The Nirvana Scripture these passages cite was composed after the
destruction of the magnificent Kushan empire, wherein Buddhism had
reached a peak of sophistication emanating throughout Asia. While the
Japanese Buddhists of the middle ages were not likely aware of its
original context, the scripture’s emphasis on the imminent extinction of
the religion seemed to resonate with them in terms of their own turbulent
times. Nichiren had a particularly keen sense of national and international
crisis, accurately predicting that the Mongolian warlords who were taking
over China would try to invade Japan.

While destructive spells were supposedly esoteric, their existence

was evidently well known by the middle ages, when the samurai were the
masters of the land and their outlook as warriors became a dominant
paradigm. A popular aspect of this magical lore and the society that
embraced it is illustrated in a story in Shaseki-shu, or Collection of Stone and
Sand, an anthology compiled by Zen master Muju (1226-1312):

A woman came to a Shingon master she’d believed in for years and

said, “Are there any spells in Shingon to kill people? Please teach
me.”

He asked, “What for?”

She said, “My husband always cared deeply for me, but now he’s
infatuated with a young thing and has abandoned me, much to my
dismay. I’m even the mother of his children! I couldn’t be more
betrayed! So tell me.”
This is something that is difficult to deal with. The methods of
subduing are for subduing and slaying enemies of the whole world,
out of compassion. To kill simply out of spite is not right.
Thinking it would be very sinful to abet her by teaching her how to
kill, instead he taught her a life-prolonging spell and told her it was a
slaying spell.
Delighted, she believed him and did the incantation for the
required period. Afterwards she came back and said, “Even if it’s the
Last Age of the religion, the efficacy of Shingon spells is still there! I
recited it for a full seven days, and killed him!”
He was appalled, but there was nothing he could do about it.
According to a certain Shingon master, this actually happened.
How much more useful the effect would be if one believed and acted
upon the truth! Indeed, since there’s a way of imbuing a single spell
with a plethora of powers, there can be no doubt that one can both
prolong life and kill as well.

This story suggests a certain understanding of the psychological

foundation of the curse, yet it is not invoked to dismiss the phenomenon
as unreal, but rather as reason enough for conscious concern with the
practice and its employment. The justification of defeating enemies of the
whole world seems to be more universal in principle than Muso’s appeal
to protection of Buddhism, but in practice, given the warlike world-view of
the samurai era, the expression “enemies of the whole world” is no more
self-defining than “enemies of Buddhism,” and as such could likewise be
subjected to different interpretations by competing interests.

While monastic armies of the middle ages were maintained by major

institutions, popular Buddhist militias also developed among the lower
classes, including local samurai, fortified by community faith. Followers of
devotional Nichiren and Pure Land sects successfully established
autonomous areas in these war-torn times, some for as long as a
hundred years or more. While very different in outlook, Nichiren and Pure
Land sects both employed methods of concentration that could produce
auto-hypnosis and obliterate fear of pain and death. The fortitude of
Nichiren bonzes under torture is legendary, while Pure Land devotees
fought warlords with an unearthly abandon enabled by ecstatic faith in
the reward of paradise after death.
Given the difference in manpower and morale between community-
based militias and mercenary coalitions of professional warriors, in the
end only treachery proved powerful enough to destroy the popular
Buddhist uprisings and the autonomous areas they established in the
middle ages. The 16th century overlord Oda Nobunaga fought to break
the power of organized Buddhism at all levels of society. The Tokugawa
Shogunate subsequently legislated strict secular controls on Buddhist
institutions, with dictates extending even to doctrine and practice, in order
to neutralize any residual independence, and convert the monastic
system into an administrative organ of state.
While most of the military action associated with Buddhism thus
emanated from other schools, Zen Buddhism has traditionally been
associated with Bushido through the patronage of Zen sects by the
military class. In one sense this patronage provided the samurai regimes
with a cultural and intellectual base distinct from the aristocrats they
supplanted, who had largely been devotees of the Tendai and Shingon
schools. Zen was also more austere and less philosophical than the older
schools, suiting the temperament, times, and training of the warriors in
these ways.
 The Rinzai sect of Zen in particular typically used strong and violent
language in its manner of presentation, including frequent references to
techniques of psychological disengagement in terms of “killing” and
“dying.” This rhetoric conformed to the robust impression that warriors
wished to cultivate and convey, and provided a conceptual framework
within which to convert the inherent hazards of their profession into
means of mental training.
Zen Buddhism was also the original source of neo-Confucian
education for warriors in Japan. Neo-Confucianism contains an element
of Zen in itself, as every one of the Chinese founders of neo-
Confucianism studied Chan, the Chinese precursor of Zen. Adapted to
active lay life, rejecting monasticism and celibacy, nihilism and quietism,
neo-Confucianism integrated Zen-type techniques of everyday
mindfulness into the fabric of Bushido discipline.

Shinto and Bushido

While hearkening back to the origins of Japanese civilization, the special

Shinto element in Bushido is a comparatively late development in the
history of samurai culture. Representing an emerging sense of national
identity in the isolation imposed on Japan by the Shogun in the
seventeenth century, revival of interest in ancient Shinto lore aimed to
slough offan ingrained inferiority complex associated with the age-old
influence of Chinese culture. In terms of samurai political philosophy, this
insistence on distinguishing Japanese tradition was critical to the
promulgation of an orthodox rationale for permanent military rule, in
contrast to the classical Chinese Confucian ideal of a secular state.

The background and atmosphere of this intellectual evolution is

illustrated by one of the early expositors of the new nativism, Yamaga
Soko (1622-1685):

All along I’ve been fond of foreign [i.e. Chinese] books. Though I
know nothing of books that have newly arrived in recent times, by
laboring day and night I’ve read most of the books that came from
abroad up until ten years ago. Because of this, unawares I thought
all foreign things were good. I thought that since Japan is a small
country, it cannot match up to China in anything; and that it was in
China that sages emerged.
 I was not the only one like this; all scholars past and present
have thought this way, admiring China and studying China. Recently
I have come to realize this way of thinking is very mistaken, trusting
our ears but not our eyes, abandoning the nearby and taking to the
remote. It is hopeless, truly an academic epidemic, an affliction
common to scholars.
Although I’ve recorded this in Facts of the Central Court, I’ll set
down a summary here. This court [of Japan] is descended from the
Goddess Who Lights the Sky; its direct lineage has never deviated,
even for one generation, from the divine age up to the present day.
Even the assisting ministers from the Fujiwara clan have continued
in unbroken succession, generation after generation, and
administrators in charge of government have been continuous,
because there have been no rebellious subjects or usurping sons. Is
this not due to great richness of virtues of humaneness and
justness?
Next, from the divine age up to the seventeenth generation
human sovereign was a succession of rulers who all had the virtues
of sages. Wise and talented ministers assisted them, establishing
the Way of heaven and earth. The administrative business of the
court, the establishment of the system of provinces and prefectures,
the manners of the four classes of people, daily activities, clothing,
food, housing, even ceremonies of capping, marriage, mourning, and
celebration, each attained balance. With the people at ease and the
nation at peace, a model for myriad ages was established, the roles
of superior and subordinate defined—is this not attainment of the
celestial virtue of the brilliant knowledge of sages?

Yamaga initiated the practice of calling Japan the Central Civilization or

the Central Nation while referring to China as a “foreign country,” yet his
work remains saturated with Confucianism, and his ethical values derive
from that background, even in his elevated judgment of the imperial
dynasty of Japan. From the standpoint of a military man, however, the
decline and fall of the massive and once mighty Ming China in his own
time must have suggested an alarming failure of the Chinese system.

The Shoguns continued to support Confucianism as orthodox state

philosophy, nonetheless, and later Japanese thinkers also invoked
Confucian values to affirm the significance of native Japanese tradition.
While exalting the native martial spirit, for example, Rikimaru Tozan,
writing in 1802, still refers to Chinese tradition to substantiate his position:

When it comes to military science and martial achievement, over the

long run, ever since ancient times when the celestial deities
descended to rule, this was the Country Full of Slender Lances; the
uncanny awe inspired by the superiority of the path of bow and arrow
over all nations has never come to an end, even after thousands of
generations. ….

This country has never had any dynastic change, fortunately, so

like the transmission of such things as divination methods that have
disappeared in China, in the antiques of the divine age and the
principles of bow and arrow there are many things that can be
studied in our country that only exist in name in the classical Chinese
canons and rites and cannot be concretely defined.
In particular, even at the end of a millennium there exists a
traditional practice of referring to the vocation of attacking criminals
and rebels as the rank of the archer. In the ancient imperial
administration there are memorials for official arrest. Moreover, there
are rites of bow and arrow for nobles and lords.
As a class, military clans are called mononou, which is construed
to mean archers. This is what is meant in historical records when it
says that the very name of archer is prized.
From such an extensive array of references it can be seen that
there are indeed connections.
In recent times literati tend to dismiss our national heritage, but
this is not appropriate. Even Chinese characters derive a lot of
meanings from bow and arrow. In particular, even if it has been
forgotten that the lord of a country is referred to by a character
originally meaning an arrow target, to disregard one’s own native
country is like abandoning one’s own parents and loving strangers,
like abandoning one’s own leader and giving allegiance to another
country. It is already a violation of the principles of the Classic of Filial
Piety.
To emulate the virtues of other people, and learn from the
excellence of foreign countries, is indeed the work of daily renewal
 and abundant possession, and our ancient kings already synthesized
them. In spite of this, while being in a country with a splendid
system, to demean ourselves as barbarians and disregard our
national heritage is an insult to the nation.

The Shinto vision of the unique unbroken continuity of the imperial

lineage in Japan represents a reaction to the sense of political instability
and weakness compelled by their perception of popular revolution,
foreign subjugation, and dynastic change in China. Under the rule of the
samurai of earlier times, Japan had suffered similar symptoms of
fragmentation, revolt, and usurpation, even while embracing Confucian
ideology. The 15th and 16th centuries were particularly violent and
unstable, and by the end of the 16th century European powers were also
complicating Japanese warfare and power politics.

Thinkers of 17th century Japan were therefore particularly concerned

with establishing social stability, even at the cost of isolation and stasis,
while maintaining a constant state of vigilance and discipline. These were
among the conditions that stimulated the articulation of Bushido in the
17th and 18th centuries, after the pacification and stabilization of
Japanese society and politics under the Tokugawa Shoguns. While the
emergence of nativism among intellectuals would ultimately serve the
interests of imperial restoration in the mid 19th century, disenfranchising
the samurai, the original thrust of the argument made by nativist samurai
scholars asserted the primal unity of civil and military government in
Japan, proclaiming on this ground that Japan should properly be ruled by
warriors in perpetuity. This position is summarized by Nakamura
Mototsune (1778-1851) in his Treatise on Honoring the Military:

Our nation is a martial state, whereas China is a literary state. A

literary state honors literature, a martial state honors arms.

For centuries in high antiquity, we had no usurpation by rebellious

ministers, and no incursion of foreign invaders. Those above were
secure, those below were at peace. With no problems in the four
quarters, how did that government compare to the ancient Chinese
sage rulers Yao and Shun? In those times, Confucianism had not yet
been imported, Buddhism had not yet arisen—how could it have
been as it was? Just because of the government of warriors. For our
 nation to have warriors is the natural course for our nation, and
should be respected!
Even in China, the present is different from the past, as indeed it
must be; how much the more is our country different from that
country. Separated by hundreds of miles, the customs are
completely different, and the psychologies of the peoples are not the
same—how can they follow the same path? “Noble men cultivate the
education without changing the customs; they make their
government equal, without changing specific adaptations.” So our
country’s military caste cannot be abandoned. Had Confucius rode a
coracle over the sea, once he was in our country he would surely
have considered the military noble, and would not necessarily have
preferred literature. If we get mired in Chinese literature and don’t
follow our native ways, even if we call that studying the way of
sages, how can it be called knowing the way of sages?
The great peace in our country in high antiquity was not due to
Confucianism and Buddhism. The reason lies elsewhere. Our
country has always been a martial state; so it flourishes with warriors
and declines without warriors. The changing fortunes of our country
are only a matter of the flourishing or decline of the warriors.

The Way of the Knight

Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shinto were each represented by a variety

of schools, and elements of all three were commonly combined in
Japanese culture and customs. This synthesis took many forms,
intellectual and artistic, religious and political, ritual and literary. As the
embodiment of samurai culture, Bushido is correspondingly diverse,
drawing selectively on elements of all these traditions to articulate the
ethos and discipline of the warrior.

One of the most influential of the early schools of Bushido was the
knightly way of Yamaga Soko, who attempted to interpret and adapt the
diverse threads of the Japanese heritage over a lifetime of study and
teaching. A classical Confucian scholar as well as a military scientist and
martial artist, Yamaga was also a student of Zen, Taoism, and Shinto.
“There are many lines of learning, ancient and modern,” he wrote, “so
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto each have some truth to them.” In
his teaching and writing he inculcated traditional social graces and
spiritual disciplines while emphasizing martial virtues such as
organization, vigilance, and self-mastery in the conduct of everyday life.
Above all, Yamaga Soko was a pragmatist, insisting on the need for
practical adaptation of ideas and information rather than idealistic
advocacy of ancient doctrines. A critical thinker, he rejected the school of
neo-Confucianism patronized by the Shogun, and was banished from the
capital city as a result. Though he eventually resumed residence and
teaching in the capital, after his death an interdict was put on the printing
of his writings, and his school began to go underground in the early
1700’s after it was suggested that the famous vendetta of the Forty-
Seven Ronin was inspired by his teaching.
Interest in Yamaga’s immense body of work was renewed with a
Bushido revival at the end of the 19th century, as Japan inaugurated its
modern imperial age. Because of his emphasis on empirical knowledge
and rational adaptation of tradition, while naturally rooted in the social
structure and intellectual outlook of his era, Yamaga’s work explicitly
invokes and invites the same critical approach to study that he himself
applied to the received classics as well as the particular problems of his
time.
Both the mystique and the methods of martial rule in Yamaga’s school
are vividly transmitted in the manual The Warrior’s Rule by Tsugaru Kodo-
shi, one of Yamaga’s grandsons, who studied the master’s work for thirty
years. Kodo-shi’s father, Tsugaru Kenmotsu (1658-1682), had been a
councilor to the lord of the Tsugaru domain, his older brother Tsugaru
Nobumasa (1646-1710), who had first made the acquaintance of Yamaga
Soko in 1660, when he was fifteen and Yamaga thirty-nine. Kenmotsu,
married to one of Yamaga’s daughters, died before Kodo-shi was born,
and Yamaga, himself near the end of his life, took interest in the
fatherless grandson’s welfare.
For his part, Kodo-shi claimed to have conceived his lifelong interest
in his grandfather’s work on the day of his grandfather’s funeral, which he
attended as a small child, when he saw the emissaries of lords and
grandees paying their respects. He eventually went into civil service
himself, after which he wrote his compendium of martial philosophy and
practice, outlining the principles of warrior rule. It is concise but deals with
a wide range of subjects, providing an excellent introduction to this
school of Bushido.
 A parallel treatise focusing on military science, entitled Essentials of
Military Matters, was compiled by Yamaga Takatsune, thought to have
been a son-in-law of the master, based on Soko’s own notes. This
lineage connects Yamaga with some of the most famous names of
samurai history, including the warlord Takeda Shingen and the
swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. In military terms, the cardinal principle of
this school was certain victory, and indeed Takeda Shingen is famed for
having been undefeated in warfare, while Miyamoto Musashi is famed for
having been undefeated in dueling. In this treatise, the school is referred
to as the Kansuke School, after the legendary Yamamoto Kansuke
(1493?-1561?), an infantry commander and teacher of military science
for Takeda Shingen.
The political and military dimensions of samurai rule represented by
The Warrior’s Rule and Essentials of Military Matters are integrated in The
Education of Warriors, a manual on samurai education by Yamaga Soko.
Here the role of the samurai is introduced by a brief discourse on natural
law, typically represented as the source of the system. This emphasis on
natural law, derived from Taoism and incorporated into neo-
Confucianism, was traditionally invoked to rationalize government, social
structure, and warfare; in Yamaga’s work natural law plays an important
role as a perpetual point of reference and source of knowledge beyond
ideology. On this basis, The Education of Warriors outlines the samurai’s
essential concerns of leadership, organization, and military strategy,
while making the strongest possible statement against militarism per se.
As warriors first and last, the masters of this school of certain victory
produced an enormous amount of writing on military science, but the
question of morality emerges even in the wartime work of Yamamoto
Kansuke, who invokes Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, and even
medicine to rationalize the role of military science in a civilized society.
With the advent of peace under the Tokugawa regime, the character and
conduct of samurai were of central concern in respect to their civil roles
as political leaders, administrators, and educators, while their origin as
men of arms was never to be forgotten.
In developing his school of Bushido, Yamaga Soko wrestled with this
peculiar problem of cultivating the capacities of war and peace in an
integrated personality. Pursuing this theme in the context of individual
responsibility, his brief Primer of Martial Education outlines samurai
training as the fabric of the warrior’s daily life, while his extensive The Way
of the Knight expands on this comprehensive concept of the samurai way
constituting a model of all-around personal development. He summarizes
this inspiration himself, providing perhaps the best theoretical introduction
to his own work, in his Relic Writings from Exile:

As for lines of scholarship, there is elevation of character and

cultivation of humaneness; there is concentration on meditation and
quiet sitting; there is cultivating oneself and correcting others,
bringing order and peace to society, achieving success and attaining
fame; there is concentration on reading and writing. These are
divided into higher, middling and lower, and develop into various
kinds of knowledge.

But what I think is that to move people by virtue of character so

that the world corrects itself without anything being said, all within
the four seas at peace with no effort made, cultivating cultural virtues
so as to induce enemies to submit spontaneously, is a doctrine of the
eras of the [ancient sages of China] the Yellow Emperor,1 Yao,2 and
Shun, and something that cannot be emulated in latter days. Even if
it is imitated in appearance, it has no effect.
Due to this, scholars who entertain this idea have lofty
aspirations, eventually turn their backs on society, go into mountain
forests and become companions of birds and beasts.
The logic of study of sages as I think of it is the aspiration to
cultivate myself and correct others, bring order and peace to society,
attain success and honor. The reason is that I have been born in a
family of warriors, and while I personally have social relations, along
with social relations there are matters pertaining to warriorhood,
there are duties, beyond my own understanding and my own ways of
doing things. The additional tasks associated with the warrior caste
are of many kinds, great and small.
Speaking in terms of small things, there are manners proper to
warriors, including dress, diet, house construction, and the uses of
equipment. In particular, there is practice of martial arts, and the
design and use of weaponry, armor, and riding gear.
In terms of great things, there is the government of the land,
including the varieties of rites and music; the system of provinces
and prefectures; mountains and forests, seas and rivers, fields and
 gardens; disposition of public business and lawsuits of temples,
shrines, and the four classes of citizens; political science, military
science, rules of organization, battle formations, encampment, castle
building, and combat methods. These are all everyday tasks of
military leaders and warriors.
So when it comes to scholarship for the military caste, even if you
cultivate yourself personally, unless you deal with these things
effectively this is not the logic of the study of the sages. For this
reason there is meditation on the foregoing matters, and there is
contemplation of old records and ancient practices, and in addition
there should be no relaxation of meditation practices such as silent
recognition and quiet sitting.
Even so, this is not to say one is to develop exhaustive
knowledge of every single one of this endless variety of tasks. As I
have said before, when you know the ruler and mold of the study of
sages, and fit into the standards and guidelines, you can understand
what you see and comprehend what you hear, so whatever task
comes up the way to consider what’s involved is clear, so you don’t
get stumped when you face things.
This is the backbone of a man of mettle. It could indeed be called
breadth of mind and relaxation of the body. When this study is
continuous, wisdom is new every day, character spontaneously
improves, humaneness is naturally enriched, and courage stands on
its own. Eventually you reach the mystic realm where there is no
contrivance, where there is neither success nor fame. So you enter
from success and fame into where there is no success or fame, only
fulfilling the path of being human.

Footnotes

1 Mencius: Meng He, one of the most important of the early Confucian philosophers, very
commonly cited in Taoist, Zen, and Bushido texts. Mencius lived from about 372 to 289
BCE, in the latter days of China’s turbulent Warring States era. He is particularly known for
the doctrine of the goodness of human nature.

1 The Yellow Emperor was a legendary sage ruler of prehistoric China, associated with the
transmission of strategic arts as well as teachings on health, sex, and longevity. The Yellow
Emperor is hero of Taoism. There is a very famous ancient text of strategy attributed to him,
called the Book of Hidden Correspondences.
2 Yao was a predynastic nonhereditary sage king of ancient China, traditionally said to
have acceded to the throne in 2356 BCE. The three ancient kings Yao, Shun, and Yu
constitute one of the most important images in Chinese political science.
 BOOK ONE
The Way of the Knight
By Yamaga Soko
1. Establishing the Basis
Between sky and earth, humans and other beings are produced by the union of
two energies. Humans are the most intelligent of all beings; humans are the most
advanced of all beings.

Here, ever-reproducing humans may produce food by agriculture, or produce

tools and goods by industry, or meet the needs of the world by commerce. So
agriculture, industry, and commerce invariably arise together.

The samurai, however, eats without tilling, uses what he doesn’t make, and earns
without engaging in trade. Why is that?

As I reflect on my present status, I was born in a house of hereditary archers and

cavaliers, and I am a public servant for the imperial court. I am one of those
samurai, who do not till, manufacture, or trade. There must be a job for a
samurai. Someone who eats without having a job should be called an idler.

We should turn our attention to ourselves and examine ourselves thoroughly.

Who fulfills their nature by idleness, even be it plants and trees, lowly fish and
insects, or birds and beasts, to say nothing of humans?

Birds and beasts fly and run to get food, fish and insects swim and swarm
seeking food, plants and trees send their roots deep into the earth. Every one of
them is preoccupied by the search for food, all the time, every day, all year long.

All beings are like this. In the human realm, farmers, artisans, and merchants are
also like this. If it were possible to live out one’s life without working, one
should be called a thief of nature.

So why should knights have no occupation? Asking yourself this question, only
by examining the work of a knight will the role of knights become evident. As
long as you haven’t given this any thought, as long as you just go by what people
say or what is written in books, since you haven’t realized it in your gut and
heart, your aspiration is established on an extremely weak basis.

To say that aspiration is established on an extremely weak basis implies being

indecisive and inwardly obscured by bad habits of longstanding. So how can the
will for the Way be developed, slight as it is?

It should therefore be considered of primary importance to establish the basis of

knighthood. To follow others’ instructions according to your state of mind at the
moment is like when you do something for a while but really can’t get it done.
Now if you concentrate on what I’ve said and seek to understand your role
yourself, then the role of knighthood should become clear.

Generally speaking, the role of knights is in being personally conscientious,

completely loyal in public service for a ruler, faithful in association with friends,
and individually circumspect, concentrating on duty. Moreover, one inevitably
has personal, family, and marital relations. Even if they are universal social
norms, nevertheless farmers, artisans, and merchants cannot always follow that
path to fulfillment because they are preoccupied by their work.

Knights focus on this path to the exclusion of agriculture, craft, and commerce,
promptly penalizing anyone among the three civilian classes who disrupt social
norms, so that natural norms will be upright everywhere. This means that knights
have to have both cultural and martial virtues and expertise.

Thus, fulfilling the functions of sword and spear and bow and horse in punitive
actions, practicing political, professional, social, familial, and spousal norms in
the domestic sphere, with culture filling the heart while being prepared as a
warrior for the outside world, they provide for knowledge of the fundamentals
and the particulars, as the three civilian classes spontaneously take them for
exemplars, respect them, and follow their instructions. With this the path of
knighthood is fulfilled; you earn your food, clothing and housing, and so you can
be easy in mind, for this can requite the benevolence of the ruler and the
generosity of your parents in the meantime.

Without this effort, it’s as if you are stealing the generosity of your parents,
devouring a salary from your lord, spending your whole life as a thief. Those
who do not understand this ought to become civilians at once, either tilling to
eat, or making a living by crafts, or supporting themselves by trade. This way
there will be less blame from heaven. If you insist on being a knight, hoping for
public office, you should work at slavish common jobs with low salaries and
little official reward, spending your whole life at easy jobs like guard duty and
night watch. This is your role.
2. Aspiring to the Way
When people come to clarify their own role, there must be a way to perform that
role, so here aspiration for the “way” should emerge. For example, when you
want to go to Kyoto, you can’t go without knowing the way there. If you insist
on going without knowing the way, you’ll inevitably take the wrong route. To
know how to cultivate yourself as a knight, serve your lord, respect your father,
and interact harmoniously with your siblings, spouse, and friends, must lie in
finding out the way and knowing how to apply it.

So when you aspire to the Way, you take the initiative to find someone who is
adept at it to be your guide. If the person who is to mentor you acts in a
contradictory manner, or if he speaks plausibly but is unclear in responding to
actualities, leave at once and do not follow him. When you are steeped in the
instructions of a false teacher for a long time, without realizing it you’ll become
further and further from the Way under that person’s influence.

If you find no wise mentor anywhere in spite of seeking to learn from others in
this way, you should turn your attention inward on your own. Turning your
attention inward means that because the way of the wise is a teaching mastered
only by sole reliance on the inherence of natural qualities, without any forced
contrivance, as long as you have something to set your will on, the thing can be
learned, as you can find out the basic idea by yourself. This is especially so in
view of the fact that sages of old have provided maxims to guide people. If you
work carefully on these, you should be able to find the great way of the sages in
them.

Everyone acknowledges the order of the five norms and knows that there is a
way of knighthood, but some affirm themselves and think that’s enough, while
some seem to strive to no avail trusting false teachers. These things happen
because their aspiration for the way is weak.

Isn’t this attitude what Confucius meant by “aspire to the Way”— there must be
a way, something that cannot be expounded arbitrarily. If not for effective
aspiration, there is no means of attaining the Way. So it is called aspiring to the
Way.

People who have become somewhat familiar with the world and pretend to be
savants impose definition on the Way they think exclusive, insisting on their
subjective opinions, thus becoming further from the way, ultimately failing to
gain entry into the Great Way.

So even if you know the role of knighthood, without aspiration for the Way you
may have knowledge but do not put it into practice and so do not consummate it.
It is imperative to examine the principle most thoroughly.
3. Striving to Put Aspiration into Practice
Master Zeng said, “A knight ought to be broad-minded and strong-willed. ‘When
the burden is heavy, the road is long.’ Isn’t it also weighty to make humaneness
one’s responsibility? Isn’t stopping only at death also a long way to go?” If a
knight is not broad-minded and tolerant, he cannot bear heavy burdens and
cannot get far. Even if you know your role and aspire to that path, unless you put
that aspiration into practice it is just talk, not reality. And even if you put it into
practice, unless you strive at it all your life and stop only at death, you’ll give up
along the way. Then there’s no possibility of attainment.

Therefore diligent application is considered bravery in a knight. Confucius said,

“A noble man wants to be slow to talk but quick to act.” He also said that talk is
easy, while action is hard. When it comes to recognizing your professional role,
establishing your will, even though we speak of aspiring to the Way and learning
the process of the Way, the focus is on making the effort to put it into practice.

Even so, diligent practice is hard to accomplish with an ordinary will. Even a
minor habit of slight importance is hard to change without enormous effort when
you’ve become accustomed to it. In particular, between gain and loss, wayward
urgings of sexual desire, and opportunities for fame, if you linger over them for
long, there will be no end, and those thoughts will arbitrarily take the lead. At
this point, unless you have great strength within yourself, you’ll be dragged
down, and unable to be completely sincere.

To bring forth great strength in yourself depends on the depth of your will. If
your aspiration is shallow, your striving cannot be deep. As far as will is
concerned, this will does not emerge if you do not examine yourself and register
profound shame at what is unworthy of humanity in you.

Therefore in The Mean Confucius says, “To like learning is akin to knowledge;
to put it into practice diligently is akin to benevolence; to be conscientious is
akin to courage.” Mencius said, “One whom riches and rank cannot corrupt,
whom poverty and lowliness cannot compromise, and whom threat and force
cannot inhibit— this is called a strong man.”

Riches and rank are things people like a lot, poverty and lowliness are things
people dislike a lot, and threat and force are things people fear a lot. If your mind
sticks to them at all, you cannot be called a strong man. A strong man is one who
sets his will on the way of the knight and steadily strives to put this aspiration
into practice. Unless you work this way on its attentive correctness, the basis of
knighthood cannot be said to stand.
4. Mental Techniques: Cultivating Mood and
Maintaining Will
There is a natural endowment in people’s dispositions. That is to say,
some are born with a positive disposition, while others have a dark
disposition. This is called the natural state.

So a tiger is born with stripes, a phoenix naturally has five colors, a

fine steed can run a thousand miles without training, a crane has six
wings on a chick, white jade is lustrous without polish, gold is inherently
brighter than tile or stone. These are each natural characteristics, with
nothing artificial.
People are the same way. They are born with some good in them, but
those who have not developed and sustained it may be in some respect
like the clear moon or bright sun, but in another respect a dark
indifference develops. So unless people set aside what they’ve attained
in order to remedy their ignorance, transforming their disposition this very
day, they are not fully human.
Mencius said, “I am able to foster an expansive mood.” Even
Mencius, however, added that he found it hard to say what “expansive”
means, so I can’t tell you just what it is like now. But since the mind may
be disturbed or troubled by mood, consider it a matter of realizing this
and employing principles of cultivation so that you are not in a mood of
neediness. When you foster an expansive mood, it should be
magnanimous and firm, able to expand beyond myriad things, undaunted
by anything.
Because the mind depends on the mood, when your mood is calm
your mind is calm. When your mood is agitated, then your mind is
agitated. Since the mind and the mood are not in two separate states,
there is no disparity between them. As the mood exteriorizes the agitation
of the mind within, cultivating your disposition should be considered the
basis of personal refinement and soundness of mind.
Cultivating means assessing the excesses and insufficiencies in your
natural disposition, reducing the excessive and developing the
insufficient, balancing action and repose in the midst of things. This is
done in everyday activities.
 The human body is made of five elements, but the most important are
water and fire. Water is blood, which is heavy; fire is energy, which is
light. With these two, blood and energy, the physical body is effectively
complete. Water circulates because of fire, fire sometimes goes out and
sometimes flares up because of water. But water normally takes to
moisture, while fire normally takes to dryness; their substances differ in
rising and descending. That is why people’s moods are excitable and
emotive.
Understanding this, if you cultivate your mood to make its cycle
harmonious by balancing activity and calmness, not allowing it to be
excited at random, with no vanity in your attitude, your mind should
thereby be free from random arousal or absentmindedness.

Big Heartedness

If a knight does not have the heart to take on the greatest enterprise in
the world and independently exercise that immense responsibility, he
won’t be big-hearted enough, but will become petty and narrow-minded.

So to have a big heart means to make your heart so free as to admit

everything in the world, like an immense river that knows no end, or a
towering mountain that shelters plants and trees and birds and beasts.
The sky is open, letting birds fly; the ocean is wide, letting fish leap.
When it is said that a real man must have this bigness of heart, it seems
to refer to this attitude.
Guo Linzong1 said of Huang Xian2 of the Latter Han dynasty, “He is
immense, like a tidal wave. He cannot be stilled, he cannot be disturbed.
He is immeasurable.” Zhou Yi3 of Jin said, in response to Wang Dao, “In
here is empty, nothing, able to contain hundreds of your ilk.” Each of
these refers to the person’s big heart. If your capacity is not as broad as
this, your power won’t be robust.
Power means calmly putting everything in order, subduing the four
seas while conversing and laughing. The earth supporting immense
weight, the ocean immersing vast areas, the sky containing everything,
the sun and moon illumining everywhere—these are the powers of
nature.
Thus, even if you stand in the center of the world and rule the people
within the four seas, you do not take pride in this; even though you
decide important matters by yourself, and impose important measures on
the multitudes, you do not consider this great. If you cannot develop your
psychological capacity this way, you’ll be suffocated by things and won’t
be able to attain great expansiveness.
So it is said that one must act on bigness of heart. When our
psychological cultivation is slight, and we have not established a sound
will, our minds will be moved by gain and loss, likes and dislikes, our
tempers will act up arbitrarily, and we’ll lose reality.
When people feel pressed by things, that is because their mood is
agitated and out of sorts. When you’re agitated, knowledge is obscured
by that, so everything you do is arbitrary. Then you have no breadth at
all.
A man of mettle faces life-or-death situations, treading on naked
blades, making swords and spears fly, evincing firm discipline, facing
serious matters and making important decisions, all this without
disturbance or upset in voice or appearance. The civil and military
capacities to stabilize the world this way are to be found in greatness of
heart.

Will

Will means the backbone and integrity of the aim of a man of mettle. If
someone who would be a man of mettle sets his aim on something small,
what he accomplishes and what he learns will be extremely slight; he is
not a person of great capacity.

When Master Zeng and Mencius aspired to the Way, their will was
such that they did not consider even the achievements of the likes of
Guan Zhong1 and Master Yan to be worth doing. Zhao Wen2 of the Latter
Han dynasty said, “A man of mettle should fly like a male; how could he
lie like a female?” Chen Fan1 said, “A man of mettle should make his way
in life sweeping out all under heaven; how could he confine his concerns
to one house?” Liang Song2 said, “A man of mettle should be lordly in life,
enshrined in death.” Ban Chao3 said, “A man of mettle should establish
achievement abroad— how could he occupy himself with pen and ink?”
Li Jing4 of the Tang dynasty used to say, “The situation of a man of mettle
essentially calls for him to gain wealth and status by achievement and
repute—how could he wind up a mere man of letters?” Ma Sui5 said,
“When there’s trouble in the world, a man of mettle should work for the
welfare of all within the four seas—why become an old isolated scholar?”
Gao Ang6 of Northern Qi always said, “A man should go freely through
the land, acquiring fortune and status on his own; how could he sit up
reading books and become an old professor?”
Each of these sayings has a defect in its design, so they cannot be
considered maxims, but if a man’s mettle is not raised to such high
aspirations he will be stymied by petty matters and will not be able to
accomplish what is most important.
In ancient times, people who would be ministers aimed to make their
lords like Yao and Shun, considering it their own disgrace if even one
person found no place. They considered it appropriate to treat their
fathers as Master Zeng did, determined never to weary of it. This was
because they all had high aspirations and were not concerned with small
successes or minor affairs.
When Xu You1 heard of the abdication of the throne, he washed his
ears in the Ying River. Chao Fu declared that water unfit even for an ox to
drink, and wouldn’t draw from it downstream.
Fan Li2 went sailing on the Five Lakes, not accepting overlord-ship of
Yue for his achievement. Zhuang Zhou3 used the simile of “a kite that’s
caught a rotten mouse getting angry on seeing a phoenix fly.” Yan Ziling4
didn’t change his enjoyment of rivers and mountains for three lords.
Although each of these is not without defect from the perspective of
the path of sages, in terms of having no ambition at all, for better or
worse, not deviating from a place suitable to oneself even if one is a top
talent in the land, their determination to stand firm can indeed be called
the temperament of a man of mettle. The saying that a manly man must
have the mettle to flap his sleeves atop a thousand-fathom mountain and
wash his feet in a three-thousand-mile river can be found in this kind of
attitude as well.
However, if you only value high-mindedness without getting there by
the Way of sages, you will value heretical nothingness and emptiness,
regard the world as dust, consider the country chaff, and think it’s alright
just to suit yourself. That is why it is imperative to clarify their
implications.

Mellowness
With a man of mettle being so big-hearted and high-minded, he will
naturally have a certain mellowness about him. Mellowness implies depth
and tolerance. It means keeping your virtues to yourself, covering your
light, and not evincing anything extraordinary.

People of little intelligence and short on talent assert their knowledge,

boast to others, and show offto society, because their capacity is so
limited. When you’re big hearted and good tempered, standing out above
myriad things, there’s no point in insisting on your merit and boasting of
your fame any more. So there’s no more atmosphere of vehemence.
When mellowness spontaneously manifests in your face, and the
appearance of a humane man, a noble man, emerges in your interactions
and associations with other people, you will be like sunny springtime, a
blessing to all beings. This is the mellowness of a manly man.
With this mellowness, you can be caring, charitable, and helpful.
When you see desperate refugees anywhere in the world, you take it as
your personal pain, so you open your storehouses and turn your rice
barrels upside down, expending your wealth and using up your money,
happy only when the crisis is completely resolved.
This is the product of mellowness. This must be the sense of the
saying, “Jasper hidden below, the stream is in itself beautiful; containing
jade, the mountain conceals its luster. A man of mettle must have this
mellowness.” What an ancient referred to as dealing with things by being
like an empty boat1 is also impossible without profound mellowness.

Personality

By emphasizing only firmness, it may seem a man’s manners must be

rough. But this is not the intent of a man of mettle. So the saying that “a
man ought to have the elegance of the moon over the phoenix trees and
the wind in the willows” refers to an air that is not mundane manners but
like a lustrous jewel spontaneously shining on people nearby.

Huang Shangu,2 discussing the personality of Zhou Dunyi,3 said his

heart was as clear as unobstructed moonlight or a breeze after a shower.
This means refinement with a healthy appearance.
Everything has a natural form. The lowly give an appearance of
lowliness, the noble give an appearance of nobility. A wild crane has no
common constitution; green pine contains the strength for pillars and
beams.
After Mencius had an audience with King Xiang of Liang, he came out
and said to people, “He doesn’t seem like a ruler—when you are in his
presence, you don’t see anything to fear.” This means that King Xiang
didn’t have the personality to be a lord of men.
When men’s development isn’t correct, some think that the rule for a
man is just being hard and strong, while being cynical and slip-shod
about everything from attire, diet, and dwelling to speech and manners.
This is a big mistake. For a man to age gracefully does not mean
indulging in softness and calling that personality.
A transparent presence, like a crystal jar filled with pure water, or a
white jade bowl of ice, without any crudeness or vulgarity—this should be
called the personality of a manly man. Inwardly needing to curry no favor,
outwardly undaunted by anything, with an expansive mood, always on
top of all things, like a bird flying in the sky, a fish frolicking in the deep,
the moon over the phoenix trees, the wind alluring the willows.
Can you be unaffected by anything without having developed such a
personality? Be very careful.

Footnotes

1 Guo Linzong was a very famous classical scholar of the Latter Han dynasty (25-219 CE). A
private teacher, he is said to have had thousands of students. In spite of his literary
accomplishments he did not enter government service, as would have been the expected
norm for learned men of his caliber. According to some accounts, he was rumored to be a
Taoist wizard.

2 Huang Xian was awarded an honorary degree in his youth and summoned to service in the
central government, but after a brief time in the capital he returned to his native place and
never went into civil service again. He died at the age of 48. His popular epithet was
Weixun, “The Little Prince.”

3 Zhou Yi: a model of integrity. He tried to save a certain official named Wang Dao from
incrimination when Wang’s cousin rebelled against the throne. Wang Dao was a trusted
member of the cabinet of Emperor Yuan (r. 317-323), who founded the Eastern Jin dynasty
(317-419), and later mentor to his son and successor Emperor Ming (r. 323-326) and Ming’s
son and successor Emperor Cheng (r. 326-343). Wang Dao’s cousin Wang Dun was a
successful military commander who had helped Emperor Yuan found the dynasty, but
eventually determined to take over the throne himself and staged two uprisings. When
Wang Dun rebelled, Wang Dao was thrown in prison because of their family relationship
and presumed collusion. Unknown to him, Zhou Yi made great efforts to exonerate him and
 have him released. Later, when Wang Dun asked Wang Dao about Zhou Yi, the latter said
nothing, so Wang Dun had Zhou Yi killed. When Wang Dao found out what Zhou Yi had
done for him, he lamented, “I didn’t kill Zhou Yi, but he died because of me.” Jin Shu 69

1 Guan Zhong (d. 645 BCE), was a founding philosopher of the Legalist school of political
philosophy.

2 Zhao Wen was minister of education during the reign of Emperor Xian (r. 189-220), the last
emperor of the Han dynasty.

1 Chen Fan was a government official during the reign of Emperor Huan of China’s Latter Han
dynasty (r. 147-167). When Emperor Huan died and his widow Empress Dou took over the
reigns of government, Chen Fan collaborated with her father to reform the government by
recruiting able personnel and purging corrupt eunuchs, a major problem in Han politics.
Chen’s plan for getting rid of corrupt eunuchs was discovered by his enemies and he
himself was murdered.

2 Liang Song: a scholar and poet of the Latter Han dynasty, first century CE. Sent into exile
when his brother, a high government official, was denounced and imprisoned, Liang Song
was eventually exonerated, whereupon he returned to his native place and lived in
seclusion. Ultimately he was again denounced, by an imperial in-law, an interest group that
with the eunuchs played a major role in high Han politics, especially in opposition to the
scholar-bureaucrats. Liang Song died in prison.

3 Ban Chao served in several offices in the defense department of the Latter Han dynasty in
China under emperors Ming (r. 58-76) and Zhang (76-89). He was assigned to campaigns
in Central Asia, where he spent thirty-one years and is credited with establishing Han
dominance over 50 states.

4 Li Jing: a distinguished general who assisted in the founding of the Tang dynasty (619-906).
He served in several capacities in central government, including Secretary of War, and also
led Tang forces in the field against neighboring Turkic and Tibetan kingdoms. Author of
numerous works on military science, Li Jing held numerous important posts under emperors
Gaozu (r. 618-626) and Taizong (r. 627-649) of China’s Tang dynasty. He was especially
famous for engineering the defeat of powerful Turkic and Tartar nations of Central Asia,
among the most redoubtable rivals of the Tang Chinese empire.

5 Ma Sui distinguished himself in military service to the Tang dynasty under emperors Daizong
(r. 762-780) and Dezong (r. 789-805). He was particularly known for subduing revolts
against the central government staged by regional military inspectors from the imperial
family. The regional military inspectors played an enormous role in the governance and
dissolution of the vast and multi-national Tang empire.

6 Gao Ang was a scholar who rose to high rank by military exploits under the Eastern Wei and
Norther Qi dynasties in the middle of the sixth century C.E., before the reunification of China
under the Sui and Tang empires in the late sixth and early seventh centuries.
1 Xu You was legendary sage of ancient times who refused the Chinese throne. When Xu You
heard that the sage king Yao was going to abdicate the throne to him on account of his
virtue, Xu You “washed his ears” to cleanse them of the very suggestion of worldly power.
Another sage, named Chao Fu, learning of this, led his ox upstream to drink, away from the
implied pollution.

2 Fan Li was a man of pre-imperial China’s Spring and Autumn era, when the ancient Zhou
dynasty was beginning to dissolve. He was appointed top general of the state of Yue for
having encompassed the downfall of neighboring state of Wu, but he left the state without
accepting the office.

3 Zhuang Zhou, commonly written as Chuang Chou, was Chuang-tzu, a philosopher of the
Spring and Autumn era, the reputed author of the core chapters of the Taoist classic
Zhuangzi or Chuang-tzu. This work lays great emphasis on keeping men of talent out of
corrupt government.

4 Yan Ziling was a former schoolmate of the first emperor of the Latter Han dynasty. He was
appointed imperial advisor, but declined the position. He took up farming and lived a long
time, into his eighties.

1 An empty boat is an image from the Taoist classic Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) referring to the
practice of emptying the mind to be aloof and innocent of assertiveness and
contentiousness.

2 Huang Shangu was a famous scholar, poet, calligrapher, and civil administrator of Song
dynasty China, ca. 1100. He was twice denounced by rivals and sent into exile.

3 Zhou Dunyi was an 11th century scholar and bureaucrat in civil and military departments. He
is best known as the founder of the Idealist school of neo-Confucianism and the teacher of
the famous Cheng brothers.
5. Distinguishing Righteousness from Profiteering
The means by which an upright man maintains his mind is simply a matter of
distinguishing between the ethical and the advantageous. The distinction
between the noble man and the petty man, the difference between the principles
of kings and warlords, are all in the gap between righteousness and profiteering.

What is righteousness? Introspecting with a sense of shame and fear, self-

criticism after dealing with matters; this could be called righteousness. What is
profiteering? Indulging inner desires, pursuing outward comfort and leisure; this
could be called profiteering.

Past and present, the process of learners entering the Way should consist of
clarifying the distinction between what is right and what is profitable. That is
because people find profit very attractive, and everyone gets obsessed with it. So
in matters of life and death they like life and hate death; in matters of gain and
loss they run to gain and flee loss; in matters of labor and leisure they dislike
labor and take to leisure.

The needs of nourishment, housing, and clothing, the scope of looking, listening,
speaking, and acting—anywhere that feelings occur, in each instance these
feelings cannot but be. The teaching of sages and noble men is not to despise life
and take to death, or run to loss and avoid gain, or labor without leisure. The
likes and dislikes of sages and noble men cannot be other than those of ordinary
people—the distinction is only in discernment or confusion.

What do I mean by confusion? Profiting yourself alone, without consideration of

others—this I call confusion. If you want to gain something for yourself, so does
everyone in the world; therefore, what sages and noble men do is distinguish
relative importance.

Relative importance means that lords, fathers, elder brothers, and husbands are
more important than subjects, sons, younger brothers, and wives. The world and
the nation are more important than the individual. Looking, listening, speaking,
and activity are less important than mind.

When you thoroughly investigate and reason out relative importance, confusion
should stop. That is because in a life-and-death emergency, if there is imminent
danger of harm to important others, such as the lord or the people, one should
not hesitate to die without a second thought, while if those important to you are
not in danger of harm the thing to do is take care to preserve your life. This goes
as well for gain and loss, labor and leisure.

When you examine the principles of things this way in all events, then righteous
and rational conduct will develop, while motivation by gain and loss will
disappear. Even so, the distinction between what is beneficial and what is
harmful is well-defined; the beneficial is truly beneficial, the harmful is truly
harmful. When sages teach this to noble men, they do not force anything, but
just let them recognize it themselves, and apply the reason for its inevitability to
all things.

Realizing that this confusion is hard to analyze, people of ancient times devised
various doctrines. As a man of stature, to abandon an obvious duty on account of
personal interests is naturally shameful and appalling, extremely lamentable. It is
because of this that people are proud when they gain small advantages, arrogant
when they achieve success, pursue money and flee difficulty, seek to win by
contention, want the bigger share, are discontent, wish to have all their ambitions
fulfilled, and hope for any possible pleasure to the fullest.

When unlimited desires like this occur, there is no distinguishing relative

importance, so one forgets the more serious and values the more frivolous,
eventually neglecting the duties of lord and subject, father and son, elder and
younger brother, teachers, colleagues, husband and wife, doing things as one
likes, with unpleasant consequences in the aftermath. That’s because neglect of
duty involves violation of natural laws.
6. Making Peace with Destiny
What people suffer over are death, loss, disaster, difficulty, poverty, lowliness,
isolation, and loneliness. What they enjoy are the opposite of these. When they
suffer, their minds are uneasy on this account; when they’re happy, their minds
also change on that account. So their will changes in times of sorrow and joy;
instability of mind is a normal state under these conditions.

A man of mettle keeps his wits about him at such times. This is what it means to
be unaffected by riches and rank or poverty and lowliness. The Book of Changes
says, “When there is no water in the wetlands, that is exhaustion; a noble man
therefore lives out his destiny to achieve his aim.” It also says, “When there is
water on top of a mountain, it is halted; a noble man in this situation reexamines
himself and cultivates character.” This is the understanding with which a noble
man makes peace with his destiny in times of distress and conditions of
hardship.

Generally speaking, what we mean by destiny is impossible for people to create,

but takes shape naturally and spontaneously, bringing those patterns and events
into existence. This is called destiny, or fate. The saying that Nature produces
people, and whatever exists has its rule, amounts to saying that every thing and
every being has its individual destiny. Therefore Master Zhu1 called it the Order
of Nature in his notes, saying that destiny is like a command.

Master Cheng said, “In times of distress, when you’ve exhausted all preventative
measures and still cannot escape, that is destiny.” This is because in each such
case it is an action of Nature of which humans are incapable. Confucius said he
came to know the Order of Nature when he was fifty years old; he also said one
could not be a noble man without knowing destiny. The saying of Mencius,
“nothing is not destined, but accept it accurately” means that a person who is not
at some peace with the Order of Nature will act arbitrarily and make mistakes,
unable to be realistic.

So when you’ve done all you can to take care of your health but your life span’s
shrinking, or duty is about to lead to death, this is destiny. When the time has
come and there’s nowhere else to go, your strength at last on the decline, even if
there are savants there’s no use trying to prop this up, so it comes to utter
destruction, this is destiny. When King Wen1 was imprisoned in Jiang Village,
and Confucius was imperiled between Chen and Cai, this was destiny.

There are also those whose time never comes because of geographical isolation
and lack of cooperation, yet cannot accept a simple life. Even though
acknowledged and employed, Shi the Bandit2 led nine thousand men on a
rampage through the land, plundering all the lords.

There are those whose posterity flourishes, and there are those who are isolated
and alone, who had few children and no extensive posterity. In any case, who
arranged this?

In particular, people get confused by riches and rank and poverty and lowliness,
sometimes currying favor by clever words and commanding appearances, or
making a habit of obsequious and opportunistic flattery. In this the outstanding
will of a man of mettle is entirely absent; it is no different from a lowly man
preoccupied with monopolizing the market. It is the epitome of witlessness, most
laughable.

Generally speaking, for someone to become established in the world is firstly a

matter of timing; secondly a matter of being born in an outstanding family; and
thirdly a matter of the individual having a temperament suitable to the times.
Only when these three conditions are fulfilled can your time come. None of them
can be created by yourself; it can only happen naturally. Even if you’re smart
enough to acquire some property along the way, that’s just being less poor, not
sufficient to turn poverty into wealth.

Confucius said, “If wealth could be obtained by seeking I’d even be a driver! If
not, I‘ll pursue my preference.” What he meant was that if wealth could be
obtained by seeking, one should not refuse to do a job even if it is incongruous
with one’s social status; but if it is something that effort cannot achieve, being in
the order of nature, one should simply rest content with the principles one
prefers.

So a pine is a pine, but the pine of Takasago and the pine of Sumi-no-E grow on
very different ground, high and low, mountain and river. So one might be prized
for its height, while another may be hidden and unknown because it is short.
What determines that is the order of Nature, not human contrivance.
A man of mettle should always be at peace with this natural order, not being
proud even of wealth and status, for these are the order of nature, as they are not
one’s own creation. Nor should one detest poverty and lowliness out of shame,
where this is the order of nature and nothing that you can help.

Then neither poverty nor wealth, neither high nor low status, are objects of
particular attention. When the year is cold, and the green pine survives alone in
the valley, your psychological fortitude will become evident.

To insist on arbitrary action because you’re not reconciled to your fate is

something that men should be most wary of. If people let their minds go
offaccording to their individual likes and dislikes, confusion will grow day by
day. This, it seems, is the reason for working on soundness of mind by making
peace with destiny in the present.

Footnotes

1 Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a Song dynasty scholar who collected and annotated

works of the great masters of neo-Confucianism, including Zhou Dunyi, the
Cheng brothers, and Huang Qu. The term Cheng-Zhu studies refers to the
academic line following the work of Zhu Xi.

1 King Wen rallied the support of lords disaffected with the corrupt Shang
dynasty in the late 12th century BCE, preparing alliances for the eventual
establishment of the Zhou dynasty. King Wen was the elder brother of King Wu,
who founded the Zhou dynasty, the source of classical Confucian cultural norms,
in 1122 BCE. Wen had ruled the state of Zhou under the preceding Shang
dynasty, entitled Lord of the West, but was imprisoned by the last ruler of the
Shang in 1144 BCE because he was gaining support from other ancient states
subordinate to the Shang dynasty. Wen was released in 1142 and put in charge of
punitive military campaigns for the Shang administration to keep him at odds
with other states.

2 Shi the Bandit was a historical figure of China’s Spring and Autumn era. This
epithet is also used as the title of a chapter of the Taoist classic Zhuangzi
(Chuang-tzu) criticizing predatory ambition.
7. Integrity
If a man does not maintain integrity within, then gain and loss will occur to him
in the course of public service and obedience to his father and elder brothers, and
he’ll lose his natural mind. Integrity means having no interest in bribes from
outside, or in family wealth, standing upright and undaunted in what worldly
people are incapable of doing. This is called integrity.

If you have no integrity within, your attention will be taken by the slightest gain
or loss, so you lose your self-control and won’t be in your right mind. So when
Confucius refraining from drinking at Thieves’ Spring, and Zeng Can turned his
chariot around at the portal of Shengmu because the name means overcoming
mother, were these not examples of integrity?

Even so, people whose conduct is so lofty as to refuse an enormous stipend but
who are stingy with tiny things like a piece of paper or half a penny, are that way
because their integrity is slight and so they become mean and stingy.

It is said that a man of integrity, with a view of clouds and moon, wouldn’t even
look into a pit of gold, wouldn’t blink an eye at a mountain of cash. If you have
no determination to keep your integrity, you’ll naturally become covetous where
no one sees or knows and it doesn’t seem to matter if you take something. In
ancient times a Mr. Ji of Yanling was traveling when he saw some gold someone
had dropped on the road. He suggested to a man carrying firewood nearby that
he take the money for himself. The man became very indignant and said, “Why
is your rank so high but your talk so low? I may be a menial carrying firewood,
but I have no interest in profiting from picking up gold that someone else has
lost.” Mr. Ji was surprised and asked the man’s name, but he didn’t answer.

Carrying firewood brings meager profit, while lost gold is very valuable, but a
man who aspires to integrity has no business acquiring what he shouldn’t have.
There is an inherent sense of right here.

Depending on people’s disposition, there are some who are naturally honest and
have no greed at all. Although their temperament is in some sense superior to
others, if they don’t study and strive to bring this potential to perfect integrity,
keeping their mind on this, they won’t be able to extend it to all things. If you
have the capacity for integrity, you should not neglect it on account of gain or
loss, so here is where a man should strive most.

The integrity of Bo Yi1 and Shu Qi in ancient times might almost be called the
epitome of integrity. Mencius said, “Bo Yi didn’t look at anything bad, didn’t
work for anyone but his lord, didn’t employ anyone but his people. When there
was order he stepped forward, and when there was disorder he withdrew; he
could not bear to live where the government was corrupt and the people unruly.
Among provincial people he seemed like someone in sitting in mud and cinders
wearing court attire. In the time of Zhou2 he stayed by the shore of the northern
sea, waiting for the world to settle down. Therefore where people hear of the
way of Bo Yi, even ignorant men become honest, and weak men acquire will.”
So to say Bo Yi was pure as a sage means he was uncorrupted.

Footnotes

1 Bo Yi was among the nobles who went into self-imposed exile from the Shang
dynasty during the reign of the last king; he is commonly cited as a purist. He
and Shu Qi subsequently refused to recognize the Zhou dynasty supplanting the
Shang, and starved to death in the mountains.

2 Zhou here refers to the last king of the ancient Yin (Shang) dynasty, reigning
from 1154 to 1122 BCE, commonly cited with King Jie of Xia (1818-1766 BCE)
as an archetype of evil. Not to be confused with the Zhou dynasty or the Duke of
Zhou, which connote good government in Confucian theory.
8. Honesty
For a man to stand up in society, he has to be honest. Honesty means abiding by
what is right, without wavering, correcting what needs correction regardless of
relation or rank, without flattering people or conforming to convention.

As for those who say it’s hard to establish yourself in society by standing on
principle as such, without going the way of the world and following other
people, as they refrain from correcting the lord’s mistakes even while receiving
salaries, not admonishing their fathers and elder brothers when they’re wrong,
going along with the times, getting big salaries and important offices, toadying
to the age, saying they’ll admonish the lord when the time is right, they wind up
wasting time, never doing anything all their lives. This is very shameful, most
ridiculous. How could they have a stalwart heart? Depending on their salaries,
blinded by their offices, they’ll lose their original mind and become objects of
public derision.

Mencius said that men of mettle will rise up even without a King Wen. When
they depend on others’ help and are eager for acceptance, people will admit
criticism and correct errors even if they are not honest men. As for men of
mettle, they will not expect or depend on any assistance.

A pine tree reaches the sky unbent, an orchid is still fragrant even if no one is
there. This could be called the point where a manly man’s honesty stands. As
honest, accurate, and significant are expressions important in the Book of
Changes, in working for your lord and your father, and becoming established in
the world, at all times make true significance and honest accuracy fundamental.
To be uninhibited by vulgar opinion, not setting forth anything to the lord that is
not humane and just, coolly spanning the four seas in times of crisis, is due to
keeping an honest mind.
9. Firmness and Constancy
A man in society will not be able to keep his right mind without a firm and
constant will. Firmness means fortitude, not yielding to things. Constancy means
keeping intact the aspiration one considers right, unchanging. If a man does not
maintain this mentality, he will readily yield to his likes and dislikes, and his
devotion to right will be uncertain.

Therefore I consider the practice of firm constancy to be establishing

trustworthiness and rigorous devotion to right. Integrity and honesty cannot
stand either without firm constancy. The path of knighthood in particular is
normally based on fortitude, and practiced by unchanging adherence to its
values.

What human being does not experience life and death, gain and loss, like and
dislike? Inwardly examining principles with firm constancy to reach the point
where you can meet death in peace, though death is most disagreeable; and you
can accept loss in peace, though loss is extremely offensive; and you can easily
abstain from luxuries, alcohol, and sex, desirable though they be, is something
no one can do without maintaining fortitude and constancy at high levels.

Mencius said, “A man of will does not forget he may die in a ditch; a brave man
does not forget he may lose his head.” He also said, “A gentleman does not lose
righteousness when in straits, and does not deviate from principle when
successful.” That is because of keeping the mind on this.

When this will is missing, even temporarily, you’ll yield to the profit motive,
drown in wine, and get infatuated with women, eventually forgetting duty and
failing at the most important matter of life and death, changing your
commitment in a crisis. How could this be called the aspiration of a man of
mettle?

One who can distinguish the proper places of duty and profit, and act on this
with contentment, is a noble man. A noble man is not easy to find in the world.
This is something that scholars learn the hard way, by learning to get rid of their
confusion. Scholars who would become men of mettle should always maintain
firmness and constancy, accurately discern their presence or absence of mind in
the midst of likes and dislikes, and understand how to be undaunted by myriad
things.

Among the people of old there were those who were naturally firm and constant,
yet while outstanding in one respect were ignorant in another. Scholars who have
the outstanding disposition of the ancients ought to apply it to their present
circumstances, then gradually develop it further to extend it to everything. As a
knight, if you do not develop the spirit and physique of a man of mettle, that
indicates the mentality of a lazy schoolboy—how could you have world class
capacity and perception?
10. Refining Character and Perfecting Ability,
Devotion to Loyalty and Filial Piety
The public life of a man involves service to the lord and participation at
court; in private life he is attentive to his father and elder brothers, and
manages his household. Thus he assists the affairs of the land and
resolves the people’s worries. When there are rebellious subjects, he
personally accepts the responsibility of military command, devising
strategy and rendering meritorious service of eternal distinction; or he
acts as an ambassador to settle a crisis without embarrassment to his
lord’s command; or he goes to his death, slighting his life, giving up a full
lifetime at a single stroke of the sword. This is devotion to loyalty in the
service of the lord.

Now then, doing all you can for your father and mother, looking after
them to their satisfaction, continuing to be attached to them, sacrificing
your life without regret—this is filial piety exercised to the utmost at
home, is it not?
A man’s responsibilities are very heavy. What I am talking about here
is constantly cultivating your mood to be calm and quiet, keeping your
presence of mind savoring principles, and transferring this to your lord
and your father to clarify the realities of loyalty and filial piety. This is a
knight’s job—if you don’t serve your lord virtuously and don’t attend to
your father and elder brothers sincerely, then there is no evidence of
effort to cultivate the spirit and keep presence of mind.
To begin with, character means outward exercise of what is cultivated
inside, with complete sincerity and thorough investigation of principles.
That is called character. Even if you say you cultivate your spirit and
maintain mindfulness, if your sincerity toward your lord and your father is
inadequate, how could it reach anyone lower? In that case what you’ve
cultivated, what you’ve kept, is only empty talk, without substance.
The Way of sages is actually the Way1 only when it is exercised for
the benefit of everyone in the world, so that the great and the small, the
refined and the rude, are alike sufficed, and its influence reaches the four
seas. If you only illuminate yourself and live a clean life as an individual,
you are a complacent small person who always stands by his word and
always finishes what he does.
So when you are unfailingly diligent in doing what you must in service
of your lord and your father, and you accord with the appropriate
principles, the world peaceful and the home trouble-free, always adapting
without stagnating, this is like sky and earth covering and supporting all
without exclusion. Is this not great virtue?
Therefore, to refine character, first work on loyalty and filial piety,
being completely sincere in them, making faithfulness to nature basic in
service of your lord and your father.
Thus in ancient times when Chief Yu brought the flood under control,
and Gao Yao1 became an officer, the principle in this was correct. Ever
since Yi Yin and Fa Shuo2 rendered distinguished service to Shang, and
Dan Shao3 the Duke of Zhou and Gong Shi4 assisted the administration
of the Zhou dynasty, successive generations of great ministers exercised
utmost loyalty in governing society and helping the people, making their
great accomplishments in times of peace. The Duke of Zhou’s
Taigongwang, Han’s Zhang Liang,5 and Shu’s Zhuge Kongming
maintained the principles of the Way in times of turmoil by means of
achievements in war.
Guan Longfeng criticized King Jie6 of the Xia dynasty, and got
punished by being roasted to death. Bi Gan criticized King Zhou of the
Yin dynasty, and got his heart ripped out. Shi Yu of Wei left his own
corpse under a window to criticize Duke Ling.7 Zhou She criticized the
errors of Zhao Jianzi,8 wishing to be a frank and straightforward minister.
Ji An of Han denounced Emperor Wu1 to his face, Zhu Yun chastised
Emperor Cheng.2 Each of these individuals risked offending human
rulers, without regard for their own lives.
When Wang Shu of Zhou City in Qi was overcome by the army of
Yan, the King of Yan offered to make him lord of ten thousand
households. He refused, however, saying that a loyal subject does not
serve two lords, just as a chaste wife does not have two husbands. In the
end he hanged himself.
Gan Guoqing3 died after having his tongue cut offeven as he was
reviling An Lushan.4
These are examples of being absolutely loyal to the end. Did they not
refine their character in service of their lords? If their character were not
sound, how could they do as they did?
Now then, there was the filial piety of the great Shun, and Master
Zeng,5 the exertions of Dong Ying6 and Wang Xiang,7 the considerate
care of Lao Laizi8 and Huang Xiang,9 the attachment of Zhong You10 and
Wang Pou,11 the sincere feeling of Guo Qu12 and Meng Zong,1 and the
self-sacrifice of Yin Baoqi2 and Shen Sheng,3 all examples of perfecting
sincerity in service of parents. How could those people get to be as they
were without cultivating character?
So lords and fathers are the mainstays of social order, and if you don’t
serve them with complete sincerity the proper relationships between ruler
and subject and father and son will not be clearly defined.
If you try to be completely sincere without cultivating character, your
substance will be shallow and you may change in face of injury or death.
In all things, if you cannot decide critical matters in major emergencies
and upheavals, your character is undeveloped. Even in everyday
mundane life, those who take care of their business on the basis of virtue
are rooted differently. Even so, if it is not adequate in all things, its
effectiveness is indistinct. Now if an extraordinary upheaval occurs under
these circumstances, you will not be able to exercise complete sincerity
as a subject or a son openly and obviously if your character is not
upright.

Footnotes

1 The Way: in general, this term refers to expression of natural law, as in the Tao Te Ching,
“The Way derives its laws from nature.” Neo-Confucians of medieval China drew much of
their metaphysics and meditative methods from Taoism. The subset termed the Way of
humanity refers to the principles of an ideal social order. Humanity forming a triad with
heaven and earth refers to human beings participating willfully in the natural order. This is a
normal neo-Confucian theory of the natural origin of the social order. The expression way of
sages refers to Confucianism, particularly in respect to social responsibility; this is
contrasted to heretical nothingness and emptiness, which refer to typical nihilistic
aberrations of Taoism and Buddhism.

1 Gao Yao: a legendary minister of the ancient Xia dynasty of China, associated with The
Strategies of Gao Yao, a treatise on political science included in the classic Important
Documents.

2 Fa Shuo was a legendary minister to the founder of China’s Shang dynasty (1766-1122).

3 Dan Shao, Duke of Zhou, one of the co-founders of the Zhou dynasty in the 12th century
 B.C.E, a major contributor to its cultural and legal system, was a model for Confucianism.

4 Gong Shi is a traditional heroic figure, a minister of the early Zhou dynasty.

5 Zhang Liang, a military hero, engineered an attempted assassination of the First Emperor of
China, then later assisted in the founding of the succeeding Han dynasty.

6 Jie: the last king of the ancient Xia dynasty, he acceded to the throne in 1818 BCE.
Traditionally cited as a model of decadence and corruption., he was overthrown by Tang,
founder of the Shang dynasty.

7 Duke Ling of Wei lived in the time of Confucius, whom he met and consulted. Confucius
walked out on Duke Ling after he asked about military matters.

8 Zhao Jianzi was a prime minister of the state of Jin during the Spring and Autumn period. He
fled the state when it was under siege, but later returned to fight back.

1 Emperor Wu (The Martial Emperor) of the Han dynasty (r. 140-86 BCE) was one of the most
powerful of all Chinese emperors, commonly classed with the First Emperor of Qin as a
greedy and aggressive tyrant.

2 Emperor Cheng of the Han dynasty (r. 32-6 BCE) enfeoffed the wily Wang Mang, who would
eventually usurp the reins of government to terminate the Han and established the short-
lived New Dynasty in 8 CE.

3 Gan Guoqing is a Confucian model of loyalty. He was a political opponent of the rebel An
Lushan, foreseeing An’s treachery against the Tang dynasty, was taken prisoner by him and
dismembered. He is said to have continued to berate An Lushan even as he was being
hacked to pieces.

4 An Lushan was a regional military inspector under the Tang dynasty in China. He staged a
calamitous rebellion in 755.

5 Master Zeng: a major disciple of Confucius. His three meditations are particularly well
known: Master Zeng said, “I examine myself on three points daily. In planning for others,
have I been disloyal? In relations with colleagues, have I been untrustworthy? Am I
repeating to others what I don’t practice myself?”

6 Dong Ying married a “celestial maiden” who helped him take care of his parents.

7 Wang Xiang was famous for breaking through ice in winter to catch fish to feed his
stepmother.

8 Lao Laizi would act like a child to amuse his parents even when he was seventy years old.
9 Huang Xiang was a classicist and author, and was noted for devotion to his father.

10 Zhong You was a distinguished disciple of Confucius.

11 Wang Pou refused to go into civil service because the king had had his father killed.

12 Guo Qu was famed for devotion to his mother, and is said to have found a buried pot of
gold inscribed as a gift to him from heaven, representing celestial reward for his filial piety.

1 Meng Zong: a model of filial piety. He went into the woods in winter to hunt bamboo shoots
for his mother and found them sprouting all over, as a divine reward.

2 Yin Baoqi was banished after being slandered by his stepmother, and yet was not
embittered.

3 Shen Sheng was heir to a duke, but committed suicide after being slandered by his father’s
favorite concubine, who wanted to set her own son on the throne.
11. Rely on Humanity and Justness
The virtues of the human heart do not go beyond humanity and justness. These
are essentials of the order of Nature, and when you go along with those feelings
without artificiality, you’re just a heart-full of humanity and justness.

Therefore in a manly man’s personal discipline he should make humanity and

justness his bases of reliance.

Humanity is the life-giving heart of heaven and earth. When the feeling of
sympathy emerges in proper proportion, this is the function of love.

Justness means being scrupulous in dealing with matters. This means external
projection of inward scruples in proper proportion.

So without a humane heart, one cannot embody tolerance and breadth of mind;
and so one sinks in subjective likes and dislikes. This is why humanity is
considered the source of sagehood.

Without a just heart, your dealings with matters will not be principled, so you
will not be decisive.

When you work on humanity, you become courteous in the process. When you
strive for justness, intelligence becomes clear in the process. This means that
humanity and justness are the sources of courtesy and intelligence, just as water
and fire are the bases of the five elements.1

What sages teach people is not beyond humaneness and justness. Humaneness is
the basis of virtue, justness is its practical application. As for the path to which a
man of mettle aspires, if he does not refine inner character on the basis of
humaneness and justice, how can the reality be attained?

Now then, a man’s daily activities do not go beyond serving his lord and his
father outside while governing himself inside. When the principle of serving
one’s lord and one’s father is established, here the conduct of subject and son is
clear; then relations with colleagues, the status of brothers, and the distinction
between husband and wife should naturally be orderly.
When you govern yourself inwardly on the basis of humanity and justness,
myriad different functions and everyday activities are clear in this, so there
should be no ignorance of the essence. Although many methods of personal
cultivation of scholars since ancient times appear in books, the differing views of
latter-day scholars should not be adopted. The sages set forth their teachings
clearly; their doctrines are all in humanity and justness.

When you have your own experience of the function of humanity and justness,
and actually sense the reason they are necessary to heaven and earth, then the
source of the learning of sages will be clear in this. With no further need to speak
of humanity and justness, everything you say will be humane and just.

Nonetheless, Confucians of past and present have drawn legs on snakes,

producing wens and warts on the body, saying things with their mouths that are
not in their hearts, filling myriad volumes with notes and commentaries on
humanity and justness without being either humane or just. One might almost
sigh in lament. Would men of mettle not be highminded enough to set their
hearts to this?

Footnotes

1 Five elements: one of the most pervasive structures in Chinese thought. The
five elements are water, fire, metal, earth, and wood. They are conceived of as
producing and superseding each other in specific orders, resulting in
corresponding changes in conditions.
12. Thoroughly Understanding
Things
The functions of things each contain the universal absolute,1 in the
manifestations of which appear a variety of functions. Plants are plants, but there
are outstanding orchids; chrysanthemums display an attitude of abandon;
peonies show a sign of richness; lotuses have the qualities of princes. Wood is
wood, but pine and cedar have the capacity to be ridgepoles and beams; the
parasol tree has a clean constitution; apricot has a refined fragrance; cherry has a
beautiful appearance. Willows are green, flowers are red. Their types, too many
to tell, each have their laws. Noble men, it is said, gaze up at the heavens above,
examine the earth below, and observe people and things in between. This is how
they clarify the phenomena and events of sky and earth, among people and
things, after which the aptitude of sages is freely exercised in order to respond to
myriad things.

Since character is based on natural qualities, and humanity and justness are
human principles, who would not rely on them? But even if you refine your
character with humanity and justness, if you do not comprehend the qualities of
things, from astronomy to geography, the thousands of differences and myriads
of distinctions evolving from combinations of positive and negative energies,
then your way of dealing with affairs is not free; you have not mastered heaven,
earth, and society with your intelligence.

Everything is like this in service of your lord and your father, and in cultivation
of yourself. For a man of mettle to save the people of an era, accomplishing an
achievement of distinction for myriad ages, assisting the virtues of heaven and
earth, exercising the sincerity of sages to the utmost, is all a matter of
establishing this character and perfecting your intelligence and abilities. So even
the august emperor, in his unsurpassed rank, must know about everything down
to the work of lowly woodcutters, or there will inevitably be neglect in national
government.

Even the sage emperors Yao and Shun directed Xi Ho, Xi Zhong, Xi Shu, Ho
Zhong, and Ho Shu to make certain of the seasons, directed Yu to level water
and earth, directed Ji to plant a hundred grains to fully utilize the earth, making
Chief Yu1 minister of public works, Qi minister of education, with Gao Yao
becoming a judge. Shun directed Shui to be the master of the guilds, and made
Yi the minister of mountains and wetlands, having him domesticate plants and
trees and birds and beasts.

It would be impossible to detail all these things. How much the more, as a
subject serving a lord and a son being filial to his father, you will invariably run
into problems on every occasion if you are not thoroughgoing in everything. So
you should savor books from the documents of Yu and Xia such as The Plan of
Gao Yao, The Plan of Great Yu, Yi and Ji, and The Contributions of Yu.

Coming to the Zhou dynasty, Duke Dan of Zhou was the younger brother of
King Wu, who was the son of King Wang; though he was the son of a king and
the grandson of a king, he composed the Songs of the Seventh Month detailing
the livelihood of the people; he admonished King Cheng with the composition
No Negligence, informing him of the difficulties of agriculture; he defined the
rules of the Manners of Zhou in exhaustive detail, clarifying etiquette and
measure for human emotions. This was because he acquired thorough
knowledge of things, and he was a genius.

To assist government in a time of peace, advising and aiding the ruler in

establishing standards and laws for the empire, distinguishing a meritorious
design over myriad ages, is inevitably a matter of thoroughly understanding
things. How much the more so when born in a state at war; if you are to handle
major upheavals, raising troops for humanity and justice like Tang and Wu,
subduing opponents’ forces without fighting, preferring strategy and entering
unpopulated areas, how can you master it without thorough understanding of the
principles of things?

When Yin Yisheng of Jin negotiated with the Marquis of Qin at the Royal City,
he secured the return of the lord of Jin to his homeland by answering the
Marquis of Qin’s questions well. When Que You of Wu was taken prisoner in
Chu, he turned adversity into fortune. Lord Fu Bi went to the Khitan as an
ambassador of Song and got the northern court to stop warring. In such cases, if
they didn’t individually exercise their ingenuity, they would have wound up
disgracing their rulers’ command.

So it is also with children serving their parents. Without thorough understanding

of the principles of things, you cannot be completely filial. Nevertheless, if you
try to encompass too many things, you’ll be learned but lacking in moderation.
This point is most significant for scholars. If you do not thoroughly comprehend
the principles but just go on ingenuity, your basis will be quite mistaken; you
may even come to rely entirely on clever talk and eloquent flattery. To establish
a stalwart will, exercise your abilities fully, serve your lord and your father, and
master everything involved, can be called greatness of heart and breadth of
capacity and perception.

Footnotes
1 The universal absolute: This refers to a concept from the Book of Changes
used by Taoists and neo-Confucians to refer to a primal stage in the evolution of
matter prior to polarization of elemental energy into yin and yang or negative
and positive charges.

1 Chief Yu is associated with the founding of the Xia dynasty, traditionally

reckoned 2205-1766 BCE. As director of public works under his predecessor, he
is credited with quelling a great flood in antiquity. He is traditionally said to have
acceded to the throne in 2205 BCE as the last of the symbolic nonhereditary
kings Yao, Shun, and Yu.
13. Broad Study
The people and things of past and present are quite different; the languages and
customs of other countries and this nation are very dissimilar. There are virtues
comparable to heaven and earth, there is intelligence that extends to all things.
What to use and what to leave aside is up to oneself. Records of these things are
written in books, so one should read widely in books of past and present,
discerning in detail how things work.

Scholars sometimes memorize historical facts and contemporary affairs to show

offto the world; others amuse themselves with poetry and prose, considering
scholarship to require verse and composition. Neither of these is the scholarship
of a man of mettle.

To be an old professor occupied with a schoolboy’s compositions, making a

meager living by lecturing and writing for hire, crouching at people’s feet,
cannot be called the true aspiration of a man of mettle.

So what is scholarship? Rooted in the way of sages of old, assisted by tales of

the acts of savants and noble men, understanding the changes of the present age
and the principles of people and things is for broadening your perception and
information, increasing your intelligence and ability, and improving your
knowledge.

In later ages, books have been made into means of clever talk, a medium for
memorization and literary amusement, incessantly deprecating contemporary
people, elevating oneself and ridiculing others. Could this be called the
scholarship of a stalwart?

When people are ignorant of past and present and do not comprehend changes,
they are narrow-minded, their disposition is prone to prejudice, and their
intellect is one-sided. That is because of taking education to mean learning the
writings of ancient people. But if you study yet only work on yourself
superficially, literary ability may become harmful because of this ignorance of
how to use it. If you examine and understand your own present condition
thoroughly, and then consider the times and ideals of past and present, all studies
will increase your intelligence.
Books record things spanning thousands of years. How could we who are alive
in the present day know about events hundreds of years ago, or consider the
ways of remote foreign lands, if not for books? Therefore broad study of
literature should be used to empower the intelligence.

The Family Precepts of the Yan Clan says, “The reason for reading and studying
is to open the original mind, clear the eyes, and improve conduct. When worldly
people need books, they can say this alright but cannot carry it out. This is why
warriors and common officials ridicule them. There are also those who read
thousands of books and then aggrandize themselves, looking down on elders and
slighting contemporaries. People despise them like enemies, hate them like owls.
In this way they seek to benefit from scholarship but instead they harm
themselves. Not to study would be better.” This is talking about errors in the
attitude with which scholars read. If you give little consideration to inward
refinement of character, personal development, and mental orientation, and only
have external interest in scholarship, then all your vast learning becomes harmful
and is not as good as not studying.

In such cases, people should consider self-examination and self-correction

fundamental. Correcting the mind and governing the body does not depend on
scholarship. Study is just a tool for clarifying intelligence and understanding past
and present. When scholars have spare energy, in addition to practical
application they should broaden their minds with books.
14. Self-Examination and
Self-Discipline
A man of mettle should always examine himself and consider where his
disposition is underdeveloped, calculate when personal likes and dislikes cause
prejudice, and discipline himself to spur himself on where he is underdeveloped.

Master Zeng, an eminent disciple of Confucius, may have acknowledged a

pervasive unity, but he still had a discipline of examining himself on three points
every day. Zhong You, another disciple, was delighted to hear about his own
errors. Each of these examples refers to self-discipline. Later Confucians wrote
family precepts, noting what should be disciplined and corrected; this refers to
self-examination.

Generally speaking, even though the affairs of the world may be well-established
and their origins well-understood, they will invariably become corrupt if they are
not examined and subjected to lucid review for a long time. Then mistakes will
arise from reliance on them. That is, with the passage of time there is breakdown
and there is collapse. So even if you thoroughly research principles when you
start things, in order to bring them to completion it is necessary to consider the
time and assess the situation, examine them from time to time and correct their
corruptions, amending what is unsuitable to the time, or else you cannot achieve
a complete conclusion.

Confucius said, “Isn’t it delightful to learn and put it into practice over time?” To
put it into practice over time means that there is no time when you are not
practicing. Doesn’t this mean making what you’ve learned habitual at all times,
at every moment?

So while the actual exercise of the essence of the art of psychological

development is to nourish spirit, maintain presence of mind, refine character, and
perfect intelligence, when you examine yourself time and again in this process,
correcting your own excesses, rectifying imbalance in your disposition,
considering time and place to understand how things can work according to
context, and also carefully examining and correcting yourself inwardly all the
time so as not to drift offor lose control, then it will naturally become clear
whether the things you do are right or wrong, crooked or correct. If you get
stuck, you should strive with the help of a mentor to break through the impasse.
This is the key to the art of psychological development.

The Confucians of the Song dynasty focused on the practice of maintaining

attentiveness, warning against absent-mindedness. This is near to the
understanding of self-discipline and self-examination. The Good Words of the
Elementary Learning, the Maxims of Zhang Sishu of the Song dynasty, and the
Maxims of Fan Yijian of the Song dynasty refer to self examination. Master Zhu
of the Song dynasty composed maxims for the family, including verses on self-
examination. These are all about self-discipline to correct one’s own errors.
15. Detailing Dignified Manners; Unfailing
Respectfulness
If you want to make the development of knowledge clear, comparable to
the universal qualities of heaven and earth, ascertaining the original
sources of the learning of sages, if you do not comport yourself
respectfully, how can you acquire the key?

The art of comporting yourself respectfully must first be a matter of

correct standards for manners. Xu Wenzheng1 said, “When dignified
manners are outwardly correct, this is getting the general outline of
comporting yourself respectfully.”
Now in terms of the standards for dignified manners, what takes
precedence? Not allowing looking, listening, speech, or action to be
affected by anything improper could be called the key to dignified
manners. And how can manners be correct? The Detailed Courtesies2
says, “Don’t be disrespectful.” It’s a matter of putting these three words
into practice.
Generally speaking, courtesy arises from the need of the individual’s
heart, with natural measures in regard to things, the dignity of its
expression inviolable. It ought to be elegantly articulated—this is called
courtesy. As all of your activity and repose is a function of courtesy, each
act, each restraint, each word, each silence, has its standard of courtesy.
The fundamental standard of courtesy is all in the three words “don’t be
disrespectful.” If you wonder why, if you think carefully as you speak or
keep silent, as you act or desist, considering how to meet those
standards, even if you don’t fully measure up you won’t be far off. If you
just act on the moment, without any thought or calculation, impelled by
emotional inclination, discourtesies will multiply and dignified manners
will disappear altogether.
If you always think deeply in the midst of things, considering them in
detail, in each case you should be near a natural standard. This is taught
as not being disrespectful.
So it is said, “Don’t be disrespectful; be solemn, as if thinking.” The
expression “as if thinking” means not being negligent about things,
always being prudent and sober, not allowing carelessness; one should
consider carefully and think things through. This is the idea behind
referring to it as the basis of conformity to courtesy.
Respectfulness doesn’t mean cowering silently, not saying or doing
anything. It means carefully examining and assessing the principles and
reasons of things without being careless or inconsiderate. When you’re
careless and inconsiderate, you become negligent and thus lose control
over your mind, letting emotions and desires take over.
According to a saying in the Cinnabar Book presented to King Wu1 by
his mentor Father Shang, “When respectfulness overcomes negligence,
that is auspicious. When negligence overcomes respectfulness, that is
destructive.” Respectfulness and negligence are mutually antagonistic:
when you’re respectful, negligence disappears; and when you’re
negligent, respectfulness disappears. When negligence disappears, then
the reasons of things are clear, so manners are correct; therefore it is
auspicious. When respectfulness disappears, leaving only
neglectfulness, everything you do is careless and slipshod, and so will
soon come to naught.
The ways a man of mettle serves his lord and father and cultivates
himself have to be particularly respectful. If there is any disrespect, years
of effort are wasted all at once, disgracing your father and grandfather
and bringing shame on your lord. This comes form slackening of
respectfulness.
Cheng Yiquan2 said, “Just be orderly and serious, and your mind will
be unified. When unified, it will naturally be immune to untruth and
insincerity.” The expression “orderly and serious” explains the word
“respectfulness.”
So what does it mean to be orderly and serious? It is correctness of
manners, with no impropriety in looking, listening, speaking, or acting.
Therefore it is explained as proper dress, a noble gaze, and the like.
Mentality is all internal, while the interaction of physical activity with
people and things, including looking and listening, is external. The
internal and external are basically one, not separate. When manners are
correct externally, moods are correct internally. When there is any
external disarray, there is invariably an internal response to it.
If you clarify external manners thoroughly and keep them in accord
with their natural laws, the keys to psychological technique should
naturally become clear.
 Manners are forms of courtesy. Courtesy is based on not being
disrespectful. If those who aspire to dignified manners work on habitually
avoiding disrespect, the way should not be much further.
Cheng Yiquan greatly admired the maxim, “A noble man grows
stronger day by day when he is dignified and respectful. He becomes
more irresponsible day by day when he is casual and indulgent.” That is
because the condition of ordinary people is that when they are at all
unrestrained they become negligent and reckless day by day; but if they
control themselves they become orderly day by day. This is the heart of
dignified manners.
In the Caution chapter of the Great Elegance verses of the Classic of
Poetry it says, “Respectfully careful about manners—this is the standard
for the people.” Also, in the verses of Wei it says, “Dignified manners are
so rich you cannot choose among them.” Beigong Wenzi of Wei
explained, “To have dignity that is awesome is called being dignified. To
have manners that are exemplary is called being mannerly. When a ruler
has the dignified manners proper to a ruler, his ministers fear and admire
him; they take him for a standard and a model. Therefore he is able to
keep his country, and his command and his repute grow in the world.
When ministers have dignified manners proper to ministers, their
subordinates fear and admire them. Therefore they are able to keep their
offices, preserve their clans, and comfort their families. The same holds
true all the way down the social scale. In this way the higher and the
lower are mutually reinforced.” This appears in the Zuo Tradition.1
Dignity means not being frivolous, from your facial expression to your
speech, with an appearance that is very solemn and awe-inspiring.
Manners mean that everything from the way you appear interacting with
others to the way you talk about things, based on thorough examination
of reasons, is suitable to be made a model that people can all take for a
standard and an example.
This is attained by inwardly considering respectfulness and always
examining the reasons for expression and speech. From the emperor
above to the common people below, the key to personal cultivation is one
and the same, a matter of fully understanding dignified manners.
Dignified manners are no more than not being disrespectful. Scholars
should certainly savor this.

Footnotes
1 Xu Wenzheng: A Confucian scholar in the time of Khubilai Khan (r. 1260-1295), the warlord-
emperor who completed the Mongol conquest over Song dynasty China and launched two
attempts to conquer Japan. Xu was drafted into government service as a school master for
the central university in the capital city.

2 Detailed Courtesies is a part of the Chinese Classic of Manners.

1 King Wu was the founder of the classic Zhou dynasty; his mentor Father Shang, also called
Taigongwang, was Lu Shang, Wu’s chief advisor. The Cinnabar Book that King Wu received
from Father Shang is supposed to have contained writings on ancient practical philosophy
and political science.

2 Cheng Yiquan: 1033-1107 one of the famous Cheng brothers, Song dynasty patriarchs of
neo-Confucianism.

1 Zuo Tradition is one main traditions of Spring and Autumn Annals, noting events in the
ancient state of Lu from the eighth to fifth centuries BCE as the ancient Zhou dynasty
disintegrated; a primary source of Confucian studies.
16. Circumspection in Looking and Listening
Although the physical body is complex, it may be summed up in two terms,
perception of the external and communication of the internal.

The ears, eyes, nose, and so on, all have the function of perception of the
external, while internal functions, able to sense, can act externally.

When Confucius instructed Yan Yuan in the principles of mastering the self and
returning to courtesy, he said, “Don’t look at anything improper, don’t listen to
anything improper.” What does improper mean? When you see and hear things,
if you manifest a loss of dignity and you let your own selfishness take over, this
is called improper.

Looking at the wrong sights and listening to the wrong sounds is not the only
meaning of impropriety. Wrong sights and sounds come from outside; if we see
or hear them unavoidably, without intending to do so, that should not be called
improper looking and listening. Even though proper sights and sounds are not
improper, moreover, if you lose your manners when you see and hear them, just
letting emotions and desires take charge, this is improper looking and listening
Thus as lords and fathers look upon subjects and sons, as subjects and sons look
upon lords and fathers, for each there are proper ways of looking, according to
context. When lords and fathers listen to what subjects and sons say, and
subjects and sons obey the directives of their lords and fathers, for each there are
proprieties of listening to all voices that should be heard. If there is anything
inappropriate to the occasion, it is not proper.

For a man of mettle to establish himself in society and make his behavior enough
to be a model that myriad people can take as a guide, is initially a matter of
circumspection in manners of looking and listening. In the Detailed Courtesies it
says, “Don’t eavesdrop, don’t gaze promiscuously. When about to go in a door,
always lower your gaze and don’t look around. Generally, when the gaze is
above the face it evinces arrogance; below the belt it evinces depression;
glancing to the side evinces treachery.” This is also referred to as the look being
correct.

In the Notes on Music it says, “Ears, eyes, nose, mouth, heart, intellect, and all
parts of the body are induced to act rightly by conforming to the correct.” This is
to see to it that there is no impropriety of ear or eye.

When you are inwardly negligent, to the point where you look without seeing
and listen without hearing, your ears and eyes will follow their own inclinations,
and improprieties will become quite conspicuous. When you keep aware of the
caution not to be disrespectful, there is the caution to hear where there is no
sound, to see where there is no form. When you look, your concern is to see
clearly; when you listen, your concern is to hear clearly.

With an important person, first you look at his face, in the interim you look at his
chest, at the end you look at his face. With your father, you let your eyes roam,
but no higher than the face and no lower than the belt. There is courtesy in
looking at his feet when he’s standing saying nothing, and looking at his knees
when he’s sitting. So it’s a matter of detailed determination of all courtesies of
looking and listening in dealing with situations and people.

To sum this all up, there are three rules: looking, observing, examining. There
are interactions of five normative social relations such as lord and subject, father
and son. There are functions of seven emotions. Each of them has to have its
proper manner, according to the specifics of various contexts.

Jia Yi’s1 Norms of Appearance says, “There are four guidelines for the gaze. At
court, the gaze should be straight flowing and even. At ceremonies for spirits,
the gaze should be as if they were actually there. In military formation, the gaze
should be firmly planted and alert as a tiger. At funerals, the gaze should be
lowered, eyes half closed.” Cheng Yiquan of the Song dynasty composed
guidelines for looking and guidelines for listening, to discipline himself in this
respect; they are particularly suitable for comparative reflection.

After all, since looking and listening are functions of the eyes and ears, first
rectify the manners of your eyes and ears, then correct your ways of looking and
listening according to the people with whom you are interacting, and the changes
in events, finding out their reasons, keeping looking and listening both in mind,
using looking, observing, and examining to pursue their perfection. These would
be the dignified manners of the man of mettle, never looking or listening
improperly.

Footnotes

1 Jia Yi was a great scholar recruited by Emperor Wen of the Han dynasty (r.
179-156 BCE) to be a professor in the imperial academy. He rose rapidly in the
ranks, and tried to change the calendar and revive rites and music. Running afoul
of the resentment of the prime minister, he left the service of the central
government to become a tutor for local kings. He died at the age of 33.
17. Circumspection in Speech
Speech is the act of communicating what is within. It is said that even be
it a joke, it still comes from thought. Because speech emerges externally
from internal activity, whenever you are restless you speak thoughtlessly.
You’re apt to be garrulous and flippant, speaking immoderately, talking
too much, perhaps making up tall tales for the occasion, perhaps
angering others by intemperate words.

This must be what is meant by the guidelines for speech that say it
can create enemies and make friends, it can beckon fortune and
calamity, glory and disgrace. If it is too easy it is pretentious, while if too
complicated it is obstructive. Sages and savants since ancient times have
all warned about easy talk without equivalent action. Generally speaking,
though it is easy to open your mouth and talk, when you do not moderate
your words you become excessively loquacious without added benefit,
and because you can’t put all you say into practice it often winds up
empty talk and unfulfilled commitments. This is something to be very
ashamed of.
Therefore, so that your words will always have measure, when you
are going to speak on your own initiative, speak after having carefully
calculated the opportunity and considered the occasion. This is the idea
of the saying, “Prefer discretion in speech, as if you couldn’t talk.”
Words reflect on actions, and actions reflect on words. The
determination to take care to do as they say in all things is what noble
men of mettle esteem. You should see to it that you speak without being
at all inappropriate, careful to be moderate even in agreeing with what
others say, so as not to be inopportune or offensive in your words.
If you are careless and run offat the mouth, you’ll talk too much and
misspeak a lot, overworking yourself and being unmannerly in the
process. It’s no use for people to listen. The Records of Manners says, “A
parrot may be able to talk, but it is still a bird; an orangutan may be able
to speak, but it is still a beast.” The point is that if you have no courtesy
now as a human being, even though you can speak your heart is still that
of a wild animal, is it not?
Next, there are courtesies for when you’re going to speak. When you
intend to speak, calm your mind, compose yourself, and don’t be hasty;
keep your voice low and even in tone, and speak quietly and calmly. An
ancient said, “Calm your mind and soften your voice.” In Detailed
Courtesies it says, “Make your speech calm and steady.” These are
courtesies for when you’re going to speak.
When you talk too fast, it is unmannerly, and hard for listeners to
understand. When you speak too loudly, you startle people for nothing.
Moreover, when there is a lot to say, if you start out in a loud voice you’ll
have a hard time getting to the end. This must be the sort of thing meant
by the saying in the Records of Manners, “The mouth evinces repose, the
voice evinces calm, the tone evinces gravity.”
So when answering people’s questions and inquiries, be sure to
ascertain what is appropriate to the occasion, making your responses
calm and assured. When some expertise is needed to make a statement
or offer an answer, or when you hold critical discussions, or in cases
involving private business, rumor, or hearsay, always be defer-ential to
those around you; and when it is absolutely necessary to speak, be
precise with your words. If you speak in haste and answer impulsively,
pretending to be smart, the lack of courteous deference is undignified
and unmannerly.
When people of ancient times spoke, they saluted those around them.
Whenever you don’t listen fully to what people say but respond as if you
got it, because of carelessness your responses will inevitably be off;
saying you know what you don’t, saying you remember what you don’t,
you’ll prove to be inconsistent. Here is an example of the ancient maxim,
“Once a word is uttered a team of horses can’t overtake it.”
For this reason it is said that affirmation and agreement must be
serious responses. Even if it seems to onlookers as if you have heard
little, you must understand the inquiry fully and respond to it in detail.
People of the world all value clever talk and an eloquent tongue, and
often jump to hasty conclusions, responding in haste while others are still
talking. Of course, this is not the way of a noble man.
In the battlefield, however, split-second decisions must often be
made, and so everyday standards can’t be followed. This is in cases of
talk in the army.
Next, there are many courtesies according to the kind of speech,
depending on the place, time, and people with whom you interact. There
is speech for court, there is speech for home, there is speech for funerals
and festivals, there is speech for debuts and marriages, there is speech
for receiving guests, there is speech for the army. There is speech for
lord and subject, father and son, older brother and younger brother, friend
and colleague, and husband and wife. There is everyday speech, and
there is speech for dealing with emergencies. If you do not thoroughly
clarify these various categories, your speech will always be inappropriate,
so courtesies will be confused and manners will be violated.
So in your speech at court, when you are on duty at the court of the
lord, speaking in the capacity of a particular position, be careful that your
speech is not beyond your position, with no personal talk, no
communication of private business. With a calm mind and a gentle voice,
listen carefully to what the elders say, and if there is any juncture at which
you should speak, distinguish it clearly and don’t let yourself be fawning.
When Confucius was at an ancestral shrine or in court he spoke
eloquently but discreetly. When he spoke to the lesser grandees at court,
he was firm and direct. When he spoke to the greater grandees, he
argued mildly and cheerfully. This is how a sage was circumspect with his
speech at court, with exemplary courtesy in speaking to senior and junior
colleagues.
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “At court, when procedure is mentioned
or procedure is questioned, reply concerning procedure. In the archives,
talk about the archives; at the treasury, talk about the treasury; at the
armory, talk about the armory; at court, talk about court. When you speak
at court, you don’t talk about hounds and horses; in an official venue, you
don’t talk about women.” These are all traditional expressions of
courtesy.
Now then, there are special words for court. Going to court is called
appearing for service; leaving court is called retiring. There are lots of
different words according to the era and the clan, but one should not
discuss the present in terms of the past. Even though the courtesies of
writing, defining standard forms, were established in the Koan era (1278-
1288), the Shoguns have changed them from time to time over the ages.
It should be a matter of focusing on the evocation of things, with clear
understanding of what is appropriate to the time.
When you fully understand how you should be circumspect in speech
at court, that speech must have certain qualities, and there must be
certain manners of speaking, then you can figure out the branches from
the root, a matter of inquiring from people who are knowledgeable, and
also examining reasons.
To say there is speech for home means there must be speech for
everyday life at home. If you employ court courtesies at home, that will
seem pretentious. You can’t speak the same way all the time. So at
home, in referring to things, in coming and going, in the names of the
attendant samurai and the process of organizing teams you don’t use
formal speech, and in your conversation you don’t discuss official affairs
and don’t give personal opinions about official business. The Detailed
Courtesies says, “Public affairs are not to be privately discussed.”
The maxims of Fan Yiqian included these: “Don’t talk about profit and
loss, reports from the borders, dispatch of emissaries, or appointment of
officials. Don’t talk about the strengths and weaknesses or relative merits
of provincial and prefectural officers. Don’t talk about the errors and evils
committed by the masses. Don’t talk about opportunism or cronyism in
office. Don’t talk about how much money you have, or how you hate to be
poor and want to be rich. Don’t discuss female beauty in a licentious,
demeaning, or disrespectful way. Don’t talk about soliciting people to
seek wine and women.” These may be called admonitions for everyday
life.
If you are as cautious about talking at home as you are at court, the
appropriate harmony will be lacking, and this is out of order. Even
Confucius was said to be “relaxed” and “genial.” So then speech in
everyday life is to be mild and harmonious.
Next are words for funerals and festivals. In Detailed Courtesies it says,
“When viewing the casket, don’t sing; when the casket is sealed, don’t
mill around. On the way to the grave, don’t sing; hauling the hearse, don’t
smile. When attending a festival, don’t be sluggish. At a funeral, don’t talk
about fun. At a festival, don’t talk about trouble.” These are manners of
speaking for funerals and festivals.
When you are in a situation where there is sorrow, there should be no
joy in your speech, so as not to forget sorrow in the heart; how much the
more so when you are the one in mourning.
As for festivals, when you are not serious they’re just formalities,
becoming either farcical or something for show. Is this the original
intention of honoring spirits? That is why the words used must be most
serious.
 In all funerals and festivals there are courtesies of reference
associated with ritual objects, rhetoric, and writing. Thoroughly study their
reasons, and don’t discuss them subjectively.
Next are words for debuts and weddings. Debuts are ceremonies
marking adulthood. Weddings conjoin two families, so this is a very
important ceremony. Therefore the words used on these occasions
should not be random or arbitrary; research fully, question thoroughly,
and follow what is appropriate. When you have a detailed understanding
of the rites of passage and matrimony, and carry those ceremonies out
correctly, then your words are clear.
Next are words for guests. These are courtesies of deference and
respect exchanged between guest and host when visitors come and go.
For example, it is said that one who enters as a guest defers to guests in
every house.
When guests are invited, there are courteous expressions for prior
response to the invitation, and there are courteous expressions of thanks
for visiting. When guests arrive, the host greets them with expressions of
courtesy, and they politely defer to each other. When guests leave, the
host sees them offand thanks them. There are also courtesies for guests’
expression of gratitude for the invitation, before and after; and there are
courtesies for the sendoffand the welcome.
Giving thanks for the hospitality, appreciating the excellence of the
food and drink, commenting on the house and grounds, the scenery, and
the flora, apologizing for being unworthy of such considerate treatment,
appreciate the intention. In this, assess the relative status of host and
guest, and consider the occasion in deciding whether to thank someone
in person, or use a messenger or intermediary, or send a letter, as there
are different degrees of importance in courtesy and deference.
Next is speech in the army. Jia Yi’s Norms of Appearance says, “Bated
breath and hushed voice—this is speech in the army.” Since the army is
mustered for military action, one does not speak of defeat in everyday
terms, and one does not utter words of weakness. Everything has its
manners.
Next is speech between lord and subject, father and son. When a lord
or a father gives directions to a minister or a son, speech should be mild
and understandable, with detailed instruction and clear direction. When
little is said but the implications are deep, ministers and sons have a hard
time understanding at once.
Anyone who would have authority over others ought to employ
subordinates only after observing them, noting their ignorance, and
instructing them thoroughly. Therefore speech should be mild and
harmonious, so that the feelings of subordinates can be communicated
comfortably.
When subjects and sons get directives from their lords or fathers, they
should circumspectly acknowledge each detail, not prefer their own
opinions but listen carefully to the words of their lord and father,
comprehend their aim, and then do the task. If you disregard the
directives of your lord or father, putting your own opinion first, this is
acting clever, not the consideration of loyalty and filial piety.
The Detailed Courtesies says, “When your father calls you, don’t say
‘Yeah.’ When your teacher calls you, don’t say ‘Yeah.’ Say ‘Yes!’ and get
up.” It also says, “When one who is going on a mission for his lord has
received his orders, the word of the lord doesn’t stay overnight—once the
word of the lord arrives, the man of the house goes out and bows to the
favor of the lord of the land.”
The Courtesies of Social Interaction says, “Reference to a lord refers to
employing ministers; reference to a grandee refers to service of a lord.”
The Detailed Courtesies says, “When comparing people, compare them to
their peers. When asked about the age of the emperor, reply that you’ve
heard he was so many feet tall when he made his debut. When asked the
age of the ruler of a state, reply that he is well versed in politics. If he is a
boy, say he is as yet unable to participate in politics. When asked about
the son of an official, if he’s grown up say he can manage; if he’s a child
say he can’t manage yet. When asked about a scholar’s son, if he’s
grown say he can handle inquiries; if he’s a child say he can’t handle
inquiries yet. When asked about a commoner’s son, if he’s grown say he
can carry kindling; if he’s a child, say he can’t carry kindling yet. If a lord
wants a knight to shoot but he can’t, he refuses on the grounds of
infirmity, saying he aches from carrying kindling. Asked about the wealth
of the ruler of a state, reply with the size of the territory and the produce
of mountains and wetlands. Asked about the wealth of officers, say they
have stewards, live on tax revenues, and don’t need to borrow
ceremonial implements or attire. When asked about the wealth of knights,
answer with the number of their chariots. When asked about the wealth
of common people, reply with the count of their livestock. If a ruler of a
state is going to leave his state, to stop him say, ‘How can you leave the
earth and grain shrines?’ In the case of an officer, say, ‘How can you
leave the ancestral shrine?’ In the case of a knight, say, ‘How can you
leave your tombs?’”
In Discourses and Sayings it says, “The lord of a country calls his wife
Madame and himself Boy. The citizens call her Lady. To those of other
countries she is referred to as the Little Lady, while the citizens of other
countries still call her Lady.”
Generally speaking, such expressions are not all of the same class. It
is simply essential to study them and understand them thoroughly. When
the words of lord and father and subject and son are correct in this
respect, then the words of brothers, spouses, and colleagues should all
be in accord. When you speak to your father or older brothers, you honor
and respect them like lords, but when you mention them to others you
humbly call them your stupid father and stupid brother. You refer to the
children of your father and elder brothers the same way.
Just consider the situation and take into account the occasion, and
adjust your level of gravity according to the people you’re dealing with
and the proprieties of the matter concerned, based on the fundamental
intention of not being disrespectful.
In particular, when the speech of men and women is not appropriately
mannerly, with men imitating the speech of women and women using
masculine speech, they are both out of place. It is therefore imperative to
observe the precept that men should not speak of domestic affairs and
women should not speak of public affairs. Since all words come from
thought, one should be most circumspect.
Next, there is speech for ordinary life and there is speech for
emergencies. That is to say, in times of tranquility fast talk and hurried
speech invariably startle people. When we talk fast or speak hurriedly, it
is because of being inwardly careless and inconsiderate. When there is
an emergency, whether a natural disaster or man-made trouble, that’s the
time to startle people with fast talk, speaking quickly to get them thinking
as soon as possible. This is not a situation or an event to be dealt with in
a quiet and relaxed manner.
On this account, abnormal events have to be dealt with in unusual
ways. This is when you accurately address the reasons for normalcy as
well as abnormality. If you always think in the same way and keep to one
line of reasoning, without mastering situational adaptation to change, in
any case you’ll just get stuck.
Considered in this light, since words and speech are manifestations of
the internal, if you are at all careless in this respect your manners must
thereby be disordered. A noble man’s care to avoid discourteous speech
is much to be appreciated.
Discourtesy does not refer only to vulgar or improper talk. Whenever
you open your mouth immoderately, that is discourteous. You must
realize the magnitude of the admonition not to say anything discourteous.
Next, there are precepts for talk. This refers to what to be consistently
conscientious about in conversation between lords and fathers and
subjects and sons, between brothers, spouses, and colleagues. This
amounts to the need to assess the timing. This means figuring the proper
occasion to speak, the right time to say something.
For example, when you cannot reason something out, if you speak of
it without considering the proper place, the matter concerned cannot be
reasonable. Assessing the time means figuring when it would be good to
speak out in the proper place, which of the four seasons, and whether in
the morning, noon or night; and considering your own age and that of the
person you’re talking to. Considering and determining each issue is
assessing timing.
The saying that you should not talk while eating or speak in bed
presents precepts for timing. To speak on a sudden impulse is failure of
timing.
The Detailed Courtesies includes a precept that a son should not use
the word old in everyday speech to avoid allusion to his parents’ aging,
saying that speech should accord with the situation. What this means is
that even if something could or should be said, there are situations in
which it shouldn’t be said. When said in the wrong situation, everything
causes harm. This is why forms of speech at court and at home are
different.
Accordingly, there are things to be said and affairs not to be
mentioned, according to the person. As you speak of humanity and
justice in front of your lord, likewise consider all your social relations and
conduct your conversation accordingly.
Confucius said, “There are three errors in attendance on a lord. To
speak of something before it is time to talk about it is called haste. Not to
speak when it is time to talk about something is called concealment. To
speak without noting facial expressions is called blindness.”
Conversation generally to be cautioned against is talk about sex,
matters of gain and loss, luxuries, and longings for amusement and
leisure—these are not to be topics of conversation. In principle, one
should not engage in abstract philosophy of nature, mind, and
nothingness, or self-laudatory, conceited talk. As for vocabulary, neither
vulgar words nor effete and ornate expressions should be employed. All
this is language to beware of.
Next are the uses of language. Confucius said, “In speaking, one
thinks of loyalty.” He also said, “One should be loyal and trustworthy in
what one says.” The classic Manners says, “In converse with the crowd,
speak of loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, and good prospects. When
talking to children, speak of respect for their fathers and elder brothers.
When talking to officials, speak of loyalty and faithfulness.” Whenever
you talk to people, you should do so in a way that will benefit them. That
is a way to help others. To speak so as to profit oneself alone is not the
way of a noble man. To benefit oneself without considering the welfare of
others is always the act of a petty person. This is what is meant by
Master Zeng’s saying, “Am I unfaithful in my considerations for others?”
Talking all day, wasting words, to make a point of your own
cleverness, repeatedly showing offverbally, is something noble men
detest; it should be called useless eloquence. Petty people are used to
turning anything that’s said to their own advantage. There is no
impropriety of speech worse than this. One must guard against it most
carefully.
In Zhang Sishu’s maxims it says, “All speech must be loyal.” This is
indeed something always to be cautious and careful about. As for loyalty
and trustworthiness, loyalty means being completely sincere in
consideration for others. Trustworthiness means not fabricating
falsehood, being correct and clear. Since these are problematic points in
speech, everyone should beware.
18. Be Careful of Appearances
Appearances are the substance of the vessel into which nature and mind
are placed by the natural order. When inner thoughts are improper,
appearance is influenced by them, the manifestation being outwardly
evident. If you want to rectify your appearance, you have to correct and
clarify what you think inside.

With thoughts inside, facial expressions appear outwardly; since the

inside and outside, the external and the internal, the root and the
branches, are a natural continuum, you can no longer consider them
separately.
The way that noble men of old were careful about appearances and
particular about rules of etiquette is worth considering. In Manners it says,
“A noble man appears relaxed.” Relaxed means an un-hurried, quietly
deliberate manner. The Minor Manners section says, “To guests, respect
is principal; at ceremonies, reverence is principal. At funerals, sadness is
principal. At parties, liveliness is principal. In the army, you hide your
feelings and prepare.” Since the manifestations of outward appearance
are each induced by inward thoughts, when you examine and clarify your
inner thoughts to correct them according to what’s involved, your
appearance will conform to this. Duke Xiang of Dan said, “A noble man
rules his body by his eyes; his feet follow along. This is how you know his
mind when you see his appearance.” That is because there is no place
for the mind apart from the appearance.
Now then, appearances change in consideration of the time,
depending on the situation, in the particular context. In Jia Yi’s Norms of
Appearance it says, “There are four appearances. At court, the
appearance is studied, composed, neat and respectful. At ceremonies,
the appearance is meek, humble, orderly and gentle. In the army, the
appearance is cautious, solemn, firm and fierce. At funerals, the
appearance is grief-stricken, fearful, as if one would never return.” This is
a traditional description of appearances.
To elucidate, there is an appearance proper to court. When serving at
court, the appearance is always to be respectful, never forgetting one is
in the lord’s place. Comings and goings should be anxious, deferentially
respectful, so as not to be unmannerly. Descriptions of Confucius’
appearance in the presence of a lord as nervous and polite exemplify
appearance for court.
There is an appearance for home. This means that when you stay
home, you let your appearance relax. At leisure, when there is nothing to
do, you should cultivate that mood. Even so, to be lazy and slovenly is
certainly not the way of a noble man. It’s just a matter of making your
facial appearance relaxed and gentle. This must be the meaning of the
description of Confucius at leisure as being relaxed and at ease.
Annotations say that being relaxed means that the face is relaxed, while
being at ease means that the expression is cheerful.
So there are appearances for funerals, appearances for debuts and
weddings, appearances for guests. In each situation you should respond
in kind, having clarified the case. It’s all a matter of rectifying your
appearance by being respectful. In the Jade Spread1 it says, “Whenever
there is a ceremony, your appearance and facial expression should be as
if you were seeing the entity being honored. The proper appearance at a
funeral is emaciation, while the facial expression is downcast and
dejected. The look is furtive and glancing, the voice is muffled.”
In Minor Manners it says, “On auspicious occasions, honor is
important; at funerals, familiarity is important; with guests, respect is
essential.” There are courteous appearances appropriate to rites of
passage and wedding ceremonies, moreover, indicating comprehensive
manners and courtesies. You should cultivate your appearance with this
in mind, fully understanding what is appropriate to each occasion.
Next, there are appearances for war. The Jade Spread says, “The
appearance proper to combat is resolute strength. The manner of speech
is stern. The facial expression is severe and solemn. The gaze is clear.”
Kong’s Collection1 says, “The custom when the general is present is that
when you’re in the ranks with your helmet and armor on and your
weapons in hand you don’t bow even to your lord or your father. If the
army is unfortunately defeated, then ride by relay to deliver the news,
without carrying scabbard or bow case. The emperor, wearing plain
clothes, mourns outside the armory gate.”
In Minor Manners it says, “When you ride war chariots, have your
blades before you when you go out, keep your blades behind you when
you come back.” In the Charioteers’ Art of War2 it says, “Of old civil
manners were not brought into battle, while military manners were not
brought into the civil domain. If military manners were brought into the
civil sphere, the people’s morals would be lost; if civil manners were
brought to war, the people’s character would be weak. So in the civil
domain words are civilized and speech is warm. At court, be respectful
and deferential, disciplining yourself to attend to others, not showing up
when you are not called, not speaking when not asked, stepping forward
reluctantly and withdrawing readily. In military formation you set up
resistance, on the move you chase opponents down. Men in armor do
not bow, in war chariots they do not salute. They don’t run on ramparts,
they don’t weaken in danger. Courtesy and law are outside and inside;
the civil and the martial are left and right.” This concerns military
manners.
So all domains of social relations have their courtesies and manners.
Even so, nothing compares to keeping the appearance correct and
respectful. Master Zeng said, “Control your manners to avoid roughness
and carelessness.” Records of Manners says, “Do not let an arrogant,
distorted mood become established in your body,” also referring to
correctness of appearances.
Next, concerning the function of facial expression and tone of voice,
since facial expressions appear and tone of voice changes along with
attitude, the thing to learn is to keep your attitude right. Although all
appearances depend on thoughts within, among them the facial
expression reveals the humors and the tone of voice depends on the
agitation or calm of the temper, so one should keep their correction in
mind.
Norms of Appearance says, “Attitude has four occasions. At court the
attitude is quiet, serene, and solemn. At ceremonies the attitude is calm,
thoughtful, and harmonious. At war the attitude is angry, wrathful, intense
and severe. At funerals the attitude is dejected, mournful, grief-stricken
and sorrowful. When the four attitudes take shape within, the four
expressions show outwardly. It is as if the attitude manages the
expression.”
Minor Manners says, “One who is buoyant and cheerful has the
expression proper to bells and drums. One who is sad and quiet has the
expression proper to funeral wear. One who is full of bustle has the
expression proper to weapons and armor. At funerals one must have a
look of sadness; in armor one has an appearance of inviolability.
Therefore the noble man is cautious not to lose face to others.”
 The Jade Spread also says there is a look of luster, generally talking
about the expression on people’s faces being mild and agreeable.
When a lord had him receive an ambassador, Confucius had a tense
look on his face; when he left, on descending a step he relaxed his face
and looked pleased. These were Confucius’ expressions of respect for a
ruler’s order. The saying “flying high and flocking” refers to noble men
going into action on seeing an opportunity.
Being severe of mien but soft inside is what petty people are like,
according to Confucius, like thieves who make holes in fences and tunnel
through walls to rob houses. This refers to a contradiction between inside
and outside. Master Zeng said, “When the facial expression is correct,
this is close to faithfulness.”
Each of these examples illustrates reasons for being circumspect
about facial expression. There are, however, petty people who employ
clever talk and imperious expressions without changing their attitude
inwardly. There are villains of mild countenance, and there are those who
manipulate expressions to put on the appearance of a noble man. These
are acts of extremely dishonest people with perverse ambitions; though
adequate to deceive others for a while, eventually the error of their ways
will surely be discovered. How much the more since noble men see right
through petty people, so there’s no way to hide. Even if they want to
cover up evil, there’s nowhere to conceal it.
Now then, tone of voice is where the breath of speech appears. The
Jade Spread says, “The breath is to be quiet.” Norms of Appearance says,
“Talking fast, spraying spittle, and a whining, disagreeable tone, are all
taboo.” The expression “with bated breath” refers to Confucius’ tone of
voice when in the presence of people of the highest nobility. “Humbly,
with a cheerful voice” describes the courtesy with which a filial son
attends his father.
Records of Music says, “Music is produced by sound. The root of this is
in the human mind’s sensitivity to things. For this reason, when people
feel sorrow their voices are choked and stifled; when they feel happiness,
their voices are cheerful and relaxed. When they feel delight, their voices
are excited and expansive; when they feel anger, their voices are rough
and harsh. When they feel respect, their voices are plain and clear; when
they feel love, their voices are gentle and soft. These six are not
spontaneous; they come into play after feeling something.”
 Even in the sounds of music their expressive tone emerges from
impressions of feeling. From this perspective we should be very careful
about the manifestations of tone of voice. Duke Lu of Ying1 said,
“Disposition can be seen in speech, manners, and bearing, in relative
gravity and pace.” These are reasons for taking tone of voice seriously.
Here we have noted a general outline of types of appearance.
Appearance includes action, and every action has its manners. This must
be the sense of the saying, “Don’t act improperly.”
Now then, the principles of action include measures for one’s
everyday abode. There are rules for sitting. Norms of Appearance says, “Sit
in the standard sitting manner. Not crossing your legs and not showing
the soles of your feet, the gaze level, is called normal sitting. Sitting
slightly bowed, the gaze on the knees of an honored individual, is called
sitting in company. Sitting with your head up and your gaze within
ordinary range is called dignified sitting. These are appearances pertinent
to sitting.” Detailed Courtesies says, “Don’t sit cross-legged; sit like a lord.”
This is the rule for sitting.
It is written of Confucius that he was informal at home. Speaking from
this perspective, there must be rules for every situation— sitting at court,
at home, in fortune and adversity, in the army as well as at parties. In all
social relations, of course, you need to have an understanding of how to
sit with honor and respect, how to sit with equals, how to sit when at
ease. Wherever a man of mettle is, he must always keep a respectful
attitude without forgetting the possibility of emergencies occurring. Even
if you’re home at leisure in peace, you should never become slipshod,
lazy, or slovenly.
So the task of a noble man is to remember standing up when he’s
sitting down, to remember the advantages of action when he’s at leisure.
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “When sitting parallel, don’t let your
elbows protrude to the sides.” This is the rule for sitting next to people.
The statement that “in the company of others, you shouldn’t choose your
own convenience” means that you shouldn’t prefer seating suitable to
yourself alone, such as seeking the coolest spot in summer and the
warmest spot in winter.
Guan Ning of the Han dynasty, it is said, sat on a single wooden chair
for over fifty years without ever crossing his legs, and the seat was worn
through where his knees were. Cheng Mingdao of the Song dynasty, it is
said, used to sit up straight all day like a clay manikin. Each of these
examples refers to not letting one’s appearance be slovenly even when
sitting alone, cultivating one’s ordinary presence. When there is nothing
to do, you sit quietly and cultivate your disposition; standing, you do not
display an attitude of arrogance and lassitude; dealing with people, sit
respectfully, with a mild air. These are rules for the way a man sits.
If you sit cross-legged spread out like a winnowing basket, your arms
and legs uncontained, you appear lazy and indifferent. If you get up the
minute you sit down, and sit down as soon as you stand up, restlessly
and randomly, your mind will not be composed. Is this the way of a man
of mettle?
In the Jade Spread it says, “At home on vacation, one is warm.” Being
at home means one’s abode is peaceful. It also says, “At home, a noble
man always faces the door,” meaning that one faces the light.
Next, there is the appearance when standing. Here appearances are
already in motion. In the Jade Spread it says, “The way to stand is not to
stoop in a servile manner. The head and neck must be centered; stand
steady as a mountain, act when it is timely.” Norms of Appearance says,
“Jaw firm, gaze straight, shoulders square, back straight, arms as if
embracing a drum, feet two inches apart, face straight, hat laces tied,
legs straight, feet aligned, the body not moving the elbows—this is called
the normative way of standing. With a slight bow it is called standing in
company. With a bow at the waist it is called solemn standing. With the
belt-ornaments hanging down it is called lowly standing.
In Detailed Manners it says, “Stand as if at a ceremony.” It also says,
“The manner of standing indicates character,” describing conformity with
the proprieties of standing.
So when you’re going to stand up from sitting, relax your limbs, pay
attention in front of you and behind you, to your left and to your right,
consider the proprieties of the situation where you’re standing, and then
stand up. To consider how to stand before you stand up is good manners
in standing. If you stand up whenever it occurs to you or whenever you
feel like it, as you try to stand up you may find your limbs have gone to
sleep, and you may stumble and offend those around you; even if you
manage to stand up your posture won’t be right. When you stand without
correct posture, it’s hard to stay standing for a long time. If you’re holding
something, you’re bound to lean and bend.
 If you can stand, you can walk. If you don’t stand straight, you won’t
be able to walk properly. This is the meaning of making your manner of
standing correct. In public and private behavior, first check your manner
of standing: settle your center, keep your spirit taut, your navel firm, your
shoulders square, and your back straight. These are all manners proper
to standing.
Next, there are manners proper to walking. There are ways of walking
at a sitting and in an audience hall; there are proprieties for court and for
home. There is a way of walking down the street.
In the Jade Spread it says, “Walking corresponds to the music The
Model of the Warrior,1 running corresponds to the music The Succession2
and The Downpour.3 The ordinary stride should be straight and swift; in the
ancestral shrine, orderly and solemn; at court, dignified and respectful. In
an auditorium, take short steps; in a hallway, stride more freely; inside a
room, don’t walk around.”
In Norms of Appearance it says, “Walk in a slightly bowed manner,
without swinging your arms, without your shoulders going up and down,
without your body leaning to one side, moving serenely. This is the way
to walk.”
So when you get up to walk from a seat, be sure to look carefully in
front of you so as not to step on or soil anyone or anything. That is why
you shouldn’t leave your seat while your legs are still numb.
Even when you go someplace where nobody’s around, call out to let
your presence be known in case there’s someone inside. Don’t go
unannounced. In Detailed Courtesies it says, “When you’re going to go into
a building, always call out. If there are shoes outside the door and you
hear talking, then go in. If you don’t hear talking, don’t go in. When about
to go in through a door, always lower your gaze. When you go in the
door, salute politely; don’t look around. If the door was open, leave it
open; if it was closed, then re-close it. Don’t step on any shoes, don’t
step on any seats. Go along the edges of the room, careful to
acknowledge others.”
One does not rush offbecause one wants something. One should not
leave in haste on account of dissatisfaction. This comes from the Minor
Manners, meaning one should not come and go hastily. Then one will
always be careful of one’s walk, not allowing one’s appearance to be
sloppy, so as to maintain respectfulness. Even if there is an urgent
matter, to act in a flurry is not the mentality of a mature man. One should
never forget the sense of the saying in Minor Manners, “Even when you
enter an empty place, act as if someone were there.”
When there is some business with one’s lord or one’s father, however,
one should be as intent as if one were inexperienced.
When walking on the street, always be on the alert for anything out of
the ordinary. Keep your attendants and servants in a straight line, be fully
prepared; leave room for others coming and going, and don’t act violently
toward wayfarers. Concede the right of way, don’t walk spread out across
the road.
Don’t look for byways or shortcuts. Caution attendants and servants in
front and behind not to get in the way of people coming and going. Don’t
let them push anyone down or drive them offthe road. Don’t let them
mess with merchants’ goods.
Scouting should be furthest in rain and snow, at dawn and dusk, to
clear the way ahead of time. If the road is muddy and makes for a difficult
passage, you should have them go by a better route on this account; go
yourself, having them wait a while before setting out.
If there is an incident on the way where your underlings have been
uncivil to people on the road, as the master you should come
immediately and politely apologize. Don’t pass by as if unaware.
When you arrive at someone’s place, dismount on the side of the
gate, compose your appearance, and request admittance. Caution your
entourage beforehand not to stroll around, sit in front of the gate, or talk
or laugh loudly. When you go into people’s houses uninvited on account
of hunger and thirst and drink hot water, or go into eateries for wine and
food, you must be very careful to establish appropriate rules.
When coming and going in the dark of night, use lamps in front and
behind to let people get out of the way and prevent trouble. When it’s
dark, use sound to enable people to avoid you.
Even when you return home, send someone ahead to announce your
arrival. Unexpected comings and goings always involve the ill
consequences of lack of coordination between inside and outside.
These are manners for coming and going on the road. Just keeping
respectfulness in mind, clarify the appropriate usages to establish
comprehensive rules. Otherwise, in the event of an emergency dignified
manners will be lost and you’ll lose the reality of a man of mettle.
 It is said that when you go out the door you should be as if meeting an
important guest. It is also said that when you go out the door you should
be as if seeing an enemy. Each of these is an admonition to maintain
respectfulness and not be disorderly.
When Ziyou became governor of Wucheng, Confucius asked, “Have
you found personnel?” Ziyou said, “There is a certain Dantai Mieming
who never takes shortcuts and never comes to my office except on
official business.”
Ever since meeting Confucius, Gao Chai never stepped on [his
parents’] shadows, didn’t kill hatching insects, didn’t break plants or trees.
During a rebellion when he was governor of Wei, he went out and shut
the gate. When he was told there was a shortcut out, he said, “I’ve heard
that a noble man does not take shortcuts.” When told there was a hole in
the wall, he said, “I’ve heard that a noble man doesn’t go through a hole.”
After a time a messenger came, and he opened the door and emerged.
These were both students of the school of the sage, illustrating their
manner of action. But not going by shortcuts and not going through holes
are not precepts of the sage, they are only accurate understandings on
the part of Mieming and Gao Chai. A sage may take a shortcut, and may
also get out through a hole. This can be inferred from the fact that Shun
secretly tunneled an escape hole as he was digging a well, and
Confucius passed by the state of Song in humble clothing.
Therefore Master Zhu noted, “Not taking shortcuts or going through
holes is fine for times when there are no problems, but if beleaguered by
brigands, why sacrifice your life by keeping these precepts? This can be
seen by observing how the Sage passed through Song in humble
clothing.”
There is also a way of running. This means the proper manners of
running to go fast. In the Jade Spread it says, “Running fast requires drive,
so don’t let your hands and feet get out of alignment. If you go in a
straight line, jaw down, you’ll be swift as an arrow.”
In Minor Manners it says, “Don’t run outside a curtain or a screen.
Don’t run in an auditorium. Don’t run on top of a rampart. Don’t run
holding valuables.” In Norms of Appearance it says, “Running is done
slightly bent. Floating lightly, shoulders as if streaming, feet like shooting
arrows—this is the way to run. When turning, do so slightly bent. Go into
motion with an elegant alacrity, turn firmly and cleanly. This is the way to
turn around.”
Abroad it is considered courteous to pass quickly by persons of high
estate, not stopping in front of them; that is why there is a courteous
manner of running. Running is proper in all emergencies, but one does
not run when it may startle people or cause an accident. This is the
sense of the statement in Minor Manners that “Once back home, one
doesn’t run.”
Next, there are manners of holding things. In Detailed Courtesies it
says, “When presenting something to someone standing, one does not
kneel; when presenting something to someone sitting, one does not
stand. Whatever you present is held at chest level; whatever you carry is
held at waist level.”
In Minor Manners it says, “Pick up what is empty in the same way as
you pick up what is full.” Whatever you hold in hand, even something like
a scepter or fan, you shouldn’t bend over. In particular, books and
utensils you present to your father or lord should not be carried any lower
than the waist. When your hands are tilted, what you are carrying is not
straight; or your body may lean to one side on this account, or your legs
might bump into what you’re carrying, which is extremely discourteous.
When a man is facing a battlefield with sword and spear in hand,
along with bow and arrows, are these not all forms of carrying? It is
imperative to be most circumspect.
Next are manners of rising and reclining. That means that in people’s
everyday usage it is normal to rise in the morning and go to bed at night.
In Domestic Rules it says, “A son serving his father and mother gets up
when the roosters begin to crow.” This is the courtesy of early rising. It
seems that the norm of early rising only refers to dawn, when you can
see people’s faces clearly and go about your business with the lamps off.
This is when you can get up and function efficiently, in both public and
private life. If you want to be prepared for work, you have to get ready
from when the roosters begin to crow, otherwise you won’t be on time.
Therefore since antiquity the norm for early rising has always been when
the roosters begin to crow.
The rule for retiring at night is generally that when the sky has
become too dark to work, you should stop your outside job and go inside.
Let your employees rest. Then stretch your limbs, bending and stretching
in a relaxed mood. These are rules for rising in the morning and retiring
at night.
The Jade Spread says, “Always sleep with your head to the east.” The
east is the direction of life-giving energy, so this is the direction for the
head. In Detailed Courtesies it says, “Don’t sleep lying face down.” The
Discourses and Sayings of Confucius says, “Don’t lie like a corpse.” These
refer to avoiding an appearance of laziness in your reclining posture.
Rising and reclining are the flexing and stretching of the four limbs
and whole body. Their norms should be kept in accord with the timing of
sky and earth, the affairs and interactions of the day, and your degree of
fatigue. Otherwise, leaving it to feelings and desires, you’ll inevitably fall
into self-indulgent laziness; giving up the courtesy of early rising,
abandoning the rule of retiring at night, you turn night into day and day
into night. Administrative business will then be neglected, and care of the
physical body will be lacking. One must be very careful about this.
Next is the matter of hobbies and arts. All cultural and martial arts,
ritual, music, archery, riding, writing, and mathematics, either train
deportment and manners, or limber up the hands and feet, or refine the
perceptions, or regulate the production of the voice. This is completely
consistent with the principles of correcting inward thoughts, making
external behavior orderly, serving one’s lord and father as a stalwart,
devoting oneself entirely.
So if you are born in a military family, and of a status where you would
aspire to be a man of mettle, regulate your conduct with courtesies, make
your movements harmonious by means of music, and practice archery
and horsemanship as the job of a knight. Making these all everyday
activities, always practice their proper usages carefully to refine
appearances.
Writing does not necessarily mean no more than writing something.
Writing also refers to reading, memorizing written characters, and gaining
knowledge of things past and present.
Mathematics refers to enumerations of natural phenomena and
reckoning of quantities of things. If you are not familiar with mathematics,
you don’t know measures.
These are all bases of dignified manners as one appears in action.
So when we speak of courtesy, there are specific courteous measures
for good times and bad, for war, diplomacy, and celebration. There are
courtesies of food and drink, there are courtesies of clothing, there are
courtesies of housing. There are courtesies for all kinds of questioning
and answering, handling of implements, carriage and speech.
Considering the Detailed Courtesies thoroughly, comprehending the past
and present systems in this country, choosing according to what is right
for the time, we should conform to what is suitable.
Dogs, horses, swords, wine, foods—rules for each of these are set
forth in the Detailed Courtesies, but I haven’t written them here because
they can’t be applied in the present day.
In music, this country is also said to have eight instruments,1 but I am
not familiar with that system. Recently, enjoyment of pantomime music is
considered the music of the warrior caste. It has a very fast tempo, and
its songs are full of superstitious nonsense, while its dances are odd and
extravagant, so it cannot be considered substantial. Its performance only
employs flute and drum, so it is limited to bamboo and leather. It cannot
be discussed in the same year as ancient music, but this is not the
current custom. It is so low it cannot be reformed. The pantomime music
with songs containing real events is unmatched by the bawdy sounds of
popular music, so it can still qualify as musical art.
As for the rules of archery and horsemanship, manners and rites
detail the methods of shooting and riding. The rules for riding have
disappeared. In this country, the systems of archery and horsemanship
are very detailed. You should learn and practice them fully, studying their
manners, to arrive on the path of the noble man.
In Principles of Archery it says, “In archery all your movements must be
mannerly; only when your mind is focused correctly and your physical
posture is straight can you hold bow and arrow steady. Only after you can
hold bow and arrow steady can you talk of hitting a target. Thus can
efficacy in action be observed.”
Archery and horsemanship are the work of a man of mettle. If you
have any time offat all, you should never neglect everyday practical
physical training. There are many various kinds of manners involved in
archery and horsemanship, furthermore, to be studied in detail.
Calligraphy, writing, and reading are instruments for focusing the mind
when at leisure. Cheng Mingdao was very punctilious about calligraphy.
He once said to someone, “It’s not that I want fine calligraphy, it’s that this
is study.”
All uses of hand and foot involve manners; so to perform them
carelessly is the root of negligence. Even an idle diversion, if unbalanced,
is indicative of someone’s state of inner development. Therefore absent-
mindedness is also to be avoided in calligraphy. A maxim of Zhang Sishu
was to always use formal characters for calligraphy.
Be even more careful to avoid slovenliness in your manner of reading.
If you read in a sloppy way, whether propping yourself up on a pillow or
reading lying down, nothing will record inwardly because your attention in
this condition isn’t right. Especially since the deeds and fame of sages
and savants and emperors and nobles of past and present are recorded
in books, how could it be the intent of a man of mettle to gloss over
them?
In the House Maxims of the Yan Clan1 it says, “When you borrow
someone else’s books, take good care of them; this is one of the hundred
practices of a man of mettle. If volumes are spread in disarray over a
cluttered desk, they’ll often be stained by children or maids, or be
damaged by wind and rain, or insects and rodents, a real blot on your
character.” This is why you should be careful.
Mathematics is for calculation and measurement. Sky and earth,
people and things, are not beyond these numbers. Consider carefully to
keep accurate accounts of the day’s business. If the figures are not clear,
there will be either excess or insufficiency, which will be offin either case.
Next, regarding the practicing of hanging jades from the belt, the
Records of Manners says, “Noble men of ancient times always wore jades.
On the right side they word jades sounding the notes cheng (sol) and jiao
(mi), on the left gong (do) and yu (la). They ran with the rhythm of the
music Gathering Herbs and walked with the rhythm of Relaxing in Summer.1
They turned like a compass, cornered like a square. When they stepped
forward it brought them together, when they withdrew it made them
move; then the jades rang like music. So when a noble man is in a
vehicle, the sound of gold bells is heard; when he walks, it causes his
belt jades to jingle. In this way perverse thoughts don’t enter the mind.”
This is a system whereby the sounds made by the jades worn on the left
and right are harmonized in standing, sitting, and walking, without the
slightest lapse of attention, to prevent unrestrained activity. If movements
are at variance with courtesies, the sounds of the belt jades do not
harmonize. Having belt jades hanging from the waist is used for
correcting appearances and manners, as these may be likened to virtues.
Putting bells on vehicles and harmonizing their sounds corrects the
manners of the drivers, alerting against inward negligence, calming their
minds.
In sum, the intention is that one’s manners become correct through
the use of the jades hung from the belt to the left and the right. This is
standard for noble men.
After you have made your appearance orderly in these ways, then the
principles of dignified manners should be clear. Only when a man of
mettle attends to ordering his person this conscientiously can he enter
the path of the noble man. If he acts out of place, thus becoming
disorderly in manner, his inner mental focus will naturally slacken, and his
character will not be correct. Dignified manners of appearance all
connect to inner character. Their importance should be recognized.

Footnotes

1 Jade Spread is a section of the Chinese Classic of Manners. The image Spread in the title
refers to a cloth spread on which precious stones are laid out for display.

1 Kong’s Collection: By Kong Fu, a 9th generation descendant of Confucius. He lived during
the Qin dynasty (255-209 BCE). When the First Emperor ordered books burned and
scholars buried alive, he concealed his copies of the classics inside a wall and went into
hiding in the mountains.

2 The Charioteers’ Art of War is a famous Chinese military manual, attributed to Tian Rangju,
composed between 356-320 BCE.

1 Duke Lu of Ying: A distinguished minister of the Northern Song dynasty (960-1126).

1 The Model of the Warrior is a classical musical composition celebrating the overthrow of the
corrupt last king of the Shang dynasty by King Wu of the Zhou. A note in the original says,
“The sound of the jade ornaments hanging from the belt is slow, after The Model of the
Warrior.”

2 The Succession is a classical musical composition that celebrates the succession of King
Shun to King Yao; these were sage kings of old (3rd millennium BCE), and the succession
is famed in Confucian philosophy for having been nonhereditary, based on ability rather
than birth.

3 The Downpour is supposed to be the music of Tang, respected founder of the ancient
Chinese Shang dynasty (1766 B.C.E). A note in the original says, “It matches [the pace of
running] because it is fast.”
1 Eight instruments: A classical Chinese categorization, referring to instruments of metal,
stone, string, bamboo, gourd, clay, leather, and wood. Japanese music tends to employ
mostly string, bamboo (woodwind), and leather (percussion) instruments.

1 House Maxims of the Yan Clan: By a scholar recruited to tutor the crown prince during the
founding era of the Sui dynasty, which reunited long-divided China in 589.

1 Gathering Herbs and Relaxing in Summer are names of ancient Chinese musical
compositions.
19. Moderating Consumption of Food and Drink
Living things cannot survive physically without food and drink. This is the
explanation of the doctrine of mutual production of the five elements.
Wood grows nourished by water, metal is produced by the nutrition of
earth. Humans, being the most intelligent of creatures, receive the
nourishment of all five elements together, which when complete make a
full life possible. Even a single day without food and drink, and this life is
reduced. This is why people require food and drink.

When Zigeng asked Confucius about government, Confucius said,

“See that food is ample, that arms are sufficient, and that the people trust
you.” Of the eight ministries of the Universal Guidelines1 , food is first. That
is because each one has a basic object.
Now then, drink refers to liquids, food depends on the five grains. If
you go for water and prepare food when you’re already thirsty and
hungry, you eat and drink immoderately. If you eat and drink so that
you’re always satisfied, you can also be excessive. Therefore sages
came to get people to space their meals so they could live out their
natural life span. That is the reason all living things must have food and
drink.
How is the proper measure to be calculated? Just enough that you do
not become extremely hungry or thirsty. Now to extend this discussion
further, when people’s food and drink is neither too much nor too little,
they eat at an interval of six hours, and drink once in between. That is to
say, after getting up in the morning they eat and drink between 7 and 9
a.m. Then six hours later they eat and drink again between 1 and 3 p.m.
This is the proper spacing of morning and afternoon meals.
Natural changes are all triplex. The human digestive system too
processes food and drink in six (2x3) hours.2 One should drink in half that
interval. People of ancient times defined this system, initiating the
practice of eating at certain times in the morning and afternoon to take
care of hunger and thirst.
These are inevitable natural measures. When you exceed them, your
spleen and stomach are impaired and you put on excess weight,
weakening your energy and circulation. When you don’t have enough,
your spleen and stomach are undernourished, you lose weight, and your
energy and circulation are unsound. In either case it is because of
deviation from natural measure. People who deviate from this measure
will naturally have a change of disposition.
This alone should be considered proper measure. When two meals
are not enough, the rule is to eat at noon when the days are long and eat
at night when the nights are long. If you take to this when there is no
insufficiency, you will eventually lose proper measure.
The sky revolves in relation to the earth. For the human being, food
for spleen and stomach is earth. Without food, energy doesn’t circulate,
just as the sky is not defined but by the earth.
Next are regulations for food and drink. People should regulate food
and drink in accord with their salary and position. People of high rank
with large salaries live on the best quality of food. Those of middle and
lower ranks should act accordingly. Within that range it’s a matter of
being more frugal than your status requires, because excess and
extravagance are endless and involve a lot of expense.
In Regulations for Kings it says, “Feudal lords do not slaughter an ox
without a reason. Grandees do not slaughter a sheep without a reason.
Gentry do not slaughter a dog or a pig without a reason. Commoners do
not eat delicacies without a reason.” This means people have regulations
for their food and drink according to their rank, within which they opt for
frugality.
According to the Manners of Zhou, one hundred and twenty dishes
were served at the emperor’s meal. The formal practices of the nobles
and grandees can be surmised from this. Commonplace scholars
repeatedly emphasize frugality without acknowledging these distinctions,
ultimately to become obsessed with gain and loss, to the point where
they accumulate massive wealth. Even so, they invoke King Yao’s
spinach soup and King Yu’s bland diet as justification. This is quite
ridiculous.
Yao came after Shaokang and Shun (26th century BCE), and reigned
in a primitive era, so regulations for food and drink could not have been
spelled out. As Yu quelled the Flood, as long as the work had not been
completed throughout the land he lived modestly to spare expenses in
the interest of the public project for the whole land. In each case, the
premise of relative importance was quite reasonable. Coming to the Zhou
dynasty (12th century BCE), both embellishment and substance were
organized, standards for clothing, diet, and housing were best adapted,
and systems of dining and cuisine were completed.
Are these not adjustments over the ages? Ignorant of the appropriate
discretion, filling storerooms with possessions having no purpose for the
world or the nation, abstaining from food and drink appropriate to rank
and salary, is to enrich your storerooms at the expense of your body. This
is not the practice of a noble man.
If a knight does not have the position and his salary is small, and yet
he craves delicious food, he is not a real man of mettle. If you have no
endurance even in respect to food and drink, what can you endure?
Confucius said that one who aims for the way of the knight yet is
ashamed of poor clothes and poor food is not worth talking to. He also
praised Yan Yuan for living on one container of food and one gourd of
water without that altering his happiness. In each case, it was because
they were satisfied with their lot.
Wang Xinmin1 of the Song dynasty once said, “If people ordinarily eat
vegetable roots, they can accomplish a hundred tasks.” Hearing this, Hu
Wending2 applauded. That is because one should not have ambitions out
of proportion to one’s position. When society deteriorates and customary
norms are abandoned, people all crave food and drink in excess of their
position, and repeatedly prepare delicacies. At this point they become
obsessed with flavor and physically flaccid, losing the will of a man of
mettle day by day.
These are due to errors consequent upon loss of measure in food and
drink, whereby those with high ranks and rich salaries eat poorly, while
those in petty offices who are impecunious enjoy rich food. This seems to
be the meaning of Mencius’ saying, “People devoted to food and drink
are despised by others, because they nourish the small while missing the
great.”
There are also measures appropriate to age. In terms of age, there
are the young, the adult, and the elderly. If children aren’t raised on good
food, then physical development will be compromised. In old age,
supplement their failing energy with fish and meat. This is the meaning of
the saying that at the age of seventy one is not satisfied without meat.
Just as there are differences in the three stages of life, there are
differences in people’s constitutions. It is imperative to be circumspect
about their nourishment.
There is also the weather. Considering the degree of cold and heat,
dryness and moisture, eat warm food in cold weather and mainly cold
food in warm weather. Dryness and moisture both follow this. If you
deviate from these measures, you’ll inevitably develop an internal
ailment, and then you won’t have any taste for food and drink anyway.
There are also regional differences in cuisine, and differences in
richness and quality of ingredients. One must consider these in regulating
eating and drinking. This is not to mention ceremonies, entertainment of
guests, and drinking parties—the ancients have already defined
regulations for them. It’s a matter of taking these into account and
following what is suitable for the time.
Ceremonies, entertainment, and parties each have distinctions of
upper, middle, and lower. There are courtesies from above to below, and
there are courtesies from below to above; normal social interactions use
these exclusively. The system differs in the various contexts of fortune,
calamity, warfare, diplomacy, and celebration. This requires thorough
study.
Then there are usages of diet. Rice may be polished as white as can
be, but should be prepared with consideration for the quality of the rice
and the soil where it was produced. Rice grown in wet soil has a high
moisture content, while rice grown in dry soil has a low moisture content.
Rice grown in normal soil is firm and flavorful. Rice grown in uncultivated
soil is weak and flavorless. Sandy soils and rocky soils are each different.
Places like this have to be assessed.
As for salt, newly evaporated salt is biting and spoils, whereas salt
from ancient seashores is mild and doesn’t spoil. This is added to
soybeans to make what is popularly called miso. The method of preparing
the soybeans, the method of boiling them, the method of adding salt, or
the method of adding malted rice, the amount of grinding needed and the
proper vessel for storage—there are all these things to consider. In this
country everyone uses salt miso to make soup. Rice miso is very
important for care of the spleen and stomach. The application of the
method of manufacture must be carefully considered to make it full-
flavored.
Now then, vinegar, soy sauce, and sake are used to season
vegetables, fish, and meat, so it is imperative to make sense of the
flavors of these three items. Vinegar produces blood, sake increases
energy, soy sauce has the function of retaining fluid in the intestines.
Vegetables have mild flavors and pacify the stomach. As for fishes and
meats, some diminish physical energy while some increase it. There are
five types of spices, whose quality may be good or bad. There are
pleasant and unpleasant aromas, which improve or worsen the mood. It
is imperative to regulate their uses carefully, adding warm things to cold
things and putting cold things in warm things, to mitigate their harm.
These are all used for food and drink. Rarities and exotic foods should
not be consumed recklessly. Rarities refer to items that appear in the
world ahead of time; exotic foods refer to items that are not of this
country. If you eat a lot when you first try a rarity, you’ll get sick to your
stomach. Therefore you should eat a little at first, then gradually increase
the amount. Exotic foods should not be consumed at all. All interest in
rare and exotic foods is due to obsession with taste. Some take to them
claiming that they are medicines for the spleen and stomach, or that they
have the function of increasing water in the kidneys.1 This is not the
motivation of a man of mettle.
Sustaining the body with ordinary food, one should not be greedy for
life. Moderating wine and sex, one should not want to increase kidney
water. Even so, to take the usual food as it comes, whether or not it is
well prepared, is not the way of the noble man either. The regulation of
food and drink is a basis of manners. Proper preparation and seasoning
should not be neglected. In the Discourses and Sayings of Confucius it is
written, “Rice cannot be too white, mincemeat cannot be too fine. Rice
that has soured and fish that has spoiled he does not eat. What is
discolored he does not eat. What is foul-smelling he does not eat. What
is overcooked he does not eat. What is out of season he does not eat.
What is improperly cut he does not eat. What has no proper sauce he
does not eat. Even if there’s a lot of meat, it is not allowed to overwhelm
the flavor of the rice. Wine alone has no particular measure except that
he does not drink so much as to become disorderly. Commercial wine
and jerky from the market he does not consume.” These are the usages
of Confucius in respect to food and drink.
In the Records of Manners there are details on types of rice, types of
dish, types of soup, filtering of wine, all sorts of food and drink and the
ways to prepare them. In general, the norm for rice is compared to the
season of spring, in that it should be warm; the norm for soup is
compared to summer, in that it should be hot; the norm for sauce is
compared to autumn, in that it should be cool, and the norm for
beverages is compared to winter, in that they should be cold.
In terms of blending, in springtime the sour is increased, in summer
the bitter is increased, in autumn the pungent is increased, in winter the
salty is increased. These are adjusted with sweetness.
Commentary says, “According to standard method, sour flavors are
not used in food in springtime, bitter flavors are not used in food in
summer. In each of the four seasons, the flavor of the season is reduced.
The discrepancy here is that what is being referred to is the standard
method. When the seasonal energy is at its strongest, the flavor of the
season is reduced to mitigate the energy in its full force. What this classic
is talking about is using food to nourish people, wary of lack or
compromise of energy; therefore the flavor of season is increased to
nourish energy.”
“For wild meat, use plums. Quail soup and chicken soup are prepared
with minced water-pepper.” These are methods of flavoring. Statements
such as “this is extracted from meat” and “this is made with fish” are
methods of preparing meat and fish. The statement that “At a grandee’s
meal, if there is mincemeat there’s no jerky, and if there’s jerky there’s no
mincemeat; a knight does not have both meat soup and sliced meat
together” refers to the manners of different social classes.
Insofar as the system of a different country is inconsistent with the
rules of our country, here I have given some indications for the sake of
demonstration. If the system of dietary usages is incomplete, you will not
be properly nourished, and will be unable to attend to your lord and your
father properly. The logic of this should be thoroughly examined.
Next, there are rules for the acts of eating and drinking. In Detailed
Courtesies it says, “When eating in company, don’t eat to satiety. When
dining together, don’t wipe your hands. Don’t roll rice into a ball. Don’t
overeat. Don’t slurp. Don’t smack your lips. Don’t gnaw on bones. Don’t
put back fish or meat you’ve touched. Don’t throw bones to the dogs.
Don’t grab. Moist meat is torn with the teeth; dried meat is not torn with
the teeth. Don’t gulp down roasted meat.” These are the table manners of
people of ancient times.
Generally speaking, dignity will be missing without proper table
manners. So when sitting down to eat and drink, first be correct in your
appearance, be considerate of those around you, and don’t begin until
the senior present has picked up his chopsticks. Each one should do this
after being acknowledged by the senior.
Don’t take big mouthfuls, don’t look around when you’re eating; keep
your facial expression composed. Pay attention to the way you hold your
chopsticks, and to the posture of your shoulders and back. Don’t favor
one dish, even if it is excellent. If you gather a whole mess of garnishes,
or drip juice as you chew fish or meat, or scatter bones or dirty serving
dishes, that is extremely unmannerly. Loud lip-smacking and slurping that
can be heard at a distance are behaviors of small people. Since ancient
times, those who touch foods with as much as two inches of their
chopsticks are considered vulgar people. While eating and drinking, it is
not mannerly to discuss mundane affairs or to laugh and talk with your
mouth open.
These are generalities. It is necessary to devote further attention to
understanding the rules.
If you have the occasion to eat in the presence of your lord or your
father, first get their permission; don’t go ahead and start eating and
drinking on your own. Only if it’s something that has to be taste-tested
should you eat or drink first. Be solicitous of your lord or father, greet
those around you, and present a respectfully courteous appearance.
Compose your face, keep your mouth straight, don’t make sounds in your
mouth. Receive each dish respectfully, either bowing or saluting, not
touching the serving plate, barely touching your bowl, putting any bones
and pits in your inside pocket. Wine you taste first yourself.
Although the courtesies are numerous in their entirety, you can keep
them by the three words “Don’t be disrespectful.”
In the Jade Spread it says, “No one presumes to eat until the lord has
finished. Once the lord is done, rice and sauce are taken out and given to
the attendants.” In Manners of Meeting of Knights it says, “When the lord
has a feast, taste all the dishes and drinks before the meal, then wait;
when the lord orders you to eat, only then do you eat.”
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “If you partake of fruit in the presence of
your lord, if it has pits put the pits in your pocket. If you’re dining with the
lord and the lord gives you his leftovers, transfer everything but what is in
utensils to be washed.”
In the discourses of Confucius it says, “If a lord made him a present of
food, he always straightened his seat and tasted it first. If a lord made
him a present of raw meat, he’d always have it cooked and served. If the
lord made him a present of a live animal, he’d always keep it.”
These are courtesies for attendance at meals with your lord or your
father.
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “When attending meals with elders, if the
host personally urges food on you, then bow and eat it. If the host does
not urge it on you personally, then eat without bowing.”
In the Jade Spread it says, “Fruit is eaten after the lord, cooked food
tasted before the lord.”
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “When attending elders drinking, if wine
is presented, rise and bow, and receive it from the senior. The younger
one then goes back to his seat and drinks when the elder gives the word.
The younger does not presume to drink until the elder has emptied his
cup.”
These are courtesies of attendance on elders at meals.
In Detailed Courtesies it says, “When presenting food, meat on the
bone goes on the left, cut meat on the right. The rice is placed to the
person’s left, the soup to the right. Minced or roasted flesh is placed on
the outside, savory sauce is placed on the inside. Steamed onions are
placed at the edge, with wine and beverages to the right. When the meal
is over, the food and condiments are removed by kneeling before the
guest and handing them to the server. The host rises, thanks the guests,
then afterward sits in a guest seat.”
In the Jade Spread it says, “If the guest calls it a feast, the host refuses
the compliment, saying it is not worthy of being considered a feast. If the
guest says it is delicious, the host refused the compliment, saying it is
plain.”
These are courtesies between guest and host.
In addition to these, there are many usages related to eating and
drinking, such as rules of service and presentation, and wine-drinking
manners, but they are different from the fashions of our country. The
appropriate deportment and demeanor should be learned from those who
have thoroughly investigated the principles, following what is suitable to
the time.
Next, there is the matter of the noble man keeping away from the
chopping block and the kitchen, as it is said. The chopping block is where
birds and animals are slaughtered and prepared; the kitchen is where
they are cooked. If a noble man gets near them, thoughts of gain will
occur, or greedy or miserly thoughts may occur, or even pity for the fish
and fowl being slaughtered, and a slack attitude develops. These are all
disagreeable. There may also be an unpleasant smell of roasting, or the
sight of food being prepared may cause a loss of appetite. Therefore
these are places a noble man should not be near, so one should avoid
them. In Records of Manners it says, “A noble man avoids the chopping
block and the kitchen; living creatures do not slaughter themselves.” A
noble man ordinarily makes it his way to care for nature; that is the
reason for such consideration.

Footnotes

1 Universal Gidelines (Hong Fan) is a work in the Chinese classic Ancient Documents,
consisting of an ancient proto-constitution, a design of government. The eight ministries
outlined therein are: 1) foodstuffs; 2) commodities and money; 3) public rites and religious
affairs; 4) infrastructure; 5) education; 6) the penal system; 7) diplomacy and foreign affairs;
8) military affairs.

2 In the original it says “three hours” because ‘hour’ in the old 12-hour system was equivalent
to two hours in the modern 24-hour system.

1 Wang Xinmin lived in the 11th century. He obtained a master’s degree in the civil service
examination and was recruited for employment in a central ministry, but declined. He was
noted for strength of character

2 Hu Wending was a distinguished educator.

1 Kidney: In Taoist terminology adopted in traditional Chinese medicine, also used in Japan,
kidney is used to refer to both urinary and sexual systems, so in this context kidney water
can be used to mean urine output or seminal fluid.
20. Dignified Housing Design
Housing is something people have no choice but to arrange. Even if you
have food and clothing, if you are exposed to rain, dew, frost, and snow,
vulnerable to wind, cold, heat, and humidity, then food is not enough to
support life, and clothing will be ruined by the elements. So housing is
constructed to avoid these problems.

Now then, in remote antiquity people were always outside, going

about their activities, digging holes in the ground for dwellings,
concealing themselves inside to avoid the wind and cold. Sages thought
about this, gathered bamboo and wood, cut hay and reeds, and made the
first houses. The Book of Changes says, “In high antiquity people lived in
burrows and slept in the fields. Sages replaced this with houses, putting a
ridgepole on top and eaves below, against the wind and rain.” This is why
housing evolved in human life.
Once houses are being built, everyone knows how they’re
constructed, craftsmanship is highly developed and tools are adequate,
then the rules for construction of housing have to be comprehensive.
The saying that “the abode affects the mood” is a warning from
Mencius. When a person’s residence is not right, his mood changes
because of this, and his manners cannot be correct. If you enter a room
full of orchids, you sense the fragrance without seeking it; if you go into a
room with rotten fish in it, you naturally take in the smell. When you go
into a winemaker’s house you want to drink wine; if you go to a
merchant’s house you become aware of the profit of commerce. This is
because the mood is developed differently according to the abode.
Phoenixes roost in parasol trees, nightingales perch on hilltops, fish
frolic in ponds, unicorns appear in rural groves. The fact that they each
have a reason for their preferred place is the principle on which dwellings
are constructed. For the residence of a lord or grandee, only when a
suitable location is selected and the manner of construction adheres to
the guidelines of sages, following the rules and providing for
convenience, with all forms and functions organized, can it then be a
comfortable abode. People who don’t care about their houses, wherever
located and however constructed, are primitive cave-dwellers; this is not
a motivation for the present usage of balance between decoration and
substance.
Considering that the housing system is said to distinguish social
classes, it is a matter of considering the person’s official rank and salary,
figuring how many people he has to support, and assessing the
accommodation of guests, official functions, and gatherings, to conform
to that social class.
Then there are adjustments according to the person’s age and
physical condition. Of course, the fashions of the age and the climate
also figure into the structure. Where the house is located, how far it is
from a city, whether it is urban or rustic, its position relative to mountains,
and the courses of rivers—the construction should be based on each of
these considerations.
Therefore the classes of knights, farmers, artisans, and merchants
must be defined, and their personal estate, so that even if one is rich one
does not design a house beyond one’s class, and even if one is poor one
locates in an appropriate place. Only then can the rules for housing be
clear. Based on these rules, the distinctions in size and layout should be
made meticulously.
Although lightness is valued in a house, it may be made large or small
according to one’s social class. There must also be differences in
structural dimensions within an individual house as well. Rooms are
divided into inside and outside to separate the sexes; from the inside they
do not talk about the outside, from the outside they are not allowed to
look into the inside. With separate entrances and different walls, empty
space is maintained inside and outside to keep males and females from
gathering together in one place. This is a regulation that has come down
from ancient times.
When the logic is examined thoroughly in this way, so that the high
and the low and the great and the small all keep to their stations without
any looseness, everyone will naturally keep to their class, master their
work, and have no wish for anything else.
This is the housing system. Next, to discourse on the types of rooms,
the first concern is where to put people. Of all people, a room for your
parents should be your first consideration. If they are no longer alive, first
make a shrine, then lay out rooms for family members. This is the
modern-day house with a residential extension.
Next is the place where you yourself stay. Make the structure where
you normally stay large, constructing a small room inside for a place to
meet intimates. Construct a bedroom in between. This means that your
personal abode is divided into a living room, bedroom, and drawing room.
Next, lay out guest chambers. Whether large, medium, or small
should depend on the person. Here too build three sections, to entertain
guests who come, whether relatives or strangers, of high or low estate.
Arrange an antechamber here, either storing weapons or posting guards,
to prevent disturbances inside and out, and to make it easy to relay
communications and provide service.
Next is a kitchen compound. This is laid out in three sections. There is
a place for butchering and dressing fish and poultry; there is a place for
cooking; and there is a place to draw water and store fire-wood, and to
keep fish and poultry, vegetables and fruits, wine and soy sauce. If the
proper usage of each is not defined, the organization is inappropriate.
Next is a room to store goods. For rare and precious utensils, works
of art, weapons and armor, build a storehouse with thick brick walls to
keep out thieves and prevent fire. For items to which you need daily
access, such as utensils, clothing, and money, build closets and set up
lights. Bung up mouse holes, guard against burglars, and establish a
place where all your refuse can be discarded.
This is the layout of a residence. The inner apartments for the
womenfolk can be inferred from this pattern.
Next, lay out roofed corridors to join the large and small structures,
with walkways everywhere, sheltered from wind and rain, setting up
guard posts at appropriate locations to keep watch over that area, with
space left open above and below the yard.
When it is like this, the design of a residence is complete. So,
considering this in terms of the individual, there is personal space, which
is one’s everyday living space. There should be facilities for guests, a
place to prepare food and drink, a place to store personal accessories,
and a place for servants. Even in a one-room cottage no more than ten
feet square these principles are inescapable.
If you extend this to the construction of huge mansions, even palaces
and multi-storied buildings, you can calculate from a ten-foot-square
cottage all the way to guest apartments up in the clouds and towers
blocking the sky from view.
This is internal design. When you build walls of earth and stone
surrounding this, either with high ramparts or deep moats, it can be a
design for a castle. Systematizing the elements of a residence on this
basis is done in order to define the rules of sages, establish standards,
and promote thorough study of their logic.
Next, there are practical rules for residences. Carefully consider the
season, be cognizant of the people’s labor; don’t interfere with the
farming season. In all matters, such as the appropriate times to cut wood
and bamboo, or when it is convenient to transport earth and stone, if you
don’t do them at the right time you’ll toil to no avail. Calculate the
appropriate pacing, relaxed or hurried, solely in terms of the season.
A preface to the Classic of Poetry says, “’ Beta Pegasi right in the center’
is praise for Duke Wen of Wei. Duke Wen moved his residence to Chu
Hill, where he founded a city and built a palace, constructed in the proper
season. The peasants were delighted at this, and the country prospered.”
Beta Pegasi is a star in the north, the Housebuilding Star. This star is right
in the center at dusk in the tenth lunar month by the current calendar.
This is the time for building houses, when the people have free time, in
accord with the season. In cases of unavoidable necessity, just go with
what is most urgent. So it says that the construction of gates and doors,
the repair of roads and bridges, and the walls and moats of a castle are
necessary no matter what the time. You should not wait for a particular
time to attend to these.
Next, if construction is done without assessing the location, the
construction won’t be good. There are places where the atmosphere is
extremely cold, and some places where it gets very hot, because of the
environment. There are places where snow reaches the roof. Although
it’s normal for a northern exposure to be cold and a southern exposure to
be warm, there are differences depending on the region. Considering
east, west, north, and south, taking account of mountains and rivers, sea
and land, assessing the quality of the soil and considering water use, be
guided by the natural environment.
Next is the work of construction, figuring how much labor is needed,
setting up supervisors and appointing foremen; earth and stone
construction, bamboo and woodwork, providing everything necessary for
the carpenters and journeymen, paying particular attention to the
distribution of labor and formation of teams, always attentive to oversight
of the construction. Dignified manners are to be maintained here, so
appoint a manager and visit daily to check on everyone’s industry or
idleness, to find out who deserves reward and who deserves punishment.
Then the construction will naturally be done correctly and completed
quickly.
Qiu Wenzhuang1 said, “When men of old undertook projects, they
always did so in accord with the season, having examined the lay of the
land and made sure of the suitability of the ground, not only doing
everything humanly possible but also consulting ghosts and spirits on
this. After all, building a house unavoidably puts a burden on people and
costs money. You should always avoid it if it can be avoided. If you
absolutely have to do it, do not fail to climb to high ground to survey,
making sure the exposure and configuration are appropriate. Go down to
low ground to look, examining the suitability of the soil. Considering the
sunlight, check to see if the exposure is in the right direction. If everything
is all good, then and only then mobilize the workers and start
construction.”
Generally speaking, the key to construction is in the importance of
lightness. Abroad they have couches and chairs. The rooms all being
floored with planks, they put couches and chairs for people to sit, while
the spaces where people walk are earth, stone, or tile. In our country
everyone uses plank flooring for convenience; this is because people
consider their own advantage without minding the expense to the land.
The places that require special attention to be made thick and heavy
are as follows: care must be taken with the pillars, the earth must be
made firm, the ridge and crossbeams must be well made, and the roofing
must be made waterproof. To expend labor and money on unnecessary
items is all frivolity, just to show offto people, leading to extreme
extravagance. That’s why it is said that lightness is valued.
Now then, it is said that distinctions in social class are defined by
relative height. What this means is that an upper level, middle level, and
lower level are constructed in a house, surrounded by inner walkways
and outer walkways; people of high rank sit in a high seat, while people
of low rank sit apart, keeping to their places, either on the middle or lower
level, or sitting politely on the inner or outer walkways, so there can
naturally be no disturbance among the lowly, and it is hard for them to act
unmannerly. Because there is a distinction of high and low in the house,
that is inherently adequate to maintain status and correct manners. Even
more so when sitting in a high place, because any unmannerly behavior
is readily evident below. Therefore those of high and low rank naturally
have to correct their manners.
Next, it is said that with no place to hide, separating inside and
outside naturally corrects misbehavior. What this means is that if the
place where one stays is hidden, improper behavior will inevitably occur
on this account. If where one stays is not hidden from view, the inner and
outer apartments are strictly segregated so males and females do not
come and go, the orderlies stay in their posts, the elderly, adult, and
young are all segregated, and there is no space or seat hidden from view,
then who can misbehave?
This means that manners should spontaneously be correct because
of the structure of the residence. Otherwise, if you sprawl out idly, getting
in the way of the orderlies, occasioning alienation and antagonism,
administrators don’t consult privately anymore, and you always keeps
yourself hidden behind screens, these are all indications of a household
where the people misbehave.
A noble man, a man of mettle, has nothing to be ashamed of.
Examining his domestic situation, he has no sense of guilt. He has
nothing to hide, inside or out. When he needs to rest, he should go to his
bedroom. There is a time to retire to your bedroom; at the wrong time, it
should be considered an impropriety.
So it is said that a noble man does not seek ease in his abode.
Seeking ease in one’s abode means acting like a retiree with an
inclination to rest, neglecting work out of self-interest—this is what the
admonition is directed at.
Next is the maxim to be on the alert for disturbances. That means if
you only think of convenience and don’t recognize the need for security,
in being cultured you forget the martial, ignoring the negative on account
of the positive. So lock your gates and doors, post soldiers on guard,
stock the equipment necessary for preparedness against disturbances,
prepare torches and lamps to keep nighttime security tight, post sentries
in the hallways where people have to pass, and stockpile short and long
weapons to facilitate prevention of any disturbances that may arise inside
or outside. All exits, routes of passage, and gathering places should be
posted with sentries to guard against disturbances.
These are precautions against disturbances caused by people. For
this reason the design of a residence focuses on internal and external
defense, with an understanding of these disturbances. So you set up a
street sentry post outside your gate to guard outside; establish sentry
posts left and right of doors, make simple guard houses wherever there
are comings and goings, posting small numbers at each point to check
exit and entry. Inside the house, install sliding screens so that they make
a lot of noise opening and closing; position sentry stations so they can
take in all four directions and easily look outside.
With this the arrangement is complete, so as long as people are at
their posts there will be no disturbances from outside; thieves and
robbers will naturally not come.
Next is the matter of fires. If the organization of the residence is fully
functional in accord with the foregoing design, fires inside and out should
be mostly avoidable. The reason for that is as follows. In terms of the four
seasons, people concentrate on fire in winter and spring, the two
seasons when the wind is strongest. In terms of day and night, they are
concerned with fire when they cook their two meals and when they get up
at dawn. The places where fire is kindled are where food is cooked and
water is boiled, where charcoal and kindling are gathered, where candles
and lamps are placed, and open hearths. Fires are kindled when guests
come, when someone is sick, on occasions of fortune and disaster, and
at times when a lot of people gather.
Studying the pattern of these categories, make thick clay linings for
the fireplaces where fires are going to burn; see that they are near water,
ram the earth below and cover it with stone, and don’t put anything
overhead that shouldn’t come in contact with flames. Set up a separate
building at a distance where most of the cooking and boiling are to be
done, leaving empty space and keeping a supply of well water. When the
fire is hot, have a steward check the color of the flames and the smell of
the smoke. When a lot of fires are lit, send stewards around to check
each place, and when a lot of guests have come, to watch for sparks
from the torches of their attendants, making the rounds inside and
outside to check. This constitutes a system of watch and signal.
If a fire occurs outside, have a rational system of duty delegation—a
team to go up on the roof to prevent the fire from catching, a team to
carry out valuables, a team to escort your wife and family, a team to go
along with you. Have plenty of fire-fighting equipment, with a system of
signals for their use.
When you follow these procedures, you should logically be able to
fight fires. Even if you cannot help getting burned out, however, it should
be said that your bearing should still not be disordered. Therefore even if
you face an emergency, as long as the organization of your residence is
right, there should be no change in your manners. If your home is
haphazard, disorderly, and things are done in an arbitrary way, when a
disturbance arises you will get confused and upset and lose your
composure.
Occasionally there are those who stolidly discount worldly matters,
who even in times of disturbance or fire say it’s fate. Though they don’t
lose their composure, this is only an unexamined and un-orthodox
nihilistic view of the order of nature. Even though they don’t lose their
composure, their doctrine is forced. It isn’t practical.
Noble men of mettle go by the guidelines of heaven and earth from
beginning to end, so when they build houses they consider the
environment, calculate the space, and coordinate the season with human
affairs. As they make the design complete in this way, they are familiar
with their residence and fully prepared to protect it, without mention of
fate. When everything has been done to safeguard it and yet there is an
unavoidable incident, then this is attributed to fate.
Therefore the reasons for strictness in organization of a residence
and correctness in everyday manners become clear when dealing with
disturbances. That is because there is a culture of dignified manners in
the home.
Scholars who lack this understanding espouse the frugality of the eras
of the sages of antiquity. In Historical Records it says, “When Yao had the
land, his palace was elevated only three feet, the timbers were not
planed, and the thatch was not trimmed.” According to Confucius, “I find
no flaw in Yu. His residence was humble and he devoted his energy to
water drainage.” They say this means we should strive for virtue without
concern for housing, leaving housing however it may be. This is due to
extreme literalism without reasoning.
If it’s a question of how to master oneself and how to develop
character, the evidence thereof is obvious in the uses of clothing, food,
and shelter. That doesn’t mean we should concentrate on our houses at
the expense of self-cultivation and character development. Virtuous
conduct is in personal behavior in professional, social, and familial
interactions. In professional, social, and familial interactions, personal
conduct is not unconnected to adequacy of clothing, food, and housing.
So, with careful consideration of proper proportion for our position, we
should follow the ideas of the sages in organizing these arrangements,
eliminating both excess and insufficiency. Here is where manners should
stand.
In Yao’s time, the world was still not far from a primitive condition, so
systematic formulation was not yet applied to housing. It’s not that they
rejected housing, but because there were still many more important
things to make. The same applies to Yu. Because flood control left the
people no leisure, it was no time to build a splendid palace. Now that the
land is at peace, all crafts are available, and there is no need to use the
strength of the country for water drainage, for the emperor and lords to
try to emulate the example of Yao is anachronistic. How could it be
practical?
Were Yao and Yu to emerge today, they would build their palaces high
to show the dignity of emperors and lords. Even so, excessive
expenditure of money and belaboring of the people on extravagant
residences is bound to result in destruction, like the Grand Palace of the
First Emperor of China and the Separate Palace of the Sui. This is why
the sages warned against such extravagance. To argue arbitrarily without
understanding their words is something corrupt Confucian pedants do; it
is not respected by noble men.
The design of a residence requires great care. Selecting the building
codes of this country, compare them with the examples of Tang dynasty
China, study construction all over the world. Even though styles of
construction have been defined from generation to generation since, they
tend to be extravagant or too cheap, not conforming to the proper
principles of construction. Noble men of mettle should only focus on the
fundamentals determined by sages, not being influenced by the fashions
of the times, avoiding the wrong attitudes. All implements used along with
a residence are made differently; they cannot be treated carelessly. To
please others’ eyes, or devote yourself to partying, are not what sages
care for.

Footnotes

1 Qiu Wenzhuang: Imperial librarian of the Ming dynasty, ca. 1500.

21. Clarifying the Uses of Implements
As things that support the body—clothing, food and drink, and housing—
cannot be dispensed with for even a day. Now then, since there is
clothing there are tools for tailoring it, wardrobes for hanging it, and
chests for storing it. Food and drink cannot be handled by hand, so
various utensils evolved. In antiquity they made holes in the ground to
serve as bowls, and drank from them with cupped hands. They used clay
drumsticks to beat earth drums. These are ways of high antiquity.

If you have a house, you should have all the utensils that go along
with a house. In addition, there are all sorts of personal conveniences,
beginning with armrest and cane, brush and ink-stone. There are
implements associated with good and bad fortune, warfare, hospitality
and diplomacy, celebration, ritual, music, archery, horseman-ship, writing,
and calculation. Military equipment, from armor and helmet to swords,
spears, bows, guns, and their accessories, as well as articles of riding
gear, are countless, but basically they are no more than the cultural and
military implements to facilitate practical convenience and guarantee
security.
Here the designs of implements all have their rules. There are many
such designs, past and present, crude and fine. However, one should set
out items that match, crude or fine according to social status, indicative of
character and importance. One should not waste money on fancy
implements just to impress people and show off.
So vessels for food and drink, for example, should be elevated,
removing anything unclean underneath, preventing servants from
touching with their hands where your mouths touch the vessels. In
particular, vessels for presentation to nobles are put on a high stand to
elevate the dish. This discourages menials from bending over and
reaching out to pick them up. This arrangement is a measure of
unavoidable necessity, to prevent people from assuming discourteous
postures.
Everything should be understood in this way. Even if a utensil is only
a decoration, it is inscribed with a maxim or inlaid with a saying, and
people not allowed to get it dirty, so that the words are understood when
seen, and as they are remembered over time they come to convey a
lesson.
Therefore no implements ought to be carelessly misplaced or
mishandled. In particular, documents or papers bearing the names of
sages, even a single sheet, should not be soiled. Needless to say, books
and writings should not be handled carelessly at all.
A man of mettle normally devotes his greatest attention to weaponry.
You should inquire of men who have them to consider and calculate their
advantages and disadvantages. A person’s physique has more or less
flesh depending on the season, and body weight changes from year to
year, so the suitable size of weapons cannot be known without constant
consideration and calculation. Since ancient times knights have all kept
them by their seats and studied their uses from experienced
predecessors. This is because men of mettle do not forget danger when
at ease.
To keep any of your equipment from touching your feet, be it your
weapons or your riding gear, they should be placed to one side when
coming and going.
Horses are the legs of men of mettle. Without a horse, how can you
travel long distances and cross steep ground? How could you treat your
horse inconsiderately? You should take good care of it. There are
systematic rules for this, which you should study thoroughly.
Next, there are the individual uses of the advantages of implements.
That means they should be organized according to the occasion. If they
are not used according to the occasion, their use will be out of place and
inexpert. Every implement has its occasion. The place ought to be
considered as well; figure out suitable locations to organize them in their
places. If they are not put in proper places, things will soon be damaged.
There are people put in charge of this. If no one is in charge, thorough
inventory is not done, and things are mishandled. Even if there is a
magistrate in charge, still appoint a supervisor to check, making rounds
of inspection.
When kept under wraps for a long time, implements inevitably get
damaged by exposure to moisture and dryness. Military equipment in
particular has to be checked carefully, as it may be rendered useless by
infestation of insects or by rot.
Articles for everyday life facilitate convenience, whereas military gear
is equipment for protection in times of disturbance; so if it is misplaced,
that is the basis of major defeat in an emergency. The supervisor should
check diligently, correcting the errors of administrators, dealing out
rewards and punishments.
These are principles for organizing implements. All use of implements
among people should be detached and mannerly. To give too much
attention to them is not the attitude of a noble man. Hu Wending said,
“People should be simple in their tastes—there is no need to appear rich
and highly placed.” Mencius said, “Even if I had a house forty feet high, a
dining table ten feet square, and hundreds of maids in attendance, I
wouldn’t have fulfilled any ambition of mine.”
Tastes refer to things like diet, attire, and residence. This also applies
to the use of implements. If they are not handled with courtesy, though,
dignified manners will be lacking in this, so even if they are handled with
detachment it is essential to maintain courteous formalities and not
confuse social order.
Next, there is the use of precious implements. Generally speaking,
implements conventionally called precious are compared in qualities to
heaven and earth, including atmosphere, beauty, and elegance. Only
when implements induce people to examine themselves are they to be
called precious implements. When people accomplish this completely,
they are called sages. When birds and beasts have this adornment, they
are called phoenixes and unicorns. When implements have this they are
called auspicious treasures and precious articles. These have been
respected since time immemorial, because people can take them as
standards.
Even so, though precious implements and such as unicorns and
phoenixes are famous in the world, this only refers to their atmosphere
and elegance. As for sages, they lack nothing of the virtues of heaven
and earth, so their character is thus sound, their knowledge thus
universal, their courage thus outstanding. That is why sages have rarely
appeared in the world over thousands of years, while gems are not rare.
Now then, next to this, if things that benefit the world and are useful to
people are considered precious, then the energies of wood, fire, earth,
metal, and water produce grain, clothing, plants and trees, fish and fowl,
salt and greens, and enable the making of implements and swords—all of
these are treasures of the world, indispensable even for a day. There is
profit in gold, silver, and copper cash, moreover, when used for
exchange, as what people have is profitably traded for what they lack.
This is how money began to be treasured.
Considered in this context, speaking in terms of the benefit of
convenient utility, even a single vessel or a single object, small as it may
be, is a treasure when its time comes. For example, a sharp sword
capable of killing is a treasure for the one who kills but an instrument of ill
omen for the one who is killed.
Something that is good for only one function or one task, nonetheless,
without universal application, is not called a treasure. Money is called
valuable because it can be exchanged profitably. No asset is more
convenient than this for getting through the world—that is why it has been
valued from age to age. Jewels are the treasures of nobles, of no
particular practical use, and no value as currency. Therefore common
people don’t treasure them.
When a society does not consider jewels precious treasures, that is
because people value profit, not quality. Those who do happen to value
jewels do so because they want to exchange them for gold and silver.
In ancient times, emperors, lords, grandees, gentry, and even
commoners always wore jades. Emperors came to wear jades hanging
from their belts. In the Documents it says, “Gather jades designed for
dukes, marquises, earls, esquires, and barons; interview the regional
governors at court every day during the first month of the year and
distribute the jades to the governors.” This means the emperor distributes
assorted gems to the lords, indicating that everyone should emulate
richness of character like the qualities of these jades, and should perfect
sound intelligence like the luster of jade. When the lords come to court,
they present the jades bestowed on them, never forgetful, never
careless. This represents the fulfillment of character and intelligence.
Even so, as society degenerated, the purpose of the jades given to
the lords as gems of evidence to check their character and intelligence
was lost because they didn’t know what treasure is.
According to the Manners of Zhou, six kinds of tablet were made of
jade and distributed among the feudal states. Kings took the tablet of
peace, dukes took the tablet of war, marquises took the tablet of trust,
earls took the tablet of status, esquires took the grain gem, and barons
took the reed gem. Six vessels were made of jade for rites to the sky,
earth, and four directions.
Also it says that the imperial treasurer manages the treasury and
security of the ancestral shrines. The treasures of the nation are stored
here. The Mean speaks of setting out implements of the ancestors, and
the Documents say what those ancestral implements are. All of them are
treasures of the nation, valuables passed down from previous
generations and carefully kept as hereditary treasures, likened to the
virtues that stabilize the state.
Qiu Wenzhuang said, “Past Confucians have said that jade has the
refined energy of pure positivity, so it is most treasured by sages. When
they were going to propitiate heaven and earth and the four directions,
they had no means of tendering their sincerity, so they made six
implements of jade.”
Jade has existed everywhere in China since ancient times. This can
be seen by perusing the Classic of Mountains and Seas. In the time of Yao
and Shun, they were already using it to make tablets and scepters. In the
time of The Contributions of Yu,1 there were already gemstones in the
tribute from the three provinces of Yang, Liang, and Ying. The jade
presented by Bian He2 during the era of the Warring States came from
Mt. Jing. In Han times, Indigo Fields in central China and Jade Fields in
Yu province both had jades. In those days, Central Asia was not yet in
contact with China. Currently we don’t hear of any places in China that
produce jade; all the jade in use comes from Khotan. Khotanese jade is
of three kinds; white, dusky, and green. All of them come from the rivers.
This is different from what ancients referred to as the mountains shining
with gemstones. This is because Chinese jades come from stone and
must be chiseled out, whereas foreign jades come from water and must
be sifted out.
How could jade have differences of time, place, and organic matter?
Jade is the purest of gemstones; is there a limit to where it is produced,
can it ever be mined to exhaustion? People of ancient times associated
jade with virtues, so they were never without them for no reason, making
implements of them to use. The kinds used for belt chimes have to be
multiple. Those for which ideographs have been devised number more
than two hundred kinds, so it is obvious that they had a lot of jade in
ancient times, and many ways of using it.
In the present age, there are peasants who don’t know of jade. Why
was it so plentiful in ancient times but so rare today? The reason people
of the world don’t know that jade is a treasure is because they focus on
utility and indulge in subjective desires, so they tend to regard money as
treasure. From this they value objects that delight the eye, please the ear,
or stimulate the palate; or they treasure art and calligraphy, or rare
antiques, because they are scarce and uncommon; they prize things by
looking, listening, handling, or wearing them. When they ask their price,
they think expensive things are great treasures. This is very much the
behavior of small people, not the philosophy of noble men.
For a stalwart’s weaponry, sword and spear have the greatest
function, so they could be valued as treasures, but something that is
sufficient only to kill a single person and protect one individual is not a
treasure. The function of the three-foot sword of the Exalted Ancestor of
the Han Dynasty of China,1 in pacifying the land, was far reaching. The
long sword of this country has a chilling shine that makes foreigners fold
their arms. These are worthy of being considered treasures.
Even so, when something used by your father and grandfather is
needed for your house, then it is a family treasure. An ancient said, “As
for the valuable articles rulers keep from preceding generations, those
that bear the marks of their handling, those in which their spirit is lodged,
are set out when there are events at the ancestral shrine, to show that
they are being preserved. When the emperor is dying, these are set out
to show their complete return.” This is not a trivial matter. The Mean uses
this to illustrate the capacity of inheritance and bequest; the Documents of
Zhou uses this to represent the preservation of heritage. They say that if
you are someone’s descendant, heir to the status of your ancestral clan,
keeper of your ancestral profession, how can you be filial if you don’t
keep the heirlooms left by your ancestors?
Speaking in these terms, while it may be reasonable to keep
heirlooms of your ancestors carefully as family treasures, if you store a
lot of useless articles on the pretext that they are treasures of your
ancestors, on the contrary this will bring disgrace on your ancestors, and
even amount to teaching your children and grandchildren to be greedy.
There are a lot of fellows known as men of mettle who nevertheless
treasure utensils, even those who usually don’t care about gain and loss,
because they have no aspiration to the Way, don’t know the intent of the
sages, and have not reasoned these matters out thoroughly. Beware of
this.
Generally speaking, treasure as applied to the multitudes of people
everywhere on earth logically refers to whatever brings fulfillment. Cash
is extremely useful to poor people, whereas rich people don’t need it.
Even a hobby is a treasure to someone who has none, whereas one with
more than enough isn‘t interested. Thus they should not be classed as
universal treasures. Scholars should pay attention to this.

Footnotes

1 Contributions of Yu is a work in the classic Ancient Documents concerning the ancient sage
king Yu, who according to tradition founded the Xia dynasty in 2205 BCE.

2 Bian He figures in an ancient story supposed to represent faithfulness. He found a rock that
he recognized to be a jade matrix, and presented it to his king. The king thought it was just
a rock and had one of Bian’s feet amputated to punish him. When Bian presented it to the
next king, again it was not recognized for what it was and Bian had the other foot cut offfor
his trouble. In the end the value of the jade was finally recognized by a third king.

1 Exalted Ancestor of the Han refers to the founder of the Han dynasty (r. 206-194 BCE) who
had been one of the leaders of revolts against the government of the first Chinese empire. A
traditional theme of righteous rebellion in China is of a sword from heaven inspiring a new
leader to rise up.
22. Dignified Manners in Ceremonial Functions
Generally speaking, the function of ceremony is what manners hinge upon.
Courtesies concern conduct in every single matter, in regard to every single
thing. Therefore, from the physical body all the way to utensils and implements,
what noble men of mettle value is understanding the guiding principles of each
case. Among ceremonies, the major ones in the social structure are rites of
majority, marriage, funeral, and ceremonies honoring spirits and ancestors; and
rituals for hospitality, military organization, interviewing, and celebrating.

Majority means the rite carried out on someone’s attainment of adulthood. In

terms of ceremony, there is the ritual of the capping of the knight, which is also
respected in Japan. Military leaders have observed this generation after
generation. In recent times the institution of cap and gown have gone out of
fashion, so the knight and commoners don’t learn about it, the capping ceremony
is neglected, and the rites of attaining adulthood are unclear.

In the Manners it says, “Males from the ages of fifteen to twenty may all be
capped. This should only be carried out if there is no mourning in progress for
their father or mother, or requiring a year or more.” That system is very detailed,
but it’s not used today, so I omit it.

Sima Guang1 wrote, “In ancient times capping was done at the age of twenty.
The reason everyone valued the rite of attainment of adulthood is to charge the
individual with the responsibility for his actions as someone’s son, someone’s
younger brother, someone’s subject, someone’s junior. Therefore it is necessary
to emphasize the importance of this with a ceremony. In recent times people
have become more superficial; few keep minority status past the age of ten. Even
if you charge them with the responsibility for their actions in their various roles,
how could they comprehend? In case after case they remain equally ignorant
from youth to maturity. That is because they don’t know the ways of adulthood.
Even if it is impossible to reform all at once now, if you wait from the age of
fifteen until they master the Classic of Filial Piety and the Discourses and
Sayings of Confucius and they have a rough knowledge of rites and manners,
and then you cap them, this will still do.”

Although current custom does not practice capping, the front of the scalp is
shaved between the ages of fifteen and twenty as a rite of passage to majority,
and the childhood name is replaced with an adult name. So this amounts to a
capping ceremony. Could it be proper to neglect it?

Thus before the actual ceremony signifying attainment of majority, boys should
be taught all about adulthood, so when the day comes they can perform the ritual
in the presence of their parents and adopt an adult name. This is what is referred
to by the expression a guest gives a name to the one being capped. This guest is
one chosen for this function from among friends, one who is wise and mannerly.
The name here refers to the adult name. So the capping involves meeting one’s
parents in the ancestral shrine, having an audience with honored elders, and
going through a celebratory ceremony, seeing to it that manners are correct.

Courtesy to guests is shown by the ritual of offering three cups of wine. As for
giving thanks to guests, that is done with bolts of cloth and mounts. The details
are in classics and traditions and commentaries on manners and rituals.

Master Cheng wrote, “With the capping ceremony obsolete, there are no adults
in the land. Or some wish to cap at the age of twelve. This will not do. Capping
is to convey the responsibilities of adulthood, and twelve years of age is not the
appropriate time to hold people responsible as adults.”

Girls also debut at the age of fifteen. This is their rite of adulthood. Once people
have formally become adults, there are proper ways for a person to be a person,
from clothing, diet, and housing to physical carriage and attitude. Can these
legitimately be neglected? This is why the capping rite is considered important.

Marriage joins two families in friendship and produces progeny, whereby the
process of succession to parents in carrying out responsibilities is consummated.
Since it is a major rite for men and women, it should not be made a matter of
convenience.

Funerals and services for the dead are rites for remembrance of successive
generations of parents. The procedures should be studied carefully, and
consideration should be given to the proper timing. The courtesies of receiving
guests, the process of hospitality, and the courtesies of drinking wine require
greatest circumspection in regard to dignified manners.

As for military operations, this is a function of knights, with a most serious

bearing on questions of life and death, survival and destruction. It cannot be
explained all at once; research thoroughly, think everything through, find out
what everything is for, acquiring an understanding of war strategy and military
science. Your only aim should be to become a king’s warrior.

Audience refers to a minister’s first meeting with the lord, or a visit to a teacher
or elder. These are called audiences, and the proper manner is to show the
courtesies of a knight in audience. You should examine all of the types and
thoroughly understand their applications.

Rites of celebration are systems of propitious times and ceremonial days for all
observances of auspicious events.

The foregoing rites are all important observances. As a man of mettle, if you
don’t know courteous manners but are just hard and strong, you will be so mean
as to merit the epithet of a northern brave.

Even though bravery and strength are basic for a man of mettle, if you neglect
manners and obey subjective desires, you cannot have cultural and martial
capacity and intelligence. If you don’t have cultural and martial capacity, as you
only make techniques your basis, how can you attain real courage?

Courtesy is basic for people, including social relations and the designs of
utensils and objects. When courtesy is violated here, then proper measure is lost.
Without proper measure, all action and speech will fall into either excess or
inadequacy, and cannot accord with the requirements of natural principle.

Sages of ancient times valued courtesy, and established various kinds of

regulations to prevent people from falling into evil. So if a man of mettle puts it
in his heart to avoid disrespect in all things, making his lifestyle conform to
courteous usages, thoroughly studying their principles, only then can he live up
to the standards of dignified manners.

Footnotes

1 Sima Guang: A famous scholar and information officer of the central

government of Song dynasty China during the latter half of the 11th century.
23. Circumspection in Daily Activities: General
Discussion of Everyday Affairs
In the Book of Changes it says, “The people use it everyday without knowing.”
In The Mean it says, “The Way is not to be left for a moment. If it can be left, it
is not the Way.” People’s every action in the world is not beyond this. I call this
the Way. While I don’t know, heaven and earth gave me a physical form,
equipped with reason enabling it to function. In ancient times sages systematized
ethics, defining inevitable rules. Even though there are no sages here, in age after
age thenceforth people observed these of their own accord, so the Way exists in
their everyday usages. The fact that the Way has degenerated gradually over the
ages, and people and things have changed, is because of departing from this
Way.

Even so, no incident can take place independent of the Way. Speaking from this
perspective, from peace and war, flourishing and decline on a large scale, down
to changes and movements in one event or one thing, there is no departing from
the laws of heaven and earth. Noble men of mettle can only talk about the Way
when they have actually experienced what this means.

Considering this body, then, it has ears, eyes, nose, mouth, four limbs, and
hundreds of parts. Inside, there are distinctions of nature, mind, emotion, will,
and temper. On employing this body there are functions of walking, standing,
sitting, reclining, looking, listening, speech and action. To support this body
there are clothing, housing, utensils, and necessary objects. There is a distinction
between appetite and sexual desire. There are interactions of lord and subject,
father and son, husband and wife, old and young, colleague and friend. In that
context there come to be rituals for good times and bad, for war, hospitality, and
celebration.

When we consider this body of ours, all of these things are inseparable.
Although there are individual differences of status and wealth, none of the
aforementioned items is dispensable. With this body and this mind, to depart
from these things is only possible in death. In the meanwhile, thoroughly
studying their principles, harmonizing with the Way that cannot be departed
from, keeping the rules of heaven and earth in everything you do, in everything
you arrange, with everyone you meet, even when sitting alone, organizing
everything with heaven and earth as the embodiment of humaneness may be
called the everyday practice of a noble man.

The principles I explain are not remote, but inescapable. In their everyday
activities, everyone refers to what makes them happy as the Way, and what is
offensive they call human greed. With only these two alternatives, can everyday
activities be taken lightly?
24. Correcting a Day’s Activities
A hundred years is considered an advanced age in terms of the human
life span. A man of mettle should only consider the activities of one day,
today, to be the limit. Individual days accumulate into a month, individual
months accumulate into a year, individual years accumulate into a
decade, decades pile up into a century.

One day is still a long way—it’s in a single hour. An hour is still long—
it’s in fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is still too much—it’s in a minute. In
these terms, the accumulation of even thousands of years comes from
one minute and concludes in one day. If you’re negligent for a minute,
eventually that will become a day, and may ultimately turn into a lifetime’s
laziness.
The continual creation of life by heaven and earth does not stop for a
minute; blood and energy do not stop circulating for a minute. In this way
heaven attains eternity and earth perpetuity; in this way life flourishes
forever.
When virtue and intelligence circulate like this, one is a sage. Great
Yu valued even a minute of time, Confucius contemplated flowing water.
This must be the sense of the saying that the circulation of virtues is
faster than the conveyance of commands by relay.
Considering a day’s activities here, first get up early, wash and groom
yourself, dress properly, including accessories, and sit quietly with your
hands folded, making your appearance and manner correct. Nurture the
mood of dawn,1 and contemplate the principle of heaven and earth
ceaselessly producing life.
Then acknowledge your debt and duty to your lord and your father,
and think about today’s work, a matter of considerate contemplation.
“The physical body, hair, and skin, are received from father and mother;
not daring to injure them is the beginning of filial piety. Establishing
oneself, carrying out the Way, leaving a reputation to posterity that will
distinguish your father and mother is the end of filial piety. Serving your
lord with total devotion, planning for the benefit of others, is loyalty.” The
meaning in this is deep and far-reaching. Above all, you should observe
subtle impulses.
 Once daylight dawns, open the door and clean, sprinkle, and sweep
the walk. Here the energy of heaven enters in, here the veins of earth
grow. If there are household chores, give instructions with all the
necessary information. In the meantime, if visitors come or messengers
are waiting, see them promptly and respond to them promptly, not
causing them any delay.
If you are in the service of a lord, go to work early. If you are taking
care of your parents, see if they are all right. If you go out to work, be
thoroughly circumspect about where you situate yourself and what you
say, and don’t plan beyond your position. If you are attending an elder, be
polite and respectful, treating him like your father or elder brother, being
deferential and not arguing.
Generally speaking, the course of service in public office is to go to
work early in the morning before others, and leave work in the evening
after others. When you get home, look in on your parents. With a mild
manner and gentle voice, settle in your seat and inquire about affairs in
your absence, assess their relative urgency, and do what needs to be
done.
If there is free time, change out of your court clothing, sit quietly and
contemplate, reviewing the day’s activities. If you have time to spare,
then read, reflecting on the words and deeds of people of old, getting to
know the designs of sages and savants.
When the sun has gone down, then give instructions for night security,
making sure of mutual arrangements. Then go to bed, relax your body
and rest your mind. Have attendant samurai go on and off duty at regular
times.
These are the habits of rising early and retiring late, working at the
office and looking after the family.
These are precepts for knights when at home. They ought to be
observed with care. A tradition says that in an official career forty is
considered the age of strong service. This is the time when one’s
planning in public service is apt. Nevertheless, taking the number of
progeny into consideration, on the command of his lord or father one
should be allowed to get experience in office even if only around twenty
years old.
Even if knights serve in office, their work load is little and they always
have a lot of free time. Sometimes they are given leave and live at home,
or have unfortunately never served a lord, or their parents have passed
away early, or they are too far away to go on duty from morning to night.
When leisure days living at home go on for a long time, your will
slackens, becoming unrestrained and indulgent; calling yourself the one
man of leisure in the world, you don’t look after your professional work
and eventually degenerate into an animal. This is what Master Zeng
meant when he said, “Small people living at leisure will do anything
immoral.”
So discipline is required when living at leisure. Generally speaking, a
man of mettle does not relax his discipline because of distinction, and
does not become lazy in his conduct because of obscurity. Thus he first
gets up early in the morning, cleans himself, grooms and reflects,
acknowledges and contemplates, then goes out and greets the knights,
attends guests, and may watch archery or go horseback riding, then has
a quick meal. If there are guests who showed up without an invitation,
then don’t change your simple fare. Share a cup of lees.
When you’ve finished, rinse your mouth and straighten your
appearance, dignified in your manner. If you have no business to attend
to, practice the arts of swordsmanship, archery, shooting, or spear
fighting, strengthening your physique and perfecting your maneuvering.
Invite experts, or go to their places, never being lazy. If you slack offfor a
long time, you’ll become clumsy, uncoordinated, out of condition,
sluggish, inadequate for the job.
A man of old carried bricks to develop his strength. Both his
determination and his effort ought to be observed.
If you still have free time, read books and study military science and
martial principles, researching the reasons for the things involved,
clarifying the designs of the relevant equipment and operations, based
only on what the sages say.
Once the sun sets, then have your evening meal, repeating the
morning ritual. Morning and evening meals are best simple and quick.
As the day grows dark, light candles early to distinguish objects and
dispel doubt. If something comes up, go ahead and see to it. Otherwise,
if there’s nothing going on, then quietly rest your mind.
While a man of mettle is staying at home, if he is this circumspect
even in solitude, then he will have a clear conscience. He does not
neglect manners whether in view or out of sight. Here his mind is broad,
here his body is robust, here his attention is focused; his will has a
definite direction, and no ideas of license or indulgence occur to him.
These are precepts for living at leisure.

Footnotes

1 The mood of dawn is an image from Mencius. The mood of dawn means mental calm,
freshness, coolness, and clarity.
25. Use of Money; Ethics of Receiving and Giving
If you have money but can’t use it, then money isn’t valuable. If you have a use
for it but don’t calculate the amount of money needed, then the use isn’t
practical. Money is valuable because of need, needs are practical because of
money. There is no distinction between money and its use.

Money is quantifiable, needs can be met. Money functions properly to provide

for the poor, to help the indigent, to look after the needy, to invite the wise, and
to recruit knights. It is a medium of exchange, whereby what people have can be
exchanged for what they have not, and trade is made profitable. If it is used
effectively it is valuable; otherwise, miserly feelings occur day by day, and the
calamity of extravagance happens from time to time. Neither of these is the way
of the noble man.

A man of mettle thinks only of duty. If you treasure money and amuse yourself
with possessions, you’ll be remiss in military duty, unable to forget home in an
emergency. If you think so much of home that you abandon duty and flee death,
you become an object of derision and you disgrace your father and grandfather.
What is enjoyable about having a human face but an animal heart?

History abounds with people who had an abundance of gold, silver, money, and
goods, but lost their countries and wrecked their families, or traded themselves
for money making. But outstanding men disdain empire and state. There is the
example of one who washed his ears in a river, and those who gathered ferns in
the mountains. You should reflect on their high-mindedness.

Even so, this does not mean that if you have money you should discard it in the
mountains or toss it in the sea, treating it the same as dirt or rocks. It’s just a
matter of making sure of its measured use.

The riches of the world are the riches of the world, not the riches of one man.
Money makes trade and profit possible, applying to all things; that is why it is
called wealth. People who have money say they don’t want to waste it, and don’t
know how to spend it. If gold and jade fill your rooms, and money and goods lie
in storage, and yet you don’t know how to put it to use, then the riches of the
world stagnate inside individual treasuries and are not useful to the world. What
is more wasteful than this?
When people like money, they’re generally miserly with it. That is why sages
didn’t consider money as treasure and did not value hard-to-get goods. Indeed, to
store pottery, paintings, calligraphy, and vessels of copper and iron, and call this
treasure, spending thousands in gold on these things, is extreme confusion.

The principles of giving and receiving, the duties of ruler and subject, superior
and subordinate, and the courtesies of interactions with peers, should be
carefully observed by knights.

All things great and small involve duties, whether giving or receiving. So if
disbursal is not done in a principled and just manner, people will not be pleased
and knights will not enlist.

A tradition says, “Men of justice cannot be hired for money. Even a beggar
won’t accept food used for enticement.” How can we not be careful? If it is right
to receive something, then it should be accepted, no matter how valuable it is. If
it is in any way unjust or unprincipled, even an immense salary, or leadership of
the world, should not be accepted.

So when you give, consider the relative value of the thing, determine the way to
do it and act accordingly, including a note. No matter how small or meager, it
represents an intention and maintains an ethical principle. How could the
recipient not be appreciative?

As for the proper way to receive something, usages of sendoff and welcome,
restraint and deference, how can these be overlooked? If you don’t do it right,
giving is without feeling and receiving is without pleasure. You should focus on
circumspection in the context of giving and receiving. Someone said, “Rather
than be miserly and accumulate money, let a knight be generous with it, and he’ll
have even more.”
26. Prudence at Parties
Knights are not lazy either in public or private; sharpening their will, they are
diligent in their activities. This is their job. Treating savants as savants and
familiars as familiars, they organize parties and drink wine, and frequently
gather to listen to music. These are occasions when guests are entertained.

Bathing in the wind wearing the clothing of spring, hiking in the mountains,
enjoying the moonlight in the valleys and the clear breeze on the rivers, they
follow the flowers and willows. These are the parties of men of mettle. Why just
occupy yourself with reading and writing, becoming a stuffy little man? Here
your heart expands, here your taste is purified.

Nevertheless, drinking wine must have discipline, and diversions must have
measure. Each excursion, each diversion, as a model for lords, does not involve
streaming music or an idle waste of time. In the sacred park of King Wen, the
doe and deer were fat, the swans were white, fish danced in the ponds. This is a
lesson of the ancients, to share their enjoyment with the people. Whether in
falconry, hunting, or fishing, should a man of mettle lose measure and become
obsessive? One must be very careful.
 BOOK TWO
THE Warrior's Rule
By Tsugaru Kodo-shi
I. The Basis of Order
1. Martial Virtues

Warriorhood is a word for unflagging bravery and ferocity for justice. It

has wide application, and there are many kinds.

When someone is fierce and powerful by nature and developed in

skill, able to lift heavy weights and leap long distances, cross rivers and
travel far, going all day without tiring, wielding sword and spear without
blinking or quivering, winning every battle at will, such a man is called a
warrior. This is someone who has attained one type of warriorhood.
There are those who issue strict orders, grant generous rewards, and
impose severe penalties, who employ soldiers like herding sheep,
coordinate armies by rules and regulations, plunge in where there is
nowhere to go, gain total victory in every battle, expand the territory and
revive the nation. One like this is called the warrior leader of a country in
combat. Sun Wu1 of China and Shingen of Japan were examples of this.
There are those who think deeply and silently descry patterns of
change; who know what has gone by and perceive what is to come, free
of confusion; who find out the hidden and fish out the obscure, without
error; who prefer strategy to contests of strength, who spend a lot of time
contriving and act indirectly so as to overcome enemies. Kongming2 of
China and Kusunoki3 of Japan were examples of this.
Those who are capable of balance without wavering, who are
centered and unbiased, who cannot be compromised by wealth and
honor, who cannot be moved by poverty or disgrace, who are not
affected by the senses, are stalwarts of the teachings of sages and
savants.
Thus while their types are not the same, they are all consistent with
the great basis of warriorhood, merely differing in scale and relative
refinement. When you seek precedents of people of old, or require literal
explanation, it’s hard to penetrate the profundities in an explanation of
warriorhood.
Virtue means attainment. When we attain this we thereby feel at ease;
where others attain this, they rest easy in their places. This is called
virtue.
To improve oneself by warriorhood is the beginning of martial virtue.
To govern knights by warriorhood is the end of martial virtue. To rule the
world by warriorhood is the ultimate achievement of martial virtue. To
master the whole process beginning to end, root and branch, omitting
nothing, is true martial virtue.
As a martial state, Japan has been governed militarily ever since Lord
Yoritomo,1 so if the basis of order and peace is not established by martial
virtue, the root and stem will be weak, and easily collapse. The
substantiality of martial virtue is most profoundly important.
Overall, the function of martial virtue is spontaneous strictness without
disobedience even if the military leader doesn’t enforce rules severely,
having knights flocking to one’s court to serve even though one is not
always giving out rewards, and everyone trembling as before battle axe
and halberd even though one is not angry. These are signs of the
external efficacy of martial virtue.
If you wonder what path or what principle to go by to get to where
people submit in fear like this, the basis is the warrior leader’s personal
realization of warriorhood.
To be devoted to warriorhood as much as to sensuality, to use it as
constantly as food and drink, to respect and believe in it as in ghosts and
spirits, to regard it with the gravity of the greatest mountain—these are
preliminary tasks of self-improvement by way of warriorhood, the root
source from which to extend martial virtue to the four seas.
Whatever reaches outside is invariably rooted inside—this is the
condition of all beings. Therefore, when a foundation rooted within is
small and slight, what emerges outwardly is accordingly not far-reaching
or grand. For this reason, if a warrior leader wants the full effect of martial
virtue, it’s a matter of first attending seriously to the path of self-
improvement by warriorhood.
Now the evidences of martial virtue outwardly evinced are two— awe
and obedience. This is called martial dignity. When martial dignity is
outstanding, people submit and fear; being awed, they also obey.
Awe and obedience are two things, but in effect they are one. Without
awe and fear, others may outwardly obey but be inwardly opposed. If
they are not submissive, they may be afraid at first but will eventually
rebel. In military science this is called the rule of controlling yet inspiring,
by means of awe and admiration.
To the degree you are awesome, people will find this intimidating; to
the extent you are admired, people will become attached to you.
Therefore fear and admiration are the sources of all actions. The
expression of martial virtue being awe and admiration, the practical
effects of awe and admiration are fear and submission.
Therefore to work unceasingly on warriorhood by yourself is to have
virtue within you. Where people can rest in peace is where virtue is
consummate. When inside and outside, other and self, find their proper
places, this is the totality of martial virtue.
What effectuates this is knowledge; what implements this is duty;
what completes this is courage.
When the generals are rich in martial dignity, even if there are
external troubles with rival states there is no anxiety for the home-land—
any who may come to try to invade will themselves be toppled and fall.
Thus the state will endure. Does ease not ensue upon attaining this?
When the multitude of knights comes under the influence of this
virtue, they discern duty on their own, volunteer with courage, despise
discourtesy, and keep the law. Thus there is joy within and delight
without. Does ease not ensue upon attaining this?
Those who take leisure and amusement for ease are as if slicing
offflesh from their own bellies to eat in order to satisfy their own hungry
guts. One occasion’s pleasure turns out to become many incidents of
injury. Therefore taking it easy without a basis in martial virtue is the
conduct of a weak leader.
As a general category, martial virtue has two main aspects, cultural
and military. Internal order is cultural, external deterrence is military.
Even in other countries, rulers who started their careers with
armaments seem to have founded their states by martial virtue, but that
is not what the warriors of our country mean by martial virtue. It
corresponds to the military classification, but that militarism is still not the
same as our country’s militarism. Iron and lead may both be metal, but
the difference in their durability is as that between sky and earth. You
can’t even talk about them on the same day.
Abroad, what is called the virtue that governs all within the four seas
functions on the basis of humaneness, so it is cultural virtue. What
warriors call the virtue that governs all under heaven functions on the
basis of duty, so it is martial virtue.
This country and other countries are all within the same world; the
reason their ideologies are so contradictory seems to be due to the
influence of ancient ways continued through the ages by habit, turning
into conditions of human nature in the world. So whereas they originally
received the form and energy of earth and water, they unavoidably came
to have different preferences and aversions. Therefore when virtuous
government is established taking all conditions into account, even if not
exactly perfect it is not far off.
Things have three active ingredients: to have all three is called virtue.
One is called potency, second is called ability, the third is called purpose.
For example, when a sword has an unfathomable efficacy, such that
its energy shoots the North Star or sprites shrink from it, this is the
potency of the sword. Cutting through iron helmets and piercing
rhinoceros hide armor is the ability of the sword. As for the purpose of the
sword, it is to accompany a man in action and repose and do what it is
supposed to do.
To have exemplary dignity in conduct and activity, to have awesome
sternness in correctness and uprightness of speech and behavior, is the
potency of a commander. To be unafraid in face of peril and unerring in
strategy, to lead a small force to attack a large one, achieving victory a
hundred percent of the time, is the ability of a commander. To motivate
oneself unceasingly, not become conceited about talent and ability,
accept criticism without refusal, and persevere in education out of
compassion for the ignorant, are examples of the purpose of the
commander.
When these three things are combined, this is called martial virtue.
Until you have attained these three, you cannot reach the ultimate goal of
being able to rest in peace.

Footnotes

1 Sun Wu, often cited as Sun-tzu or Master Sun, was a successful military strategist whose
treatise The Art of War is a perennial classic in its field, still widely studied.

2 Kongming refers to Zhuge Liang, (ca. 180-233), a distinguished civil and military leader of
the Shu Han, or so-called Minor Han, one of the Three Kingdoms into which China was
divided following the dissolution of the Han dynasty in 221 CE. Shu refers to the region of
 Siquan, where a remnant of the Han dynasty was set up and held out for forty-four years.

3 Kusunoki Masashige (? - 1336) was a distinguished warrior of the Japanese era of the
Northern and Southern Courts, a time of civil war when rival branches of the imperial family
were backed by competing warrior clans. Kusunoki became governor of two provinces, and
was also a member of several organs of imperial government under Emperor Go-Daigo. A
great hero of Japanese history, Kusunoki died fighting the warlord Ashikaga Takauji, founder
of the second samurai dynasty, centered in Muromachi, Kyoto.

1 Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199), founder of the first Bakufu, or central military government
of Japan.
2. Warrior Wisdom

Clearly understanding warrior ways and martial matters is called warrior

wisdom. Even if you read through books of ancient and modern history and
exhaust the literature of Japan and China, as long as you are ignorant of the ways
of warriors you cannot yet claim the wisdom of the warrior leader.

Wisdom is a function of intuition and intellect, while talent is a function of

wisdom. Knowing a lot by learning from precedent is wisdom; to build it up
inwardly and apply it to oneself, able to employ it in the ways of warriors today,
adapting to their changes, is talent.

What is crucial in cultivating warrior wisdom is in knowing the conditions of

victory and defeat. Victory means controlling events and people; defeat means
being controlled by events and people. Of all the things we face—heaven and
earth, people and things—it is only considered important to control people.

People have inner and outer states. It is easy to control the outside, hard to
control the inside. To effectively control both inside and outside and not allow
opponents to rise against you is the reality of victory. This alone is the reason
why the military class is constituted as a warrior caste—simply because there is
this matter of victory and defeat.

When that wisdom builds up over a long time, it produces a sensitive and
perceptive mastery within. When it is abundantly stored and long accumulated,
that mastery becomes more and more complete, so that it intuits and discerns
everything about warrior ways and martial matters, great and small, specific and
general. Its uses are inexhaustible; it can be drawn on endlessly. When it reaches
perfection, it is coextensive with sky and earth, metamorphosing like ghosts and
spirits. This is the total attainment of warrior wisdom.

When ordinances are issued and rules are established without the clear
discernment of warrior wisdom, few principled knights will keep them. When
principled knights are satisfied, in the end the common crowd will ultimately
submit. When the knights submit, the three common classes go along too. This is
how the military class spreads its influence by means of warrior wisdom.

Martial virtue is the substance of warrior wisdom, while wisdom is the function
of virtue. Substance and function are rooted in each other, and are never
separate. Virtue is expressed by wisdom; wisdom is stabilized by virtue.
3. Warrior Justice

Justice is a term for dealing with affairs and people appropriately.

Appropriateness means that all parties find their place, so that they are happy.
This is what is appropriate. If you yourself are the only one to enjoy a benefit,
you may be happy about it, but others are not. Though something may seem all
right from one point of view, from another it may, on reflection, prove to be
objectionable in some way. In such cases, that cannot lead to happiness in the
end. So justice means judging and settling matters between people to the
satisfaction of all parties.

Making judgments and decisions appropriately is something even the three

civilian classes do, according to their roles. The justice of the warrior’s way is
determined by martial virtue and warrior wisdom; that is why it is called warrior
justice.

Judgment by cultural virtue has less authority. When there is little authority,
there is more amusement than fear. When judgment is made by martial virtue, it
is authoritative and inviolable, welcomed yet feared. This is martial justice.

People who are fixated on cultural virtues are influenced by erudition to be

indecisive in judgment. This is the trouble with education that cultivates
intelligence exclusively in literary terms. As long as there is indecisiveness and
hesitancy in judgment, legal codes won’t help people much in the end. This is far
from warrior justice.

The form of warrior justice is righteousness. To be right means to conform to

rules and guidelines. This is represented by the square. When you draw a square,
the lines must be straight and the angles right. Using this as a standard of
correctness, in being correct one is honest.

Upright honesty seems cutting, but it is not so. What is cutting is sharp, and
sharpness injures whatever it touches, unable to bear the weight of anything. A
square, being straight and upright, can bear great and small, good and bad. So
when you are about to stand out in a way that seems like it should not be deemed
honest, all angles being crooked, then you don’t rest content here; this is the
form of honesty.
The ultimate principle of square and round cannot be fully expressed in writing.
Therefore righteousness accepts people but is not influenced by them. Those
who are cutting sometimes suffer from inflexible egoism on this account. When
warrior leaders treat their followers inflexibly and egotistically, then the hearts of
the multitude rebel. It is a matter that calls for extreme prudence and caution.

Justice requires credibility. If you make a decision but change your promise
afterward, or you eat your words, the feelings of the multitude turn against you.
When they are against you, then the troops will not obey orders in emergencies.
When they are insubordinate, their battle lines will inevitably crumble. This is
how you get your state taken away and lose your territory. Should we not be
careful?

If you want justice to be true, that is in knowing the guidelines of the four
foundations of courtesy, righteousness, honesty, and shame. In military science
this is called the cross square. The uprightness of the vertical is straightened by
means of the horizontal, while the straightness of the horizontal is set by the
vertical. At this point the vertical and horizontal determine their paths. This is
uprightness and rectitude, and hence is warrior justice.

Those who are not prompt in making decisions, or who are errant in the logic of
their judgment, are that way because of weakness of wisdom. Weakness of
wisdom is due to paucity of virtue.

In the duties of the warrior leader, there are things for which consultation with
administrators is appropriate, and matters on which consultation is inappropriate.
In general, matters that may affect martial authority are not for consultation.
What requires inquiry and consultation with influential officials is the civil order.
4. Warriors’ Work

Warriors’ work refers to the affairs of the warrior’s ways, the occupations of
warriors. There are many differences of grade and type among them.

The interactions of warriors are all part of warriors’ work. When you come to
know the work of warriors, its wisdom is realized and its duty fulfilled. In
cultivating the wisdom of martial science, where to begin is of utmost
importance.

Although there are very many kinds of warriors’ work, yet the general principles
cannot vary. Some things call for inquiry from a master of the way, some things
should not depend on the words of predecessors. It’s all a matter of attaining the
necessary principles by the necessary means.

What is essential in martial science is to read the classics to become acquainted

with the customs of a martial state, understand the underlying ideas of the
warriors’ rule, and still question predecessors to comprehend the inner essence.
Studying military books to discern the conditions of victory and defeat, or
debating the gains and losses of ancient wars to know the present day, thereby
you should plumb the wellsprings of victory.

When you get to this point, facts and principles are generally clear. When it
comes to martial arts, horsemanship is most important. Swordsmanship is next,
and then archery, shooting, and so on. This should be the order in which military
leaders should learn martial arts.

There are so many kinds of weapons that it would not be easy to thoroughly
examine past and present manufacture and the history of changes. It is
imperative, however, to test the actual advantages and disadvantages of
weapons, and to clarify the principles of complete preparedness and omission.

There are many weapons and military arts abroad, but few are worth taking up
and employing. Among them, the works of Taigong,1 Sun and Wu,2 the Three
Strategies,3 and Li Jing contain excellent principles and are most useful for the
art of war. Also, the principles of Zhuge Liang’s Eight Battle Formations are
absolutely outstanding.
The ancient military arts of Japan also contain little that can serve to guide,
especially in situations such as standing shield to shield on the field, or requiring
the art of archery to shoot from horseback. However, many of the military
methods of the last two hundred years are very useful. In the case of Shingen in
particular, though he naturally excelled in the use of weaponry and so there is
nothing in his ordinary conduct to serve as a guide, nevertheless he had
considerable attainment in the art of war and should be studied.

While this is so of all cultural and martial studies, when it comes to military
science and the arts of warfare it is particularly imperative to consider every
element carefully and clearly understand. This is because evidence of their
accuracy or otherwise is not manifest on the same day, but in a life and death
situation it’s not easy to call back a strategy once it’s been set in motion.

Footnotes

1 Taigong is an abbreviation of Taigongwang, “Father’s Hope,” an epithet of Lu

Shang, mentor of King Wen, one of the co-founders of China’s Zhou Dynasty,
regarded by Confucians as the Golden Age. Lu Shang assisted King Wen’s older
brother King Wu in overthrowing the decadent Shang dynasty in the 12th
century BCE. A famous text known as Liu Tao or Six Strategies is attributed to
Taigong.

2 Sun and Wu refer to Sun Wu and Wu Qi, outstanding military strategists and
authors of famous treatises. Sun Wu is noted above; Wu Qi was a successful
tactician of the Warring States era, and his work is a classic of military strategy.

3 Three Strategies: a famous military text, said to have been transmitted to

Zhang Liang, a strategist for the founder of the Han dynasty of China in the 3rd
century BCE, by a certain Huang Shi, who was allegedly a wizard. A
distinguished historical figure, Zhang Liang is also noted in Taoist annals, and
Huang Shi is supposed to have been a shenren or “spirit man,” either mythical or
an unknown. The famous unknown is a stock figure in Taoism, which advises
people of extraordinary abilities to keep an unusually low profile.
5. Warriors’ Preparedness

Strict military preparation when you have no opponents is called the

preparedness of warriors. The preparedness of warriors is critical to the rule of
warriors. Without the warriors’ preparedness, as a knight you have nothing to
grip and nowhere to stand; it’s like being in a boat on the ocean without an oar—
what will you do if a storm comes up?

Only when military preparedness is complete can the world pillow on stable
peace. But this completeness is not easy; it is to be attained by strictness in what
the art of war refers to as the five stages of security. Only after having attained
this has the state attained the martial spirit.
6. The Courage of the Warrior

Courage means being unafraid and unyielding, making progress through

experience, strengthening yourself unceasingly.

Being fearful means you are controlled by external things, so that you become
psychologically passive. The spirit of knighthood is normally forward in action,
but if you see no advantage to going forward and so you withdraw strategically,
it’s because in actual effect this is really advancing. As long as you don’t know
the actuality of that advance, you won’t be able to advance and withdraw to the
appropriate degree.

Loss of virtue in warrior leaders is ordinarily due to indulgence in desires. The

source of the sickness of indulgence in desires is superficiality of courage.

Inside there are desires associated with the emotions, outside there is desire for
fame and desire for gain. When it comes to insatiable consumption of delicacies,
using silk like burlap, forgetting the pains of the people while oblivious of one’s
own extravagance, in extreme cases like the First Emperor of China1 and the
Martial Emperor of the Han Dynasty2 degenerating into absolute ignorance, this
is all because of being captivated by external things and losing inner control.

Now then, when you are not seduced by external things, avoid sensuousness and
restrain indulgence, regulating your desires so your constancy is not taken from
you by external things, this is called not yielding to things.

A common shortcoming in the world is to start out striving diligently but

eventually become lazy—hardly anyone makes virtue last. The transmission of
martial virtues to eternity, and the extension of the warriors’ rule to the four seas,
is a question of the depth or superficiality of martial valor. This is the key to a
military leader’s exercise of power.

The courage of the warrior is the sum of all practices of the way of the knight;
will is the source of all practices. When courage is superficial it’s hard to
establish will, and without will courage cannot be. When will is established, that
is courage; when courage is developed, will is also established. Courage and will
are interdependent.
The way to make martial valor great-hearted and perpetuate its discipline is first
of all in magnanimity. Magnanimity means breadth of mind. If you get angry at
small things, delight in small gains, and fear small injuries, eventually you’ll be
taken over by external things—how can you acquire the strength to bear the
great responsibilities of the world over the long run? To endure trouble and
tolerate hardship, never yielding to them, in order to accomplish a monumental
work, is the magnanimity of a great man.

Second is a matter of conscience. When rulers are unguarded outside of

audience, they will inevitably become careless in the bedroom, unmindful that
there are ways of surreptitious access at every door, forgetting that ridicule may
reach the young. This is because of having no shame before heaven, earth, and
humanity.

The essence of conscience is in clear understanding of duty and principle. If you

know these two things effectively and practice them sincerely, eventually you
will attain the reality of martial valor, the courage of the warrior.

Wielding a sword with short clothes and unkempt hair, killing people like cutting
grass, undisturbed in mind and appearance even with boiling cauldrons in front
and swords and bone-saws behind, is also a kind of martial valor. Referred to as
being able to stomp down naked swords but unable to be balanced, this is not
adequate to regard as the courage of a military leader. It is the boldness of an
assassin.

When people get old they hope for gain, but as they become feeble they practice
temporary benevolence, in extremes believing in Buddha in hopes of the
happiness of heaven. In the days when Emperor Wu of Liang1 was whipping his
horse in ancient times, who could have foreseen that he’d eventually starve to
death? These are examples of small courage without a broad basis, losing
constancy in the end and winding up in extreme ignorance.

This is how insecure the human mind is. The lessons of the warrior’s courage are
most serious.

Footnotes
1 First Emperor of China: Qin Shi Huangdi (r. 221-209). Uniting the ancient
states, the first emperor founded the Chinese empire on Legalistic principles,
which emphasized primary production and aggressive warfare. In Confucianism
the First Emperor is a prototype of a tyrant; in Taoism, he is a prototype of a man
undone by greed and ambition.

2 Han Wu Di (r. 140-88 BCE) was one of the most powerful rulers of the Han
dynasty in China (206 BCE -219 CE). He abolished semi-autonomous
principalities to establish absolute central rule, and established a state school
system based on a uniform curriculum to indoctrinate civil servants. Like the
First Emperor of China, he took an interest in esoteric arts and tried to become
immortal; this is traditionally interpreted as an indication of their absolute greed
and aggression.

1 Emperor Wu of Liang (r. 502-549) established his domain of Liang in southern

China during the period of division in Chinese history known as the era of the
Northern and Southern courts. Alleging repenting of the bloodshed he caused in
his rise to power, he became an ostentatious patron of Buddhism, draining state
finances. In the end he was overthrown by an erstwhile ally and vassal who
rebelled against his rule.
II The Way of Rule
1. Establishing Will

The direction of feeling and thought is called will. To be established means

standing tall and not collapsing. Even minor tasks cannot be accomplished
unless the will is established; how much less success in the warriors’ rule! When
the will is established, anything can be achieved. When the will is not
established, all works are unsuccessful.

Confucius’ sage virtue at sixty was all there in his aspiration at the age of fifteen.
“Who was Shun? Who am I?”—this was Yi Yin’s1 aspiration. When your will is
established, you can become even a sage or a savant; when it is not, you become
ignorant and ignominious. Establishing the will is the means by which to begin
and finish everything. This is a matter of establishing it by striving.

In ancient and modern times there are examples of founders of states who
seemed to have will in the beginning but eventually became lazy when they had
attained riches and rank. If you are going to establish a robust will that ends only
on death, it is a matter of making the will the leader of energy.

Everybody’s feelings are each based on benefit. Therefore wherever the energy
body contacts there is a tendency to want to linger over this minor gain. When
you follow it desirous, energy employs will. On this account, will wears out
along the way.

So if there is an impulse to linger over minor gains along the way, restrain it
strictly with the awareness that it is a robber that will deprive you of the
character of the warrior. If you are careful to keep the will in charge, it never
wavers.

Everybody who discourses on the duties of the Way knows it, but what is hard to
put into practice is this: one may indulge oneself in a respite, or one may indulge
oneself in something small, but once one indulges oneself, one becomes more
and more indecisive, until one ultimately loses one’s will forever.

The discipline of being careful even when alone is not to be taken lightly at all.
Wanting some time off, or some trivial thing, is an impulse of an internal thief.
To refuse to be captivated in such situations and remain aloof as you do your
work is the will of a great man.

The roots of human feelings are the two poles of like and dislike, that’s all. The
will inclines to what we like and turns away from what we dislike. Human
feeling likes benefit and dislikes harm. What average people like is of small
benefit, what they dislike is of small harm. Accomplished people are the
opposite; they like great benefit and dislike great harm.

Great benefit means peace on earth and perpetuation of the nation. Small benefit
means personal ease and temporary pleasure. When the will is established it
inclines to great benefit; when it is not established it admires small benefit.

Whenever you seek small benefits, invariably small benefits do not last, and
calamity comes along. Even a lord who settles for those small benefits and seeks
ease cannot but hope for peace and perpetuation of the state. He has the feeling
of hope, but his will runs only to objects that ruin what he seeks all the time.
There is no worse confusion of the human mind. How sad!

The richest and highest ranked man in the land, as the lord of the land, has all
officials kowtow; to go by him is like passing a tiger’s cave, to say a word is like
grabbing a tiger’s whiskers. So he becomes accustomed to having others agree
with whatever he says and does. His palate is sated with rich and delicious food,
he always wears light and warm clothes. For this reason, as everything to which
he is accustomed easily gets him involved in acquisitiveness, so he also has his
will easily taken away.

Wealth and poverty are as different as ice and coal, but both involve a lot of
problems associated with the mood manipulating the will.

The basis of establishing the will is in the aim. A warrior leader of the four seas
makes complete peace his bullseye. Never giving up, even in death, as long as
you haven’t hit the bullseye, is the will of a hero.

Footnotes

1 Yi Yin: a legendary minister of the Shang dynasty (1766-1122) of ancient

China, often cited in Taoist literature. Yi Yin (d. 1713 BCE) was a minister for
Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty, and for his grandson and successor.
Shun was an archetypal sage leader of antiquity. Yi Yin’s rhetorical question
“Who was Shun? Who am I” stands for the idea, emphasized by the Confucian
apostle Mencius, that all people have the capacity to be a sage.
2. Personal Cultivation

For a warrior leader to extend martial rule throughout the land, the first task is
personal cultivation. Cultivation means governance. Being reasonable and
consistent, with clear principles, refraining from improper words and acts, is
called personal cultivation.

The existence of a warrior leader in the world is like the sun in the sky—even
bedroom secrets and dalliance in cloistered chambers eventually leak out and are
bruited abroad. If anything incorrect or weak is said or done, the knights of the
kingdom will be contemptuous of him in their hearts. When they are
contemptuous, his martial authority collapses. So the existence of a warrior
leader in the land is like walking over springtime ice bearing a heavy load. The
need for personal cultivation is very serious indeed.

The functions of the human body are at most of three kinds— speech, conduct,
and mind. What a warrior leader watches out for in the course of personal
cultivation, is in not becoming lazy and weak. This is done in terms of these
three things, among which mind and conduct are fundamental and conduct is
crucial.

Speech is a way of outwardly expressing inner qualities, so its use is important.

The speech and action of a warrior leader should, as a rule, be only what is
necessary and natural. To cultivate cleverness of rhetoric for artfulness and
euphemism is the work of orators; to strive for an attitude of courteous deference
is the business of courtiers. The words and speech of a warrior leader are to be
simple and straightforward, with clear and consistent logic. Whether to be
deferential or dignified depends only on the rule of necessity. Those who strive
for literary embellishment do so because of being inwardly afflicted with
weakness.

As for social relations and responding to events and people, these are important
elements of conduct; those instructions are under the heading of ordering the
home.

The mental method has two principles, rectifying the mind and nurturing energy.
Rectifying the mind is the substance, nurturing energy is the function. The
condition of all things is that the substance is established through the exertion of
the function, while the function is accomplished through the establishment of the
substance. Therefore the way to rectify the mind is all in nurturing energy.

Ordinarily the essences of energy and blood are called the energy of the
immaterial soul and the blood of the material soul. When the immaterial soul and
the material soul combine to produce inconceivable effects, that is called nature.
As an overall representation it is temporarily called mind. What is always active
within is called ideation, and what emerges outwardly and has aftereffects is
called emotion. What ascertains inwardly is called thought, what aims is called
will, and what fills the body is called energy. So when mind is mentioned, it
refers both to its nature and its conditions.

Rectification of mind means the education to examine the responsive function of

the mind and make it conform to certain standards. When inward thoughts and
outwardly expressed ideas and feelings of like and dislike are all normal and
undistorted, this is rectification of mind.

Once that which is master of the whole person acts in accord with regular
standards, how could there be any difficulty in personal cultivation?

What fills the body, enabling the eyes to see, the tongue to taste, and so on, is
energy. Nurturing means cultivation, fostering and guiding in the duties of the
warrior.

Inward changes in arousal and repose make unlimited adaptive actions,

depending on external advantage and injury. So whenever the ears, eyes, nose,
palate, and limbs have contact with anything, energy accordingly transmits the
good or bad or advantage or injury thereof to the natural mind. Natural mind
functions responsively as it senses the attraction and repulsion of this energy.
How can we but be careful about external habituation altering inner qualities?

Therefore when you are always reading military texts or always practicing
martial arts, your energy expands over everything, un-yielding. From here you
come to attain rectitude of mind. So in the path of personal cultivation it is
important to rectify mind and nurture energy.
3. Ordering the Home

Ordering the home means social relations, lessons about matters in quarters.
Here the principles become complex and cannot be learned completely from
books. Ordering the home means that all social relations and matters in quarters
are regular, with nothing out of order.

The way for a warrior leader to order the home is not entirely the same in other
countries as it is in our sacred court. This is a matter of considering the teachings
of sages by the standards of the teachings of warriors.

Generally speaking, the social relations of warrior leaders are based, as in the art
of war, on awe and admiration only. Awe may be principal and admiration
auxiliary, or admiration may be principle with awe auxiliary; or awe and
admiration may be half and half; or awe may be instilled alone, or admiration
may be instilled alone.

When there is awe there is courtesy. When there is admiration there is harmony.
When awe and admiration are thus in proper proportion, then social relations are
accordingly correct. If you want to achieve that proportion, it is a matter of
observing everyone’s state of mind and doing one’s best in everything. As for
matters in quarters, it is essential to make rules strict and prevent indolence.

Housing, attire, diet, and articles of daily use are all functions of ordering the
home. In all affairs of warriorhood it is essential to be simple and plain. To make
efforts at ornamentation on the grounds that this is ritually correct is the
beginning of loss of the substance of warriorhood.

The decline in the authority of the Divine Warrior of the Precious Lance1 and the
abandonment of the virtues of the royal courts seems to have started with the
importation of customs from foreign countries. In the warrior profession we
must be wary of this, especially of keeping many concubines and indulging in
orgies. For warriors this kind of leisure enjoyment is more harmful than locusts
infesting the spring fields. Those who attempt heroic endeavors are broken by
this; it’s something to be extremely cautious about.

Having a whole lot of utensils, such as tea sets and bric-a-brac, is not worthwhile
for warriors. As a knight, to spend money on these hobbies is on account of
ignorance of warriorhood.

The only essential implements for warriors are weapons. Once you have
equipped yourself, moreover, if you don’t revise your arsenal from time to time,
it won’t be wholly effective. Establishing their functions, always adjust for their
inadequacy. Test their advantages and disadvantages again and again, and see to
becoming accustomed to them, never slacking off.

For warriors the most important creatures are the falcon and the horse. Horses
are admired for their ability, while falcons are prized for their character as well
as their ability.

Horses are the feet of knights. To keep a swift steed, therefore, is a priority of a
knight, in appreciation of its ability.

Falcons are bold and always spirited; no living thing in the sky or on the earth
can match them. This is the character of falcons, so they are invariably prized.
Training for military purposes is an ability of falcons; that is why they are
admired.

This is different from the custom of other countries where they consider jewels
most valuable.

Unavoidable poverty is a misfortune for a knight. Poverty without good reason is

not what a knight would want. This is an affliction from not having always taken
the purity and simplicity of warriorhood to heart. Even if a warrior leader has the
wealth of the whole world, he should still keep himself informed of overall
expenses and income, appoint ethical and honest knights to that office, and have
plenty of money for military preparedness.

Footnotes

1 Divine Warrior of the Precious Lance: the Shinto god Izanagi, mythical co-
creator of Japan, who was given a precious lance from high heaven above with
which he stirred the primal sea below, a drop of which dripping from the lance
coagulated into an island.
4. Knowing People

The way to spread martial virtue through the land is first of all to know
people. It is truly difficult to govern all the multifarious affairs and
individuals in the world; the only basis is in knowing just three to five
people to elect for employment. Then won’t it be quite easy to govern the
land, in spite of its difficulty? This matter is a profoundly serious concern
for a warrior leader.

For a warrior leader, knowing people is considered the essence of

intelligence. Even if you are well-read, smart, and memorize a lot of
anecdotes old and new, if your knowledge of people today is not accurate
you cannot be considered an intelligent leader.
Most things are easy to see when you look down on them from above;
only human beings are the opposite. So it is hard for a lord to see
subjects clearly, while the lord’s right and wrong are easy to see. Why?
Because a lord has a wide range of interaction, while a subject has a
narrow range of interaction. The lord is one individual, while the subjects
number in the millions. When millions of eyes look up to one man, he
appears like a majestic mountain; when a lord uses his individual eyes to
observe millions of people, he may apprehend or may miss accordingly.
So it is not easy for a leader to see subordinates.
Human character is generally good or bad. Good people are
beneficial to others. Bad people are harmful to others. Those who are
neither beneficial nor harmful are called neutral people.
Now then, there are five characteristics of goodness: courage,
intelligence, benevolence, sincerity, and loyalty. There are also five
characteristics of badness: selfish courage, deviant intelligence,
weakness, indifference to justice, and perverse greed.
Of course, every one of these characteristics has major, middling, and
minor versions, and there are also major, middling, and minor neutral
people, so there are nine main types of human character, and thirty
characteristics. It is not easy to know all their nuances. Their outward
manifestations, moreover—good, neutral, and bad—each have formal
and informal aspects, while the formal and informal can each be
superficial or serious.
 Formality means that usage is taken to be the main concern, with
effect considered secondary. Informality means the opposite.
It’s all a matter of individual endowment. Competently cultivating
virtue with the formal and informal, each in appropriate measure to
improve character, is top-class talent.
Local repute is a robber of virtue —this is a maxim of an ancient sage.
What seems to be so but is actually not will eventually deceive the ears
and eyes of a leader. This is ultimately disastrous to the state.
Most people are unsophisticated, so there is little difference between
their external manifestations and their inner states; that is why
physiognomy is possible. When people are sophisticated, what they
conceal inside does not show. They contrive to appear innocent, so it’s
hard to perceive. This is where the power of clear observation is most
needed.
There are two main ways for a warrior leader to assess and know
people by himself. First is knowing by seeing, second is knowing by
calculation.
Knowing by seeing means getting to know what is within others by
seeing what they manifest outwardly. What shows of them outwardly is
speech and conduct. Speech and conduct are externalizations of what is
within, so when they remain silent and say and do nothing, the wise and
the foolish cannot be distinguished. Once they speak or act, they produce
differences great as sky from earth.
If you want to know people, first of all ask them about things to get
them to talk. When subjects speak in the presence of lords, they take
caution seriously, so it’s impossible to plumb their depths by asking
questions once. It is necessary to ask them questions again and again.
Sometimes initial replies are detailed while subsequent answers are
imprecise, or they are clear at first but afterwards cloudy—in such cases
you should know they’re hiding something inside. If they gradually go into
details as they are questioned, this should be noted as consistent,
without hiding anything. If there is contradiction between what they say
before and after, they may have spoken in confusion out of fear of the
authority of the lord, so don’t blame them but ask again and again in
different terms. Then if there is still inconsistency, note that this is not
consistent and they are hiding something inside.
To be talkative from the start and tell everything is something found in
straightforward knights as well as disrespectful knights; to distinguish
them is a matter of knowing by calculation. Those who are talkative with
a lot of literary ornamentation but speak of superficialities at the expense
of essentials seem to be intellectuals but really are not.
This is how to know words; don’t think people are necessarily right or
wrong on this basis. Note that so-and-so says this, so-andso says that,
and then afterwards observe their actions. Action is the substance of
speech, where evidence of ability and intelligence is found. Listen to what
people say, watch what they do, then compare the two. Those whose
speech and action are in mutual accord are consistent. If their words are
alright but their actions are not, either they are hiding something inside or
they are overly artful and insufficiently substantial. Those who speak
improperly but act acceptably are either artless and excessively simple,
or else uncultivated in verbal communication.
At this point note should be made of the main idea of the three levels
of human character. Those whose speech and action accord and are
correct are of the highest caliber. Those who are insufficient in speech
and inappropriate in action are of middling caliber. Those who speak well
enough but act improperly are of the lowest caliber.
The characteristics of good people are of five classes. Those who
have all five are the finest of knights. They are most difficult to find.
Those who have two or three are of a middling category, while those with
only one are inferior. But even those of the inferior type, where their
achievements are great, may surpass those who have two or three good
characteristics but have only achieved minor accomplishments.
These judgments are extremely subtle matters, and it is most difficult
to grasp the measure of others’ character accurately. Generally you pick
out their words and deeds like this, and then assess their intentions. If
you decide right and wrong solely by overt words and deeds, you cannot
get the real substance. The second kind of knowledge, knowing by
calculation, means recognizing underlying intentions and actual aims that
are not overtly evident but concealed inwardly. Even if you know the
outward by knowledge through seeing, if you do not make certain of the
inward by knowledge through calculation you will inevitably mistake right
and wrong. Therefore the method of knowing by calculating is most
recondite and subtle.
Knowing by calculation also has two main meanings. One is to
observe their ordinary household management. First, if there is no
discord or strife with parents, siblings, or spouses; second, if there is little
misconduct among servants; third, if there is no sexual misbehavior;
fourth, if they are selective in their social relations and not inclined to
indulge in amusement; fifth, if they are unchanged by poverty or wealth
and are not obsessed with money; sixth, if they work unremittingly on
warriors’ tasks, even in their leisure—those in whom all six are found are
essentially top-class knights.
There are, however, those who sell their names for profit, acting out of
contrivance. And there are those who personally don’t want anything to
do with militarism or military affairs but still unavoidably strive at them in
conformity to the times. When you always examine them in the course of
oversight, eventually their reality cannot be covered up. Even if it is
contrived action to sell repute, you shouldn’t blame them; but not to
praise them either is correct. On the other hand, to reward them is a
prerogative of the leader.
The second meaning of knowing by calculation is to know people
through the way they react to how they are treated. That means after you
know how they manage their households you take the initiative in the way
you treat them to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. For
example, you push them down to see if they pop up; you elevate them to
find out if they’ll keep their integrity; you entrust urgent matters to them to
see how they strive, you turn over troubles to them to assess their
courage and warriorhood; you provide them with wine and women to
observe their chastity and fidelity; you give them money to see if they’re
honest; you give them leisure to see if they slack offor stay focused.
When a warrior leader exercises his intelligence to the utmost to test,
there are infinite adaptations of application of this method. One should
definitely not do anything, however, that seems like an ad hoc ploy. When
a warrior leader rules millions of people by strategem, this invariably
reduces moral influence. Whatever is done by way of testing appears to
be strategic; when it is done only in cases of absolute necessity where
appropriate, this is what is called an expedient. When it is forced in its
application, it is in fact strategy.
Whenever you apprehend the outward in its entirety by seeing and
hearing, and determine the inward by calculation, in the end people’s real
aims cannot be concealed.
While the way to know people is in knowing by seeing and knowing by
calculation, the ways of seeing and calculating have essential keys.
Generally speaking, to be biased by one’s own likes and dislikes is a
common human flaw; therefore one should not consider one’s own
perception and calculation to be necessarily so. To judge right and wrong
by one’s individual sense is subjective decision. So when you know good
and bad by the ears and eyes of the world, approving and disapproving
as does the world by your own perception and calculation, then right and
wrong are settled here, not to be doubted. If everyone calls something
good that you perceive or consider unacceptable, or if everyone calls
something unacceptable that you perceive or consider to be good, you
must reflect on whether what everyone says is wrong, or whether you’re
mistaken in your perception or calculation, so you can decide right and
wrong.
This having been said, “the ears and eyes of the world” does not
mean popular conventions or popular opinions— the ears and eyes of the
world means what has always been considered good and bad
everywhere. When everyone praises one good deed or one fine word,
that is not the ears and eyes of the world. When universal blame and
praise of persistent patterns of speech and action are established, that is
called the ears and eyes of the world.
When feelings are the same through time, it is an immutable law. If a
warrior leader wants to know this, he must be the first to discern the
feelings of the world. When you know the feelings of the world, you know
the ears and eyes of the world without going out your door. Getting to
know those ears and eyes, not anticipating that knowledge but actively
seeking the ears and eyes of the world, is getting to know the feelings of
the world.
The general principles of knowing people are fulfilled at this point.
If the way for a warrior leader to know people were a matter of
personally knowing every individual by seeing and calculating, it would be
impossible even if you spent all your time at it. You should just carefully
and thoroughly observe and figure out those whom you want to give
important offices. When you know them accurately, then it’s easy to
appoint the others.
The basis of this is in extending your ears and eyes. Extending your
ears and eyes is a matter of employing inspectors and officials to observe
and examine. When they are unsuitable, their discernment is narrow and
dogmatic; so when appointment to offices of observation and
examination is inappropriate, that can increase confusion.
 The function of officials who observe and examine is to connect their
ears and eyes to the ears and eyes of the warrior leader. If the warrior
leader lacks clear ears and eyes of his own, and decides right and wrong
by the ears and eyes of inspectors alone, that is a mistake. There are
eyeglasses for seeing the small, and there are telescopes for seeing afar.
Inspectors are the eyeglasses of the warrior leader—if the eyeglasses
are bad, then what is straight appears to be crooked, what is bright
seems to be dark. But even if the eyeglasses are good, if the person’s
eyes are dim they’ll miss the remote and the minute. It is the same of
inspectors vis-à-vis the leader. Therefore people who are honest and
faithful are to be employed as inspectors. They neither contrive nor
embellish, and do not interpret right or wrong by their own opinions.
Noting whatever they see and hear just as it is, and reporting it as such,
is the main function of inspectors.
There are two types of inspectors, overt and covert. There are also
three types of covert inspectors. One type is those who live in the
provincial villages like other inhabitants, always communicating the
affairs of the locality. Another type moves repeatedly and reports on what
he sees and hears. Another type is sent to a certain locale to report on a
specific person or affair. Whether in peace or in wartime, these three
kinds of inspectors must always be active. When investigated through
these three kinds of inspectors, truth and falsehood of affairs and people
cannot be covered up anymore.
A warrior leader’s ways of knowing people are actually in order not to
overlook people. Most people in the world are less than mediocre, few
are better. When you know people clearly, you can employ them
according to their capacities. When they are selected carefully, people
will aspire to cultivate their virtues. This is the way to civilize manners; it
is the tolerance and benevolence of the warrior leader. As for those of the
most inferior quality who can never be civilized and are a menace to the
state, the essence of martial order is to let them go among foreigners, not
assimilating to mainstream society.
In a state at war, it is important for a warrior leader to use spies. It
requires clear knowledge to discern double agents among them. In an
era of peace, people’s mental states are not kept deeply hidden, so it is
comparatively easy to discern them; even if you make a mistake in your
perception or calculation, you can still correct it. Double agents are subtle
and artful in their concealment; once you make a mistake, there’s no
correcting it. This is a matter of life and death, essential to survival or
destruction. Clear discernment in this context is a matter of intuitive
sense and silent perception.
5. Promoting People

Promoting people means raising them from lower positions to higher

responsibilities. When appropriate, the benefits are very many; when
inappropriate, the harm is very much. Neither lord nor minister can be effective
if they are negligent by nature. There are many precedents.

When there has been peace and order for a long time, there are a lot of people
eligible for hereditary rank. To keep their genealogies accurate and perform their
offices generation after generation is one example of keeping the peace. Even if
his probity is somewhat less, if you promote a person with proper lineage people
will accept that more easily than if you promote a functionary of low status
whose probity is slightly more. This is how people feel in a time of peace. When
there is a lasting peace, moreover, there are no domains bereft of rulers that
require major appointments all at once, so offices are mostly hereditary.

If appointments are made for homosexual favoritism, or through misperception

of opportunistic flattery as intelligence, even if no major harm is done these are
still mistakes for a military leader. Generally speaking, it is hard to know people,
and promoting people is even harder than knowing them. You have to consider
carefully and analyze intelligently.

When the world is peaceful, mores are upright and habits are wholesome, the
country is prosperous and the people have plenty, regulations are based on the
classics, and there are no external troubles with rival nations, then it’s all right to
employ mediocre people of proper lineage according to a normal course. Once
society deteriorates and the state has a lot of troubles, when official order is also
in confusion and chaos is not far offabsent immediate restoration, so skilled
commanders emerge to renew martial virtue and achieve extraordinary
accomplishments, then it is necessary to appoint people of outstanding
capacities, otherwise they can’t succeed in the endeavor.

It’s like eating a normal diet to maintain your health while you’re well, but
seeking good doctors everywhere for medicine to take when you’re sick. It’s all
a matter of acting on ineluctable realities, according to the conditions of the
time.

Knowing people is the beginning; this is knowledge. Promoting people is the

end; this is action. To know clearly and promote appropriately is maturity in a
leader.

Once you know people are good, it is not proper to neglect to have them
transferred to appropriate posts. In particular, if you know people to be
exceptionally excellent and yet do not promote and employ them, there is no use
in knowing them. Is this because of stinginess with salaries as a leader, or
because there might be a basis for malicious gossip? Neither of these is
authoritative exercise of government. For this reason, promoting an
extraordinary knight of low office who proves capable of the charge is the
epitome of intelligence on the part of a ruler. No government promotes greater
good than this.
6. Ordering Offi ces

Everything needs focus for its function to be fulfilled. Therefore establishing

heads for everything is the origin of offices. When what they oversee is
organized and orderly, this is called ordering.

If an office is established without a precise aim, perhaps on account of lordly

leisure, it is really an empty office, an unreal occupation. Not only is it a waste
of a salary, it is an obstacle to the extension of intelligence. This is a matter
requiring conscious effort to ascertain accurately.

There are many kinds of office, but basically they are either civil or military.
Why? Because sky and earth and people and things are all governed by yin and
yang. However multifarious human feelings may be, none are beyond like and
dislike; that is because they are manifestation of the two energies of yin and
yang. When feelings of like and dislike emerge appropriately, they are called
benevolence and righteousness. The concrete representations of benevolence and
righteousness are the civil and the military.

Therefore the ministers who head the civil and the military administrations are
the most important. Two people should be appointed, a civil head and a military
head, to be ministers of the left and right. Thus administrative affairs dealing
with myriad events will be coordinated. By extension, this ultimately produces
tens and hundreds of categories, whose classifications are a matter of figuring
out actual conditions and acting in accord with the inevitable. When you figure
accurately and carry through considerately, you wind up with nothing more to
do. This is the key task among the myriad affairs of military science.

Two people may be appointed to one office, or three to five, or even dozens of
people, more or less according to the major and minor divisions of affairs
overseen by that office. So it is an essential task to make the relationship among
the people and positions in the same office clear. It is most rare for people in this
world to be complete in all qualities, so you should find out what they’re best at
and team them together so that their efficacy approaches completeness.

When military offices are undertaken only in terms of current conditions, the
assignment of warriors is imperfect. When that is imperfect, military method is
accordingly also imperfect. Generally speaking, the assignment of warriors is the
basis of establishing formal preparedness. So formal preparedness is established
after warriors have been given assignments, and military method is also made
firm once formal preparedness is established. The rule for deciding warriors’
assignments is in knowing the conditions of preparedness; knowing the
conditions of preparedness is in knowing what leads to victory and what to
defeat; knowing what leads to victory and defeat is in carrying this out to the
full.

To know people and promote people are still relatively easy, and so is setting up
offices and their functions, compared to the supreme difficulty of matching their
capacities to their offices. When they do not match, then things don’t get done.
This is the error of the leader.

This is even more serious under the conditions of war. It is like the example of
Shingen having Kosaka1 pin down Kenshin.2 If he’d had the likes of Hiitomi3 or
Itagaki4 pin him down, they’d have been beaten in a contest of strength. Kenshin
was much bigger than Hiitomi and Itagaki, so even if they opposed him fiercely,
because they were smaller they’d have simply been slaughtered by Kenshin. If
the likes of Atobe5 had taken the lead to put him down, he’d have been
overwhelmed at once. Kosaka was neither weak nor strong by nature, and
Kenshin couldn’t beat him. Such is the matching of ally to opponent.

For this reason official posts in peacetime are a matter of capacity and office,
while posts in a state of war include consideration of the opponent. Therefore
selection is even harder.

There is no special method for knowing the correspondence of capacity and

office. When you know people thoroughly, understand the affairs of office
clearly, and combine the two, comparing the great and small, slight and serious,
strengths and weaknesses, expertise and crudeness, then guidelines cannot be
concealed.

Footnotes

1 Kosaka Masanobu (d. 1578) vassal of the warlord Takeda Shingen.

2 Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578), a major warlord, was the arch rival of Takeda
Shingen.

3 Hiitomi Torasaka, a vassal of Takeda Shingen.

4 Itagaki Nobukata, a vassal (d. 1548) of Takeda Shingen.

5 Atobe Katsusuke (1547-1582), a vassal of Takeda Shingen.

7. Understanding Affairs and Objects

What is still and has form is an object, what is active and performs functions is
an affair. So every country in the world has its own affairs and objects. All that
we deal with in day-to-day life are affairs and objects. When their order is
unclear, official duties and legal edicts are all neglected. Understanding is a
matter of striving to make them clear.

Heaven and earth are separate and yet they interact, producing infinite affairs
and objects. Human lives are also separate yet interact, creating countless affairs
and objects. If their order is unclear, affairs and objects cannot find their proper
places. When they are not in their proper places, there is conflict.

Preemptive victory without opposition, defeating formations with formlessness,

arresting subtle impulses before they sprout, all implicate clarity versus
confusion about affairs and objects. The main affairs and objects of everyday
human life are familial and social interactions, and food, clothing, and shelter.
Countless variations evolve from these.

The affairs and objects of warriors’ duties require further qualification. If these
are not understood in a time of peace, then it will be impossible to win before
fighting. Things like personnel, machinery, fortresses, battle formations, and
encampments are objects. Th ings like offense and defense, military strategy, and
rules of war, are all affairs. Each of these has its order, which is not to be
confused.

The way to understand affairs and objects is first to strive to know their means
and ends. Means and ends are the main indicators of order. You can clarify the
order once the main indicators are established. If, however, this is done without
guidelines, then you can’t distinguish the means from the ends. When you take
the means for the end or the end for the means, the main indicators are confused.

Therefore the rule for analyzing order is a secret of military science. Once you
find this rule, it’s easy to distinguish the order of all things, and ultimately to
approach attainment of clear analysis.
8. Establishing Regulations

When guidelines and regulations for each affair and object are not established,
then above and below, noble and base, change their positions, diminishing
martial dignity and damaging martial virtue more than anything else.

Establishment refers to what is to be enforced permanently. What is not to be

continued permanently is not a real regulation.

Heaven and earth each has its natural laws which they never transgress. This is
why they are eternal. When a state is in disarray and renegade ministers and
rebels ruin the people, this originally arises from neglect of guidelines and
regulations.

Of the sages abroad who comprehended all affairs and objects in the world and
made detailed regulations, I have never seen anything surpassing the Manners of
Zhou. Our own central civilization’s ancient legal codes have been lost in the
fires of war, or are scattered throughout society in secret archives; in any case, I
have never seen any complete texts. Now, over the last hundred years,
regulations going all the way back to the sacred reign of Emperor Jimmu1 have
been revealed, to the joy of people of all classes. This is the supreme
benevolence of the state.

A warrior leader must make law strict. The bases of law are in the civil and the
military. In times of peace, most law is mainly civil, whereas in times of disorder
most law is mainly martial. The civil is the way to harmonize the inside, the
military is the way to control the outside. The meaning of that is deep.

The root of regulation is in the clear analysis of affairs and objects. When you
attain expertise in clear analysis of affairs and objects, then the affairs and
objects spontaneously reveal rules and regulations. This is the supreme rule of
law. If you take this for the rule of law, it can never change in a hundred
generations. If you concoct them without that objective revelation, those
regulations cannot be considered guidelines for all time everywhere.

Regulations include unwritten laws and informal rules. Here if you do not adapt
you cannot command the three armies. When officers and infantry do not fear
the enemy but fear their own commander, when they know advance but not
retreat, when their minds and guts are steady and their eyes and ears are alert,
only then should you speak of battle.

Ceremonies such as seeing offthe armies and welcoming back the victorious
should not be neglected, for they are ways of fighting, winning, and growing
stronger.

Footnotes

1 Jimmu: The first human emperor of Japan according to Shinto myth. His name
means Divine Warrior, like the epithet of the god Izanagi, Divine Warrior of the
Precious Lance
9. Civil Administration

Civil administration consists of two things only, benevolence and governance.

Benefits are bestowed by virtue of benevolence, regulations are established by
governance. Then government is right.

Civil administration abroad in ancient times offers little of practical use for our
state in the present day. The four classes were not correctly designated and
differentiated, and there is a lot about the state of nature and agriculture, or a lot
of admonitions about oppressive regimes of violent rulers. Therefore most of the
teachings are too benevolent.

When the way people are ruled is too benevolent, the decadence that ensues is
that they invariably act extravagant and ignore the law. Therefore the general
idea of martial government is to establish precise regulations of affairs and
objects, refrain from giving out un-earned favors, have no luxury in years of
abundance and no famine in years of crop failures—this is the epitome of
benevolent care. To speak of every family within the four seas prospering so
abundantly as to eliminate all poverty and pain, is the empty elocution of
common Confucians, and cannot be considered the real work of governing the
people.

The civil administration in our state has followed on old traditions over the ages,
so it is very detailed. There have only been some minor adjustments in standard
measurements of distance and size, taxes and corvee.

Generally speaking, government is in charge of finance, so it is essential to

choose scrupulous and honest men for the task. There are not many such men,
however, so promote one or two honest men out of ten and place them in the role
of supervisor; as he keeps careful accounts, the others, mediocre people, will be
influenced by this.

It is also essential for government to admonish idleness, for when there are many
idle hands among the people this is wasteful for the state. Even boys and girls
should be given suitable jobs.

Belief in Buddhism in our country has fluctuated over the ages, but it is foremost
in idle people, with little benefit for anything. Buddhists originally aim for
chaste poverty, with a single robe and bowl, so there is some harm in becoming
wealthy. It seems to me that to have Buddhism all over the land is also a function
of the warrior’s rule—in military science this is called the use of the useless.

As for regulations concerning mountains and forests, rivers and seas, cities and
citadels, borders and passes, streets, levees, towns, markets, Shinto shrines and
Buddhist temples, as well as birds and beasts, fish and turtles, grain and salt,
vegetables and fruits, lumber, kindling, and straw, all of these are tasks of
government. There are regulations for each, whether to rectify the people’s
desires and not let them waste natural resources, or to get them to pay taxes to
requite their debt to the state. These are all unavoidable measures, whose details
are a matter of policy.

Famine, epidemic, flood, and the like are emergencies for government. If there
are no preparations established beforehand, the damage these cause will greatly
diminish martial virtue. If a warrior leader is not normally frugal in daily life, in
such an event disaster will be unavoidable.

In the manners and morals of merchants, falsehood is traditionally the norm.

This is an unavoidable condition, and while there are good ones, this is an
impossible position. To speak of making them all honest and sincere is the empty
rhetoric of corrupt Confucians. Nowadays everyone knows that their product is
falsehood and no one is deceived, while they for their part normally feel no
shame. That is why they are confined to the lowest of the four classes, and are
not noble even if they are rich. For those who skew their scales or
misappropriate money, there are heavy penalties. So what is the harm even if
falsehood is their norm? Wherever sun and moon shine and frost and dew fall,
the four classes can never be more correctly defined than they are now.

When there are people among the three civilian classes who are filial, brotherly,
and honest, to praise and distinguish them as a way of refining popular mores is
good government by the warriors’ rule. Refinement in popular mores means
simplicity and rusticity in all things, without perverse principles or false cults. To
clarify the law of group responsibility to rectify mores is greatness of benevolent
government.

When people believe false religions and form cults, or become brigands and kill
others, or mistreat their parents and siblings, or violate public laws, there have to
be punishments corresponding to each crime.
Peasant girls getting married without their parents’ permission, and poor women
prostituting themselves to sons of rich families, are leftover customs of Zheng
and Wei;1 when examined from the point of view of sages, they are inescapably
criminal. Even so, there are crimes which at times should not necessarily be
considered so, depending on conditions. That is because in such cases there has
to be some inner meaning to the choice of what to enforce and what to let go.

The existence of actors and entertainers all over the land is like dust in the house
—to try to eliminate it absolutely is counterproductive. When mores are upright
and martial virtues are actively exercised even among the lower orders, would a
man of integrity get addicted to these things? Nevertheless, they should be
regulated and not allowed to assume an air of importance.

When people pay bribes to pervert lawsuits, that is not the fault of those below
but entirely the error of those above. Careful inspection should be carried out to
make certain of the real facts of the case. Bribery is considered very destructive
to morals.

Tax and trial are the mainstays of government of the people. Taxation corrects
them materially, trial and prison correct them mentally. With this people come to
find their proper place.

The basis for determining the amount of tax is that the people have sufficient
food, clothing, and shelter, even if they have no surplus wealth. As for judgment
at trial, the ultimate achievement is when the people are themselves aware the
truth is not to be distorted.

The way to accomplish this is a question of the enlightenment or ignorance of

the supervisors and overseers. Therefore the root of government is in finding the
right personnel. When you find the right people, the details of order emerge
inevitably from affairs and objects themselves, and are not to be contrived.

Money and goods are produced by the farmers, and turned over to the warriors.
From the warriors it goes to the artisans and merchants, circulating throughout
the land. When there is no unhealthy hoarding and yet the storehouses
everywhere are well-stocked, it is good fortune for the world; this is the warrior
leader’s virtue of frugality. It is imperative to understand the method by precise
accounting of expenditures and income.
Money and goods mainly mean gold, silver, rice, and copper cash. Things like
cotton thread, mulberry bark, lacquer, and oil are next. Foreign trade ships are
always coming and going, and we trade our native gold for goods. The only
useful products of those countries, though, are medicines; I’ve never heard of
anything else of use to warriors. But who knows how much gold is expended on
luxury items for show. And I’ve never heard of gold being offered from abroad. I
don’t know how much the mountains and seas produce either. So expenditures
always outstrip income. I only fear that our country’s main resources will run out
after a thousand years.

This is not something for common fools to pronounce upon, but it’s not that
there is no reason to fear the sky may fall.

Footnotes

1 Zheng and Wei were ancient states of pre-imperial China. Wei was the
birthplace of the infamous Lord of Shang of China’s Warring States era, to
whom is attributed the Shangjunshu, a classic of Legalism, the original form of
Fascism in Asia. He is also called Wei Yang because he came from Wei. While
the earlier Legalist classic Guanzi speaks of segregation of the sexes, Wei Yang
wrote in a vein as if to suggest that this kind of moralistic social control was not
actually essential: “As for righteousness, loyalty as a subject, obedience as a son,
courtesy between juniors and seniors, and segregation of men and women—
these are not righteousness. Righteousness means not eating opportunistically
even though starving, not living opportunistically even though facing death. This
is the constancy of lawfulness.”
10. Review and Perceptivity

Review and perceptivity are pivotal to the spread of martial virtue, involving
warriors’ administrative orders and legal codes relating to all situations. When
review of the past is not precise, perception of the future can hardly be accurate.
Therefore review of the past is for the purpose of perceiving the future.

There are some who only employ review, and others who focus on perception.
Although this depends on the affair or the object, unless one remains in between
review and perception, pursuing the course of the past to the present and future,
true warrior rule cannot be achieved.

“Seeing the present of the future is like seeing the past of the present”—this is
the expression of a calligrapher, but when you actually apply its truth, it is an
admonition about keeping the peace. As time passes and fortunes change, human
likes and dislikes have no past or present. But what is past leaves evident traces,
so right and wrong are easy to see. There are as yet no traces of the future,
however, so gain and loss are hard to figure out. This is where the diligent
exercise of review and perception comes in.

When a state is founded it is pure and simple and orderly, but after long
conservation of its achievements, pure and simple mores gradually deteriorate.
The populace wearies and people become resentful, eventually creating major
problems within the four seas. When value judgments change and black
suddenly becomes white, even though people are aware of this they don’t know
what gradually causes prosperity to shift to decline. This comes from neglect of
review and perception.

So when warrior rule of a state follows ancient rites and classics unchanged, it
seems as if there should be no unrest or disorder, but the simple rites and
regulations of the founding phase are not necessarily to be preferred for the
conditions of an era of peace. On this account rulers and ministers get to
dressing up and ultimately become extravagant to the point where state finances
are exhausted. Once the damage has been done, even if you suddenly realize it
and try to revert to pure simplicity, it is impossible to return all at once. This has
been so without exception in both Japan and China.

So to propose to apply pristine customs directly in a decadent age is a course that

may have its reason but can hardly be put into action. Therefore as long as you
take lessons from every era by review and perception, you should not go too far
wrong.

The way to tailor regulations and laws is to unfailingly review and perceive
every single thing involved in an affair, however minute it may be. When the
practice of review and perception is not meticulous, that habit will be inherited
and become trouble for your descendants, with many misfortunes attending the
diminution of martial dignity.
11. Studying Military Science

Not neglecting to study military science even in times of peace is a specialty of a

warrior leader. In this there are three main lines: one is studying military
formations, second is studying military tasks, third is studying the conditions of
military expeditions. These three studies have two aspects, men and materiel.
When tasks are carried out properly, formations are established, and the men and
materiel are ready, this is one achievement of the study of military science.
Having accomplished this, you study further, and with further study you
accomplish another achievement. The sole concern of studying military science
is that a man stop only on death.

As for military formations, one is the castle, second is the camp, third is
equipment. Of military tasks, first is the battle formation, second is the march,
third is the wielding of five weapons.1 The conditions of military expeditions
are, first, the surprise and the straightforward, empty and full; second, the
offensive and defensive, with many and with few; third, battles that can be
survived and battles that will lead to death.

Dealing with personnel means choosing someone older and more aware as a
teacher from whom to study military science, or strategizing with experts to
determine what is best and what will win, or lining people up and testing their
methods.

Dealing with materials means, for example, explaining their significance

according to classic texts, circulating the information in manuals, making maps
and diagrams to check formations, or stabilizing construction with earth, wood,
and stone, and disseminating accurate information.

As for military formation, the first, the castle, involves not only learning the
methods of constructing citadels, but also personally making rounds of
inspection, having damaged walls and turrets repaired, perhaps making ramparts
higher or moats wider, examining the strongholds of branch castles and border
castles, always understanding their advantages and disadvantages. Second, for
the camp, diagrams are used to define the method of encampment. Th ird,
equipment, is a matter of never neglecting to have appropriate weapons and
armor in your arsenal.
The first among military tasks, the battle formation, refers to settling
preparations. Settling has a very subtle meaning, profoundly important. The
general idea is that the personnel be settled, the materiel be settled, and the tasks
be settled, their regulations decided once and for all, immutable. Once a state of
immutability is attained, only then is it possible to produce endless adaptations.

Second, the march, means making lines of movement orderly. One line is
normal, five lines is the limit, mixed lines are the end. The principle of
controlling energy is most important on the march.

Castle, camp, battle formation, and march are what are called the four laws in
military science.

Third, wielding five weapons, refers to the uses of weaponry. For a warrior
leader to practice these himself, and cause the knights all over the land to
immerse themselves therein, that is martial culture.

As for the conditions of military expeditions, the first, surprise and

straightforward, empty and full, are the father and mother of unfailing victory.
Second, offense and defense, many and few, summarize power formations.
Third, battles that can be survived and battles that will lead to death, are outlines
of victory.

This completes all the categories of the study of military science.

Ancient study of military science in this country seems to have been based
mainly on horsemanship and archery, and the practices of shooting dummy
arrows at running dogs and stationary target shooting have been conserved in
later generations. Although they are not much use nowadays in the art of war,
they are still called ancient traditions of warriors. They are sufficient to stir up
emotions. Whether to use them or not ought to be a matter of the leader’s
judgment.

Falconry and hunting are the main exercises employed in martial training.
Therefore good generals past and present have all made them obligatory.

Going out into the fields yourself to experience the toil of the chase, or entering
mountain forests yourself, crossing ravines and fording streams, knowing both
hardship and ease of hand and foot, or shooting with a bow yourself, or firing
guns, testing out their advantages and disadvantages, or personally directing test
maneuvers—these are functions of a warrior leader.

What is essential in military training is to be resolutely realistic. When you are

unrealistic, merely making a magnificent sight and sound, you excite vulgar
habits, and can hardly fulfill the function of suppressing brigandage and
rebellion.

When you soak your mind in the situation, as the enemy and as yourself,
intensively checking gain and loss, better and worse, the principles should
become clear.

In times of peace, even though the issue is external security, even in defensive
military matters achieving effective order capable of concentrating and
dispersing, dividing and combining, is realism in military training.

So in military science there are rules for inner and outer eight battle formations.
When the inner and outer eight battle formations are accomplished, even if
enemies arise inside the fence there is no reason for fear. The function of
military training is complete at this point.

Footnotes

1 Five weapons: The traditional Chinese reckoning of what the five weapons are
is hard to translate into English, because it includes several kinds of spear and
lance that cannot be easily distinguished simply by naming. Here it is employed
in a general sense, as noted in the text, for the uses of weapons.
12. Reward and Punishment

What induce human feelings to act or refrain, to be suppressed or inspired, are

reward and punishment. What can be used to induce the feelings of thousands of
people to act and refrain equally as one, all together? Without such command
and control, how can you impel the troops of the three armies to overcome
enemies?

So reward and punishment are the warrior leader’s means of control. If you don’t
keep this control at all times, you will lose the authority of leadership. When that
is lost, organization of the armies will not be possible. For this reason reward
and punishment are regarded as grave responsibilities of a leader.

The principles of reward and punishment are principally two: clarity and
certainty. When merit is not overlooked even if people try to hide it, and it is also
impossible to cover up fault, this is called clarity. When law and order keep their
contracts unaltered, this is called certainty. When a warrior leader has the virtues
of clarity and certainty, then martial authority covers the four seas. This is the
norm for the leader of an army; to go easy on wrongdoing and make rich
rewards sometimes, or to smooth over faults and lighten penalties, are standard
strategies of warrior wisdom.

As the warrior leader commands the three armies, there are three things that
should be rewarded, and three that shall be punished. Loyalty, duty, and bravery
should be rewarded. Disloyalty, dereliction of duty, and lack of bravery should
be punished. Each of these three has three grades, furthermore, higher, middling,
and lower, so there are altogether eighteen categories of reward and punishment.

Even a superior achievement, if of inferior quality, may not be as good as an

inferior achievement of superior quality, or may be comparable to one of
mediocre quality. It is a matter of apprehending the actual realities. If even once
a single reward is not appropriate to the achievement, people will resent it; and if
even once a punishment does not fit the crime, people will be angry over it.
When people are resentful and angry, in an emergency they won’t obey orders.
This is a source of serious defeat. If you don’t consider it day and night, you
can’t win the feelings of the masses.

The saying that a subject must be a subject, even if the ruler isn’t a ruler, is a
principle sages taught people, not an expression of shallow human sentiment.
The saying that when rulers look upon subjects as so much dust, subjects see
their rulers as enemies, is an explanation by Mencius of the conditions of the
Warring States. In the context of the customs of a warrior nation, these sayings
should certainly be considered.

Making rewards and punishments strict and severe is like taking a powerful
medicine; it is very effective if accurately prescribed, but very injurious
otherwise. Therefore you should not contrive strictness and severity based on the
leavings of others without having any grasp of your own. Nevertheless, in a
nation at war it is impossible to expand the state, strengthen the army, and
preserve the territory intact without strictness and severity. Herein lies the work
of the warrior leader.

There are also three grades of reward: reward with words, reward with things,
and reward with land. Each grade also has superior, middling, and inferior, so
there are nine grades of rewards in all. Reward with land is highest, reward with
things is next, and then reward with words.

Generally speaking, the warrior leader’s words of praise and blame for courage
and cowardice, as everyday administrative orders, are the basis of influencing
martial customs. Their connection is extremely important. As people’s
preferences and inclinations are not the same, criticism with blame and praise is
never the same. Deciding this is up to the judgment of the warrior leader. If there
is nothing controversial in the judgment of the warrior leader, the judgment of
the nation is decided accordingly. To be decided means that all the knights envy
the strong and everyone wants to gain the praise of the nation. This is
administration that influences martial manners.

Any battlefield is a ground where you go to face death, so why would any
conscious creature willingly walk into a hail of missiles and a crossfire of
cannon without an adequate reason? It is because beforehand there is the
promise of praise and reward, while there is the potential shame of disgrace and
ridicule in the aftermath. So when a warrior leader’s judgment leaves a lot of
room for criticism, and the realities of courage and cowardice are contradictory,
everyone knows there’s no benefit in going forth into a dangerous situation.
When they know it’s of no benefit, they just follow along fraudulently, using
worldly wit to try to win praises and prizes. This is one reason why martial
authority deteriorates, the root of ruination of the nation.
So what enables a warrior leader to evaluate courage and cowardice accurately is
his own knowledge of military affairs and strategies of combat. When the
warrior leader is himself expert in the realities of military affairs and the arts of
war, then the guidelines for evaluation of courage and cowardice, the facts to be
rewarded or punished, cannot be concealed.

For the categories of select achievement to be accurate in a time of extended

peace, the administrative orders must be made known to all the knights. This not
only encourages brave warriors, it is critical to the influence of warrior rule.

In ruling, to make rewards rich and penalties slight is magnanimity and

humanity on the part of a warrior leader. In times of disturbance, to make both
rewards and punishments strict and severe is the military authority of the warrior
leader. But to enforce strict and severe rule in times of order while governing
with magnanimity and benevolence during disturbances is strategy on the part of
a warrior leader.

Generally speaking, when those who go forth effectively are unfailingly

rewarded while those who retreat in cowardice are unfailingly punished, when
facing enemies there is no way of predicting death in battle, but there is reward
for merit, punishment more than half the time, and never any reward for
cowardly retreat. As long as the three armies understand these things they will
all advance according to orders. The efficacy of reward and punishment is most
evident here.

The use of reward and punishment to encourage the good and discourage the bad
is the current policy of warrior rule. To give out rewards and punishments
without any specific purpose was the policy of kings of antiquity. What had
neither reward nor punishment was the pure and simple government of most
ancient times. To ignore the inevitability of contemporary mores in the present
day, admiring antiquities instead, is a doctrine of Confucians that military men
need not regard as necessary.
13. Acculturation

When the customs of any country in the world are not acculturated to martial
virtue, it is impossible to attain ultimate success in warrior rule. This cannot be
done in a day and a night; development must come about by long-term character
building. Generally speaking, though knights may strive to follow orders at first,
when they eventually get used to them and they become everyday customs,
because of this it is considered easy. Eventually they arrive at the point where
they perform without needing orders. The actuality of education is therefore
extremely important. Herein lies the aim of a warrior leader’s government.

If a warrior leader lacks magnanimous humanity and great capacity, he cannot

accomplish acculturation. When you want quick success, or are repeatedly
influenced by gain and loss, you cannot attain great success. When you are
magnanimous and humane, you are glad at gradual success and do not consider
rapidity necessary. Therefore you strive unflaggingly yourself.

When you have great capacity, you have no mind to take minor gains and avoid
minor losses. This is how acculturation is ultimately to be done. So-called minor
gains and minor losses do not refer to the magnitude of things in terms of
individual effort or ease. Even a small matter, if it affects the security of the
state, is a major gain or a major loss. Clarifying this is a matter of lucid
observation with warrior wisdom.

Acculturation to warrior rule means reaching the point where, order and
education having gone on for a long time, the younger generations are
influenced by the older generations, children and grandchildren are steeped in
the ways of their parents and grandparents, so that even without orders the
knights everywhere esteem justice and hate injustice, desire courage and strength
and disdain softness and weakness, approve of plainness in all things and avoid
ostentation.

The fulfillment of both the basic and the beautiful, as a ruler’s manifestation of
virtue, may be considered a sage era abroad, but not everyone can have
everything. If orders were issued in the interests of having everything, then
everyone would get into the habit of ostentation. Ordinarily, solid simplicity with
somewhat unsophisticated manners is the custom of warriors in a martial nation.
To set this aside in favor of fastidious manners and fancy things is the start of
neglect of martial virtue. It is imperative to be careful.
14. Great Government

When the three mainstays1 and five norms2 disappear from states everywhere,
there is an era of disorder, but it is rare in our central civilization. China’s Spring
and Autumn era [722-484 BCE] was not far removed from the age of sages, but
such extremes of violence and barbarity are unheard of in our own history. The
nobility of a martial nation may be seen in this. Therefore, referring to the
establishment of the three mainstays and clarification of the five norms as great
government is, it seems, a foreign expression.

As for a martial state, even if a leader lacking virtue is at the top, it is worth
striving for. In general, supreme success for warriors is to subdue the enemy
without bloodying their blades. To win by fighting is inferior to that. Thus war is
fought only when unavoidable. By virtue of fighting only when unavoidable,
there is military readiness certain to prevail.

Now that there are no opponents anywhere and there is invincible military
readiness, it is kept close to the vest and not used all the time. This is what
warriors call great government. If you have no adversaries anywhere but lack
military readiness, having no adversaries is not really being unopposable, but
merely a matter of luck.

The root of great government is a matter of invincible military readiness.

Invincible military readiness, even after the passing of a hundred years, is as
fresh as a fine sword just come from the whet-stone. Violet lightning splits the
clouds, pure frost chills the flesh; inviolable, unmatchable, all knights in the
world accept. So even old enemies fold their hands and mentally submit. The
consummation of acculturation has its ultimate achievement in great
government. The meaning of this is very profound and very fine.

Footnotes

1 Three mainstays: A Confucian term referring to the duties proper to a ruler,

father, and husband.

2 Five norms: A Confucian term referring to the relationships between ruler and
subject, father and son, older and younger brothers, husband and wife, and
colleagues and peers.
15. Transmission of Authority

Transmission of authority is the conclusion of great government by a

warrior leader. Even if one spreads martial virtue in one generation, if this
should be lost by later leaders, it means virtue is still imperfect. Holding
back from this, for ancestral rites to be transmitted for a hundred
generations is an earth that human effort cannot create, a mate for
heaven, epitome of virtue. Its profound importance cannot be fully told.

Yao’s promotion of Shun, and Shun’s promotion of Yu, as examples of

the perfect virtue of sages, were entirely ordained by Nature, the
Mandate of Heaven.1 Their cases cannot be made models for later ages.
Just to pass the great treasure on to the appropriate person according to
the blood line is the norm of virtue. In the customs of our country, we do
not wish to make common men of other clans into lords, even if they are
people of superior virtue; when the sentiments of the multitude is not to
trust them, the Mandate of Heaven will not rest with them. Within the
lineage of the same clan, however, even if one is somewhat lacking in
virtue, the hearts of the multitude must submit; and when they submit, the
Mandate of Heaven will be vested. The realities of transmission of
authority all become mandates of heaven, part of the natural order,
impossible to affect by contrivance. In particular, to pass on the great
treasure to a beloved bastard son on account of affection is extreme
confusion. It is not even worth discussing.
A warrior leader of a whole land oversees the death and life of
millions. There is nothing that can compare to the weight of that mandate
from Heaven. However, most people Heaven makes are of average
abilities. Those of highest intelligence and lowest ignorance are quite
rare. Men of average abilities may become top quality by education, and
even the inferior and ignorant may become average in ability by
education and training. Much of the difference in people’s quality comes
from learning. Why would Heaven put seeds of violence and evil in
wombs, allowing hardship and pain to be inflicted on the people all over
the land? When the recipient of the transmission of authority is violent
and evil, for the most part that is not due to his basic nature, but comes
from negligence in education and upbringing.
If education and upbringing are principled and not negligent, and yet
the recipient of the transmission of authority is violent, and of such a
character as will eventually lose the land, this is because of the Mandate
of Heaven. For this reason, to substitute a concubine’s son for the heir
apparent is done as a matter of necessity, according to the feelings of the
multitude, sensitive to the reason why the Mandate of Heaven is so.
The basis of transmission of authority is principally education and
upbringing, as a norm of virtue. Those who are utterly ignorant in spite of
education are that way by the order of Nature, not by human effort.
Therefore human effort must be deliberately cultivated.
The main roots of education and upbringing are choosing the virtues
of the mother and carefully observing the routines of fetal education.1
This is an ancient practice, to be careful of what the human heart feels.
Even so, the main part of education and upbringing takes place between
the age when children can look, listen, and speak, and when they pass
the age of twenty—this is the time to educate and admonish them
carefully.
Now then, though there may be differences according to their natural
strength and intelligence, normally the time from three or four years of
age to ten years old is considered one phase, while the time from ten to
twenty years of age is considered another phase. There is education and
training suitable to each phase. As for the education of young leaders,
the mainstays are but three—knowledge, virtue, and bravery. They
should be taught to cultivate these three things according to the phase
they’re in.
When you set up “education” as something separate, a young leader
invariably gets bored. When he’s bored, his heart won’t be in it, and it will
not be effective. Therefore the first key is to associate the actualities of
education with the affairs and objects of everyday life. When people are
young, they find amusement easy, so you may entertain them with
pictures to teach them the names and forms of nature and creatures; this
is a way to produce knowledge. You may make a sport of chasing on
bamboo horses, or practice dueling with reed swords; this is a way for
them to become imbued with bravery. Observing their inclinations, you
may practice manners and bearing, or tell stories of the sternness of
generals of old; this is a way to guide them to virtue.
On the whole, when you use one item or one object, young people will
get bored, so it’s a matter of always using new things to develop their
vigor. When their tutors understand the essentials, observe the conditions
of young leaders, and devote themselves deeply to education and
upbringing, then there should be no failure.
Though the excellent examples of each family might not be the same,
when boys reach the age of eleven the great ceremony of the first
donning of armor is carried out. Posting on their first battle formation
between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, according to their strength, is
standard for military families.
When boys reach the age of eleven, their intelligence is already
beginning to stir. At this point education and upbringing are no longer as
before. The way to develop them is based on two main elements, people
and things.
What we mean by people here is a matter of selecting close retainers.
First, people who are honest, sincere, and trustworthy are adequate to
develop a young leader’s virtue. Second, people who know the classics
and legends of the warrior clans should develop the young leader’s
knowledge. Third, people who have mastered military science and martial
arts should develop the young leader’s courage. When the proper people
are chosen for these three things, they will be adequate to instill martial
virtues. As for the office of attendant, one who is imbued with all three is
considered fit for the responsibility. If he talks about sex on the side,
speaking and acting soft and lazy, this is an affectation injurious to
bravery.
As for “things,” this refers to housing, clothing, food, and everyday
articles. Household organization keeps the proprieties of rank clear, so as
not to allow any approach to the ladies’ chambers. Don’t build a
hideaway. Set up a space for practicing martial arts next to your home.
Clothing should not be ostentatious in stitching, dying, or design, but
appropriate to the seasonal cold and heat. On ceremonial occasions
dress is to be correct, admitting of no casualness. Food and drink should
be at regular times, not permitting extremes of hunger or fullness. Make
the spleen and stomach strong, so sickness will not develop.
These are ways to promote courage and develop virtue. Knowledge is
to be cultivated by defining other issues and objects, their comprehensive
and summary distinctions, making the principles of simplicity and
economy clear guides.
What spoils a young leader is basically doing as he likes. The root of
indulgence in doing as he likes is twofold: his father getting carried away
by love for his son, and attendants and personal retainers determined to
please him for the time being.
Mistakes in the path of knighthood all originate from insufficiency of
courage. Therefore attendants and personal retainers should each make
courage and warriorhood their aim, and take every event and every
object as an occasion to foster the constancy of a champion.
It is a standard norm of society to consider literary learning necessary
to education. While this is a good doctrine, yet when it is done without the
warrior’s teaching that makes it effective, it is invariably harmful. As a
young leader’s intelligence gradually develops, the main essential is first
to guide him to the duty of the warrior and the courage of the warrior.
After this is done, to assist it with literary learning is very beneficial.
Prose and poetry are an element of literature, but one should not
become immersed in their enjoyment. There are two major benefits in
literature: one is to know the ideas of sages and the conditions of past
and present. Second is to know a lot about the world.
There are distinctions in this knowledge of things. Most scholars know
about things abroad but not about things of our own country. This is a
common ailment of the age. A warrior leader should strive first to know
about his own country. Knowing even popular culture is what should be
called broad learning on the part of a warrior leader. When one has no
will for warrior rule, one will invariably neglect this.
Therefore it is very beneficial to let the young leader know about
vulgarities even from childhood, taking opportunities to talk over tea
about even common low-class matters, so that they can understand the
conditions and attitudes of the lower classes. Unfamiliarity with the
coarse diet of the peasants, for example, is most common among
provincial commanders—this verges on ignorance on the part of the
warrior leader.
After a young leader reaches adolescence, he should be kept
occupied with military duties and military tasks. Especially when his
sexuality begins to stir he should not be allowed leisure or ease. It is a
matter of controlling his sexual desire and correcting it. This is an
extremely obscure area, which is hard even for attendants to deal with.
The choice of personal retainers hinges particularly on this concern. In
ancient times it was said that the father is the carpenter’s square. The
father leader is invariably the guide of the young leader; if the father
leader does not behave in an easygoing and lax manner, his successor in
leadership will naturally be inclined to circumspection and conscience
himself, and not take to weak behavior.
After the successor in leadership is established, it is most urgent to
instruct him properly on feminine virtues in a wife, as well as bedroom
arts. No human relationship is closer than man and wife. When a wife is
proper, this is most beneficial in inspiring her husband’s conduct. It is a
reality past and present that a man without a firm moral fiber may act
right or wrong depending on the probity or otherwise of his woman’s
character. It is imperative to be careful.
Once the successor leader has the capacity, it is essential to plan the
state’s military administration together, enabling him to develop martial
character. It sometimes happens that successor leaders know nothing of
politics until they’re grown up, when rulership is passed on to them all at
once and they are unfamiliar with the duties of state. This is the fault of
the father leader.
When a father-leader gets too old to take up administrative affairs and
so transmits martial potency to his successor in leadership, or appoints
his successor for after his death, this is to be done in a manner inevitable
in view of the great duty of the path of knighthood. The rules should not
be altered at all by personal intentions involving human wishes.
Death’s relationship to people is very easy but also very hard. To
leave one’s work half done for lack of foresight, or to try to devise a
legacy all at once in face of death, is not the diligence of a real man.
Dying in the arms of wives and daughters instead of dying in state in the
audience hall, or believing heavily in Buddhism and hoping for a hearty
funeral, are both conditions where martial courage is slight, arising from
lack of clarity of warrior wisdom. At this point a hundred years of warrior
work will finally cease. So it cannot be disregarded.

Footnotes

1 The Mandate of Heaven, or Order of Nature, is a Chinese concept referring to fitness for
rule. According to Mencius (q.v.), whose work is one of the Four Books of Confucianism
studied in standard Japanese schools, the loss of popular support through inhumane
government was an indication of the loss of the Mandate of Heaven, after which a ruler was
not a ruler but an “isolated individual” who could therefore be opposed in good conscience.
1 Fetal education is a practice from ancient Chinese medicine. It means that a pregnant
woman regulates her surroundings and environmental intake according to the impressions
they make on her, and thus on the fetus. It is based on the idea that the formulation of
character and emotional structure begin in the womb.
 BOOK THREE
Essentials of
Military Matters
Compiled by Yamaga Takatsune
1. The Origin of Military Education
The superiors of the three civilian classes, knights are called warriors. If the
words and actions of knights are not good, the civilian classes become bandits.
So the education of knights is the basis for preserving all four classes. One who
governs the four classes is called the warrior leader.

Detailed Discussion It seems to me that what is to be taught to men who are

warriors is nothing else but as knights to be leaders of the three civilian classes.
To have them be leaders of the three civilian classes without doing any work in
agriculture, crafts, or commerce, is basically because they govern the three
civilian classes and employ the three civilian classes. Because of this, if their
governance and employment are negligent, the needs of the nation will not be
met. So the three civilian classes are the great treasures of the nation: employ
them well, and their value is sufficient; misuse them, and they become
plunderers of the nation.

Of course, when there are people among the three civilian classes who commit
violent, antisocial, and illegal acts, then it is the job of warriors to control them,
restrain them, and put them to work. So the knights of a district quell rebellion
and disorder in the district, the knights of a prefecture quell rebellion and
disorder in the prefecture, the knights of a state quell rebellion and disorder in
the state, the knights of the world quell rebellion and disorder in the world. Thus
a knight’s job is to keep down rebellion and disorder; so if a knight’s speech and
conduct are inappropriate, he is not a knight.

In an era of peace, when knights devote themselves to duty with diligence,

conscious of the imperative to correct injustice justly, without being violated by
the three civilian classes, then the three civilian classes will always be orderly,
and knights too will be cordial and agreeable.

This means that a knight without education should not be called a knight, much
less be considered a warrior. To establish education in an era of peace is called
being a warrior-knight. This is of course a fundamental idea that should always
be perpetuated.
2. Transmission of the System
This system is called the system of Yamamoto Kansuke, because he
established the tradition as a warrior, he put it to use in the world, and he
actually held the secret of certain victory.

The order of the transmission is as follows:

Suzuki Hyuga
Yamamoto Kansuke (retainer of Takeda Harunobu)
Hayakawa Misazaemon
Obata Kanbei (retainer of Tokugawa Ieyasu)
Hojo Awa-no-kami (teacher of Tokugawa Iemitsu)
Yamaga Jingozaemon [Soko]
Thus it was transmitted in succession.

Detailed Discussion This is the order of succession of the tradition:

Suzuki Hyuga Shigetoki

Yamamoto Kansuke Haruyuki [1501-1561]
Hayakawa Yasazaemon Yukitoyo
Obata Kanbei Kagenori [1570-1644]
Hojo Awa-no-kami Ujinaga [1609-1670]
Yamaga Jingozaemon Takasuke [1622-1685]

Here are some rough notes about these individuals: Suzuki Shigetoki

A retainer of Imagawa Yoshimoto (1519-1560), he was the master of the

castle of Terabe in Mikawa province.

Yamamoto Haruyuki Haruyuki was ordained as a lay monk named Doki,

Demon of the Way. His forebears lived in Ushikubo in Mikawa province. He
was also called Yamamoto Tosa, and had a fief with an income of two
thousand strings of cash, according to the tales of elders. Having learned
military science from Shigetoki, he concentrated on establishing the
teaching; thenceforth the school of Kansuke became known in the world.
His name became prominent in the provinces of Suruga, Totomi, and
Mikawa. Subsequently Takeda Shingen1 of Kai province hired him. This
was in 1543.

At first his contract was for one hundred strings of cash, but the day
he first met the warlord, his standing was increased to two hundred
strings of cash. Later he was given charge of fifty foot soldiers, and made
teacher of arms. Gradually he was given more. After the battle of Toishi in
1546, he was given eight hundred strings of cash, and the number of his
foot soldiers was increased to a total of seventy-five men. In the Takeda
establishment he was called the Quintuple Infantry Commander.

Hayakawa Yukitoyo His father was Hayakawa Bungo. At first he was an

ally of Baba Mino of the Takeda establishment. Later he became a
retainer of Ii Naomasa. Details are in the Koyo Mirror of the Military.

In 1583, at the time of the battle of Nagakute in Owari province,

Hayakawa Yukitoyo, comparing the battle formation of Lord Hideyoshi,
privately told Naomasa, “The enemy has a huge army. It’s time to divide
the troops and go inside Okazaki in Mikawa province. (This means
avoiding the well-prepared, a military term from the Kyoto area) Lord
Hideyoshi has an immense army of over 120,000 men.”
When Tokugawa Ieyasu thought of withdrawing to Kiyosu in Owari
province, he probably had about that many men too, but it seems that
when facing a tremendous opposition one should not fly the flag of
preparedness. If you’re going to strike a larger force with a smaller one,
the advantage is in striking unexpectedly. To attack unexpectedly, you
shouldn’t let opponents know your movements. On this account, he had
judged it appropriate to furl his banner and return to headquarters, and
Naomasa too told him so. That is, when Naomasa suggested this
urgently to Ieyasu, the supreme commander considered Hayakawa’s
suggestion quite reasonable and gave orders to that effect, actually
returning to his headquarters. Mr. Hayakawa used to relate this story to
Obata Kagenori; Kagenori related it to Takasuke.

Obata Kagenori

Kagenori was a direct vassal of the ruling house [of Tokugawa] with a
salary of fifteen hundred koku.1 His forebears were masters of Katsumata
in Toyomi province. Therefore his original name was Katsumata, but later
was changed to Obata.
 In 1410, Obata Moritsugu, also known as Lay Monk Nichijo, turned
against the Imagawa establishment and became an officer of Takeda
Nobutsuna, governor of Mutsu. As a commander of foot soldiers, he
served as an officer for two generations of Takedas, Nobutsuna and
Nobutora.
His son, Obata Yamashiro Toramori, accompanied his father at the
age of ten when he came to the capital of Kai province to work for Takeda
Nobutsuna, and eventually inherited his father’s commission and clan
leadership. Thus he was given the character tora (tiger) for his name. He
also served two generations of Takedas, Nobutora and Shingen himself.
His son, Obata Bungo Masamori, served both Takeda Shingen and
Takeda Katsuyori in his father’s position. At Shingen’s command, he
inherited the name and clan affairs of Obata Nobusada of Kazusa
province, changing the written characters of the name Obata.
His son, Obata Kanbei Kagenori, was hired by the establishment of
Tokugawa Ieyasu after the fall of Kai province, when he was eleven years
old, in 1572. When he was twenty-four, he became an independent
(ronin) by his own wish. After that, in 1614, he went into Osaka Castle as
a spy, and because of his loyalty he was called back into the service of
the Shogun.
Kagenori transmitted the Yamamoto system in his nine-volume Minor
Book and his nine-volume Summary of Essentials, which set forth traditions
from olden times. The three-volume Three Types of Dragon, Tiger, and
Leopard is all Kagenori’s composition.
Kagenori’s dedication to warriorhood was well-known. Though he was
simple by nature, and bold and violent, without him this tradition would
have passed away from the world. This system is widely appreciated in
the world because of Kagenori’s inspiration. He was also peerless in his
dedication to instruction and training.
Later on he wrote Earlier Anthology and Later Anthology, The Cold
Comes and The Heat’s Here, That Scroll and This Scroll, Military Preparedness
and Essentials of Warfare. At the request of Lord Yorinobu, Councilor of Kii,
moreover, it is said he wrote how he made Tokugawa Ieyasu’s arms
comparable to Takeda Shingen’s, setting this forth in Record of the Source
of Renaissance.

Hojo Ujinaga
Ujinaga was a direct retainer of the ruling Tokugawa house, with a salary
of two thousand koku. Ujinaga inherited everything in Kagenori’s tradition,
and to spread the teaching in the world he wrote Models of Defeat in a total
of forty-two volumes, and Models of Victory in a total of fifty-two volumes.
He also wrote A Scroll on the Subtle Ultimate Good in two volumes, and
after this wrote Mirror for Knights: Practical Rules in one volume. This is
the extent of the writings Ujinaga transmitted to his students.

Yamaga Takasuke [Soko]

Takasuke was of the Yamaga family of the Fujiwara clan. His ancestor
was the master of the castle of Yamaga in Chikuzen, Yamaga Hyotoji
Hideto. Takasuke was born in Aizu in eastern Mutsu, on the Eastern
Mountain Circuit. From the age of six he steeped his mind in literature; by
ten he surpassed others in both poetry and prose. He obtained
transmission of the way of Japanese verse and Shinto. When he was
seventeen he read the Four Books and Six Classics, taking only Hayashi
Razan, Doshun, as his teacher, and wrote fifty volumes of colloquial
interpretations of the Four Books.

At eighteen he set his mind on military science, which he learned from

Obata Kagenori. When he finished, he received a license and seal of
approval. During this time he also learned from Hojo Ujinaga and
received a comprehensive license from him. With that background, when
he was twenty-one he wrote The Art of War— The Divine Warrior’s
Preparations for Victory in fifty-one volumes, all about the traditions of the
two masters Obata and Hojo, exhaustively setting forth the secrets of the
system, so concerned was he that the tradition he’d inherited would die
out.

Books he wrote on military matters: Questions on the Art of War

Record of Essentials of Military Education
Record of Essentials of Self-Reflection
Record of Three Ranks
Military Education: Primer and Complete Works
Military Education: Basic Discourses
Notes on Military Matters
Ancient and Modern Battle Strategies
Colloquial Interpretations of the Seven Books
 Further Discussion of Military Education

Books he wrote on civil matters:

Teachings on Government: Record of Essentials

Teachings on Cultivation: Record of Essentials
Classified Sayings of Yamaga
Record of Essentials of Sage Teachings
Complete Punctuation of the Four Books
A Hundred Types of Compound Characters
Facts about the Central Court
Children’s Questions in Exile

In this way he devoted his attention to both civic affairs and military
preparedness, always thinking and striving to be helpful to humanity,
devoting his entire attention to the end of his life. His great vow was no
more than to clarify and correct the doubt and confusion of people with
aspirations for the nation.
Takasuke was an independent (ronin) all his life. For six or seven
years he received a small stipend from the Asano Clan while remaining
independent, but he resigned and became even more independent.
Concentrating on scholarship and military science, he wrote Record of
Essentials of Sage Teachings, a book intended to analyze and explain the
doubts and confusion of scholarship for people, but he was censured by
the government and remanded to the custody of Asano Naonaga of
yesteryear. After ten years he was pardoned, and went back to his
residence in Edo as before, as a teacher of military science, meeting with
knights of all ranks, sometimes training, sometimes teaching. He died of
illness at the age of 64.
The family tradition was continued by two sons of Takasuke, Yamaga
Shoran Takatsune, and Yamaga Tosuke Takamoto.

Footnotes

1 Takeda Shingen (1521-1573) was a renowned warlord of Japan’s Warring States era. He
deposed his own father in 1541 to take over as head of his family, then built up a power
base by military actions and strategic alliances. In 1567 he forced his eldest son to commit
suicide after rebelling. Subsequently he turned on his allies. He defeated the great warlord
Oda Nobunaga and his protégé Tokugawa Ieyasu (who was later to unify Japan under the
Third Shogunate), but Shingen died before he could capitalize on these victories. Takeda
 Shingen is also known for achievement in administration, public works, and industrial
enterprise.

1 Koku: a dry measure used for grain, slightly more than 5 U.S. bushels; Japanese feudal
incomes were typically expressed in terms of so many koku of rice.
3. The Law of the Warrior
The law of the warrior starts with rectitude and ends with victory. This basis is
found in the deified ruler’s establishment of law on the basis of warfare.

Detailed Discussion Rectitude means staying on one line without deviation,

victory means winning, not being overcome by others. It began with Yamamoto
Haruyuki as the teacher of military science who passed it on to Takeda Shingen
of Kai province, determining Shingen’s system of warfare. In his lifetime
Shingen fought thirty-nine battles without a single defeat. This is a teaching of
certain invincibility, a comprehensive tradition including defense, offense, siege,
security, massive combat, minimal combat, mountains and rivers, sea and land,
night combat, night security, ambush, and all other military matters, involving
nothing risky at all.

Shingen’s operations impressed Tokugawa Ieyasu with the teaching and training
of [Yamamoto Kansuke] Haruyuki. Th inking he should dictate that everything
be like Shingen’s preparations for the practicalities of combat, and his rules and
procedures, Tokugawa Ieyasu ordered a search for all the families of the
Yamamoto clan in Hamamatsu. (Ieyasu occupied Hamamatsu castle in 1568; the
events here seem to have occurred later.) But there was no one comparable at
that time. Then Ieyasu heard of the military science of an uncle of Yamamoto
Haruyuki named Yamamoto Tatewakizaemon Shigeuji, in the establishment of
Makino Umanojo Yasunari of Ushikubo in Mikawa province. He was hired as a
direct retainer and given a salary of three thousand koku. In those days, even
Sakai Kawachi-no-kami Shigetada was getting five thousand koku. Kuze
Sanshiro Hironori of the Yokosuka contingent and Sakabe Sanjuro Hirokatsu
both performed bravely time and again, but up until that period they’d each been
given one hundred koku. As for [Yamamoto] Tatewaki, he was given the
aforementioned amount because of his heritage of military science. He
accompanied the lord at the campaign of Odawara in 1590. It repeatedly
occurred to the lord that the teacher of military science should not be of low
rank, so it was determined that he should thenceforth be patronized and favored,
particularly in his status, according to the will of the lord; but being an elderly
man, he died of illness.

Tatewaki had neither a biological son nor an adopted son, so his lineage died out
and no longer exists.
4. The Basic Aim of Leadership
The basic idea of leadership is in knowing how important the military is to the
country. Next, a leader is a standard for the group, so he determines to establish
his own personal intelligence and uprightness, preserving humaneness from the
beginning all the way through to the end, making justice his watchword.

Detailed Discussion The basic aim of leadership is rooted in knowing the need
of the state, directed toward establishing clarity and correctness in oneself to be a
model for the multitude, and preserving humaneness from the beginning
throughout to the end, guided by right.

As for the need of the state, all nations must have knights, and the supervisor of
those knights is the warrior leader. If he employs these knights well, he is a
helper; if he employs them badly, he does harm.

To employ well means first to consider their route and have them go by the way
that is suitable, to figure out where to station troops and locate them there,
getting both officers and soldiers to abide by the will of the commander; to get
rid of harm and remove difficulty, stable in both normalcy and emergency, thus
reaching the point where there is no one who does not obey the orders of the
lord.

Next, to establish clarity and correctness in oneself to be a model for the

multitude means that as the person of the military commander is the model for
myriad people, everyone imitates his every word, his every act, considering him
exemplary. Clarity means making the mind clear, perfecting one’s own
knowledge to be able to comprehend things. When a wise ruler is called an
enlightened ruler, and an ignorant ruler is called a benighted ruler, this too refers
to clarity or obscurity of mind.

There is a way to clarify the mind. The human mind necessarily has cognitive
consciousness, which is called thought. This is also what is conventionally called
consideration. So even in minor matters, things should not be done without
thought. First think to yourself whether it’s right or wrong this way. This is the
foundation of clarifying the mind.

Even if you think in this way, if you act just as you think, this is called taking
your mind as master, which ancient sages and saints warned against. So you call
those with ability and merit in the avenue concerned and check your thinking
with them, to see whether it is suitable or not beforehand, or have critical
discussion afterwards and implement whatever seems appropriate, making it a
lesson for later. This is called learning. Even if you study the books of sages and
savants and find something that seems to be a traditional maxim or virtue, if you
don’t think about it first and question others, it’s hard to attain clarity.

Next, to preserve humaneness from beginning to end means that for a ruler of
men to dwell with humaneness is something that should be maintained. It means
to accept the masses and love the masses. It is also like saying the ruler is the
father and mother of the people. The ruler of the whole land considers the people
of the whole land his children; the ruler of a province considers the people of the
province his children; the same goes for the ruler of a prefecture and the ruler of
a house.

Next, to be guided by right means that people should carefully maintain

circumspection even where others don’t see or hear, being guarded when at
home or alone, invariably being upright even when nobody’s there. Since ancient
times the teaching of caution and apprehension has been in this.
5. The Main Bases of Teaching and Training
Planning, intelligence, and strategy are the three main bases of military science,
teaching how to govern internal and external emergencies with appropriate
response.

Detailed Discussion Teaching planning means first seeing to internal order,

regardless of what’s going on outside. In the context of arms, it begins with
ability to command allies before the enemy. This is considered the first main
basis of teaching and training.

Intelligence means knowing the outside. It means that once you’ve got yourself
in order and your alliances are lined up, you get to know the people, things, and
concerns you are facing and then you figure out what to do to deal with those
people, things, and concerns. In the context of arms, it means knowing your
enemies and calculating what to do according to the condition your enemies are
in. This is considered the second main basis of teaching and training.

Strategy refers to figuring out how to win easily according to changes. Even
though you may have established internal order and have information about the
outside, unexpected events are the beginning of defeat, so think of all possible
changes in your opponents, consider changes in your allies, and also consider
changes in the sky and changes in the earth, so you don’t get bogged down and
don’t go wrong. In the context of arms, this means not letting enemies figure you
out, but catching enemies in your own strategies. Stationing men in military
houses and having weapons on hand, taking every possible precaution against
emergencies, is the beginning for warriors. This is considered the third main
basis of teaching and training.
6. The Main Aims of Military
Training
When it comes to arms, practice means making officers and soldiers
strong and robust. It is based on the men following the leader’s
instructions. For the officers and soldiers to follow instructions, three
things are essential for coordination.

First is to know people and assign posts to people who can do the
job.
Second is always to reward good and punish wrongdoing, so that the
good and the bad of both high and low are clear. With this clarity, officers
and solders will be enthusiastic, without hesitation.
Third is to train officers and soldiers even in ordinary things, so that
their manners at home become training, meaning that they have no
trouble getting ready and mustering.
These are traditionally called the three official signals. The secret
transmission from Mr. Yamamoto to Shingen too was this. This tradition is
called the main purposes of military training.

Detailed Discussion

The main aims in leading a large army are the three signs. There are
three signs in the secret transmission from Mr. Yamamoto to Takeda
Shingen. The first is to know people.

There are good and bad, substantial and superficial people, there are
majorities and minorities, there are sophisticates and rustics, there are
insiders and outsiders, familiars and strangers.
In the world there are people of the world; in a state there are people
of the state; in a province there are people of the province; in a house
there are people of the house. Land is far or near, large or small;
depending on the land, state, province, and house, there are people and
things; based on people and things, they have their rules.
There are people of lesser and greater importance, old and young
people, canny and stupid people. People of greater importance are the
chiefs, those of lesser importance are the ordinary samurai. A chief who
cannot distinguish good from bad is not a chief; the job of a chief in times
of peace requires testing the ordinary samurai.
Knowing people means selecting people. Knowledgeable selection
means recognizing people who can be chiefs, and appointing people
suitable for selection. This is the great carpenter’s square of warfare, the
beginning of predetermined victory.
Second is to make rewards and penalties clear.
For a ruler of men to reward the good and punish the bad may be
normal, but attention is focused solely on promoting the good and
demoting the bad. If there is negligence at this stage, the officers and
soldiers slack off. When they slack off, you have to watch out for an
outbreak of war.
It seems to me that the world and the state should both make reward
their priority. This is something that must constantly be given
consideration. Constant consideration means good ones from among the
various commanders and myriad knights should be picked out and
rewarded, according to the individual, with offices, seats of honor, favors,
or prizes.
For example, there are good officers in every rank—summon them to
their command, or a mansion in the preeminent citadel, and present them
with a declaration to this effect:

You have been upright in public service, and considerate of your parents,
relatives, and offspring; your words and deeds have both excelled others,
and good report of you has been heard on high. In particular, the lord’s
pleasure is considerable. Because of this, you are to be appointed to such-
and-such a rank, given such-and-such a command, presented with such-
and-such a prize; if you continue to be careful and diligent, it will certainly
be taken into consideration.

When news and rumor of special excellence surpassing anything

hitherto is heard by others outside, then the circumspection of the world
regarding the character of the people of the world becomes the
individual’s clarity and correctness. The nation will conform, and evil
people will desist. When punishment is inescapable for anyone who
violates the law, but there is no selection of good people, then those of
good character are ultimately not encouraged, while the corrupt remain
concealed. Moreover, since it is hard to improve and easy to become
corrupt, focus on promoting good is therefore considered basic. Then the
bad don’t have to be repelled, but spontaneously withdraw and turn to
good.
Even among those of great status there couldn’t be more than five to
seven good men. Among those of middling estate, there can be no more
than ten or twenty men. Among those of lesser estate, there are no more
than two or three good men per group. If there are more good men than
this, credit should be given their leader. This is the actualization of
encouragement of good; if this is continued over the years, the best of
the good people emerge. Therefore since time immemorial the essence
of rulership is to make it a matter of daily business to select the best
people. As for people who are supremely good, there might be one or
two in all the land.
When you go on doing as described above, this is the foundation for
the emergence of savants and sages, so you deserve credit as an
enlightened ruler or intelligent minister.
Here there is something further to be understood. With the passing of
the generations and the way people are, the aforementioned idea has
weakened over time, so it is only relatives or family friends of clan elders
or administrative bosses who become officials and get established, at the
pleasure of the boss. Even good men may live in the shadows if they
have no connections, with no hope of success or fulfillment all their lives.
There are also many cases where something unexpected happens and
the names of good people don’t get out; instead they run into trouble and
get hurt all their lives.
Even if they are in the shadows of trees deep in the mountains,
promote good people. And even among the distinguished families, or
among relatives, there are those who are not good and who are
unworthy, so there should be appropriate discretion in dismissing them.
For example, there are plants and trees that do not belong in a
carefully tended private garden, while there are many vistas of
extraordinary plants and trees in deep valleys and high mountains, in
places unknown and unseen by society. Some might simply say these
are all natural happenings, but that is failure to discern the truth of what
ought to be. This does not apply only to plants and trees; in terms of
people too, such a thing should not occur to the best of savants. There
should be proper measure.
 Next, there must be a way to choose the good. Selecting the good
based on the wrong premises is not worthy of mention; even if everyone
says someone is good, you still can’t be sure this means he’s good.
There are fine qualities that everyone admires, but fine qualities are not
useful to others. If wise people praise someone, then you can know he’s
good. It’s like the ancient tradition that goodness in one locality is not
good—what the good of the whole locality praise is called good. This
means that the standard is what is said by the experts in a discipline,
those who are successful at it, those who have the talent and the
knowledge.
Next, getting rid of the bad must also have its varieties. There are
ways of dealing with this. Even the bad often turn good. To contrive to get
them to turn good, somehow or other getting lots of people to become
good, should be considered meritorious on the part of a magistrate.
But even when this is done, there are still those who persist in doing
wrong for the wrong reasons. Sometimes they are put to work in a secure
place. Those who become even worse when sent to work are not
offenders against one individual—everyone points at them. This means
that even if one fell into crime, one is an offender against the whole
world. Of course, people don’t suddenly turn bad and become criminals
all at once; on the whole, to be able to influence people to change,
meanwhile preventing them from acting on their evil, could be called the
mercy of the commander.
Third, training should be concentrated. In a time of peace, the training
of officers and soldiers is a specialized function. As such, it is a matter of
training in a concentrated manner. The substance of training is to convey
the will of the ruler to subordinates, causing the leader to reflect on the
importance of the chief officer, while impressing subordinates too. It is a
matter of informing the warriors what to do, both in ordinary
circumstances and in emergencies.
Even if personnel are posted and preparations are set in front and
back, left and right, as long as training is superficial people will be
uncertain, so their functionality is inhibited. The point is to see to it that all
ranks work together freely.
When there is enthusiasm in training and all ranks thoroughly absorb
it, drilling and exercising repeatedly, the men become strong and robust.
It’s like glossing fabric—the texture tightens, the color stands out, the
luster appears, and it is strengthened. So it is with personnel. Therefore
the third signal, as it is called, is the fundamental concern of developing
strength for combat.
7. Questions and Answers on
Military Education
There are various questions and various answers regarding education for
warriors. If you understand these well, you will know that the way of
warriors is nothing more than this education, and will realize the depth of
meaning of the education of warriors. Therefore I set forth twenty-one
questions herein.

Question One: This system should be called the system of Yamamoto

Kansuke, but it is commonly referred to as the Koshu Tradition, or the
Takeda System. Is this mistaken?

Answer: This system is the system of Kansuke. Because he passed it on

to Takeda Shingen, and Shingen’s successes were based entirely on that
teaching, it is called the Takeda System on account of Shingen’s fame.
Because his homeland was Koshu, or Kai Province, it is called the Koshu
tradition. The teaching did not originate in Kai, and Shingen was not the
first to teach it. As the teaching came from Kansuke, it should not be
referred to by any other name.

Question Two: In this tradition, is the teaching based on ethics and

morals, or is it a teaching employing artifice and deception?

Answer: In this system both are used, and also not used. Ultimately what
must be used is used, what should be left out is left out; it’s not a matter
of bias toward one or dependence on one. The reality is based on
concentrating on peacetime arms, keeping the mind upright and
cultivating the mood in peacetime, so there is no impediment to military
functions. Its essence is in perpetuating the order and peace of the whole
nation. In the context of warfare, artifice and deception are also employed
to gain victory. Of course, real actions are also used. Ultimately the idea
is to change according to the enemy—if the enemy thinks you’re using
surprise, you win by being straightforward; if the enemy thinks you’re
being straightforward, you win by surprise. This is a system that teaches
how to bring enemies to you and not be brought by enemies to them;
how to get others to take on form without having any form yourself.
Question Three: If someone doesn’t know this system, or even knowing
it doesn’t use it, can it still be effective if there is a sudden call for it?

Answer: If officers and soldiers are both well trained through experience
over the years, it will certainly be effective when dealing with events. If
the rules of the system are handed over to a group of men all at once
without proper preparation, then it has little efficacy.

Take the example of papering a screen as an analogy. If you have an

expert make the frame and also have an expert apply the papering to it, it
will look good and also be strong and sturdy. Then again, if you have an
amateur make the frame and also have an amateur paper it, it will be
extremely unsightly and insubstantial too. If the frame is bad but the
papering is skillfully done, it won’t be good wherever the basic framing is
bad, but it will be better than if there were no expert overlay. This
principle applies to everything—in arms too there is a difference between
doing things all at once and doing things well from the foundation up.

Question Four: Is the practice of this system different when

accomplished over years from when it is learned all at once?

Answer: This is the same thing as the foregoing rule. To steep in

something for years is not the same as doing something all at once. This
difference applies to everything, as previously stated.

Question Five: Unless one devotes all one’s efforts, the real character of
the system will be hard to see. But those serving in office, without free
time, and those who are old, don’t have years to devote all their effort.
Then there are cases such as nobles of high rank with no convenient
opportunity to pursue inquiries. Is there a way to convey the teaching
quickly to such people to enable them to master it readily?

Answer: This too is the same rule as the foregoing. The results of
devoted endeavor and receiving instruction without diligent practice are
quite different things, though easy understanding and ready attainment
do exist to some degree.

Question Six: This system is praised in the world because of its

understanding of how to win. Is practice of its winning ways acquired
from others, or is it in ourselves?
Answer: This system teaches us not to be one-sided, so it takes in what
the other is doing, and is also produced from oneself. Even if it is in the
action of the other, something suitable is adopted and put to use.
Whatever is suitable for adoption, be it from events of long ago, or events
of the present, and of course the methods of distinguished generals and
brave knights, that is taken and put to use, even things from elsewhere or
other schools. So anything useful in one’s own school, as well as
whatever comes from one’s own effort and understanding, is all put to
use if it should be used.

Even if someone memorizes things of past and present and

constantly reads the writings of sages and savants so as to be ignorant of
nothing, if one is ignorant of immediate actuality this is not learning, it is
no more than memorization of things of the past. It should be understood
as only having books of ancient matters and dictionaries by your side,
looking up what you need, and saying it aloud. Real learning applies to
the job at hand, to the matter at hand, such that things are easily
accomplished. In unexpected emergencies and national government as
well, even in matters we ultimately don’t know, when the reasoning is
sufficient, the form is appropriate, and the application excels, this is
called practical experience, and should be thought of as the essence of
learning.
Accordingly, in arms as well, it should be understood that whatever
comports with a way to victory, and can be passed on to personnel such
that they can carry it out gladly without suffering, may be adopted and put
to use.

Question Seven: It is said that adopting something for use is not in the
other yet does not disregard the other, is not in the self yet does not
disregard the self. If so, what is the aim toward which one strives?

Answer: Our aim is for ease of application and enduring perpetuation.

Therefore in this system we avoid using what is hard to accomplish, and
what is risky. We behave the way normal people behave, we do what
everyone should do. We do not use unusual forms or unusual
phenomena at all.

To continue to work at the business of arms even in peacetime is the

safeguard of the warrior, the discipline of the warrior. As such, it could
even be the household prayer. For those born in warrior clans, those
called warrior leaders, those called knights, always understanding this
and never being negligent is the work of the warrior.
Since ancient times it has been said that dredging canals in hot
weather and acquiring armaments in peacetime are jobs of a good
commander. This is because in the hot weather of summer there is rarely
so much rain as to cause flooding, and if this time is taken to prepare
water channels, then when autumn comes the water doesn’t fail to drain
when there’s been several days of rain. Similarly, when the world is at
peace and there’s not a single rebel, if you inspect the troops, parcel out
preparations, organize squads, and test the bows, guns, spears, swords,
and other weaponry and riding gear, then even if an emergency should
occur at any moment, it won’t take trouble to handle.
In sum, men of old warned against insistence on giving up arms in
peacetime, forgetting warriorhood when you race to prosperity.

Question Eight: What is the way of the warrior? Is there anything to it

from which one cannot depart?

Answer: The way of the warrior is to correct those who go wrong and set
them straight, to make those who disrupt social order conform—this is all
in the way of the warrior. As this is called controlling disturbance and
aberration, military men of all ranks should understand this as their job,
calculate likely disruptions, and act so as to prevent them. This is called
the right way of the warrior.

An ancient poem says,

When a knight is born, a bow is hung;
Things are happening in the four quarters.

This verse means that when a boy is born in a warrior’s house, a bow is
hung in the birthing room, so whistling arrows can be shot, informing all
of events occurring in the four quarters, announcing the taking on of all
emergencies without hesitation.

So carry long and short swords at all times, set out spear and halberd,
array bow, gun, and lance, post foot soldiers as gate guards and street-
corner sentries, and set out the three criminal-catching weapons [stick,
fork, sleeve-catcher] along with lamps, torches, and rope for making
arrests. Seen from outside, this shows it’s a military house, while its
functionality is unhindered, from the entrance to the interior.
To establish guard posts and sentries in various places so there is no
negligence whatsoever is all in the manners of a military house.
Especially on the road you bring along men and horses according to
status, having men with free hands in front of you and behind you, the
kind you can have wield spear and halberd, considering all emergencies
that could arise, planning and preparing ahead to set things in order
according to the emergency. This too is all to prevent hitches in these
matters. This is proof that this is not something from which you can
depart.

Question Nine: Since olden times it has been said that the way of
culture and the way of the warrior are both necessary; how is this to be
understood in actuality?

Answer: The way of culture is the human path, meaning teachings on

how people can make an honest living. These are the teachings of
sages, the warp and woof employed both past and present. Once
something has happened, to bring disturbance under control is what is
called the way of the warrior. Therefore since ancient times culture and
arms, as yin and yang, have been likened to the two wheels of a chariot.
That means it won’t stand up if one side is missing.

Question Ten: This system of military science is named after Mr.

Yamamoto. What is it about Mr. Yamamoto’s story that this has come to
be so?

Answer: Yamamoto Doki became famous in the world because he had

the art of certain victory. Its forms lack nothing, and its methods enable
you to avoid being controlled by others. First the process of warfare is
taught using the three fundamentals (of strategy, intelligence, and
planning). The three signs are presented as the beginning of the
education of commanders, then step by step order is taught to ultimately
enable attainment of certain victory and invincibility. As it is a teaching
that lacks nothing and also keeps officers and soldiers from danger,
society honors it and people admire it.

Question Eleven: Mr. Yamamoto was originally a wanderer, and though

he was subsequently hired by the Takeda clan, he was not of great
status. Is it proper or customary for someone of minor status to teacher a
major science?

Answer: Even if one is of minor estate, or indeed a lone individual, in

establishing a teaching after mastering the training the transmission is
suitable for the accomplishment of great deeds, even for the success of
military operations all over the land.

The training does not involve a lot of talk, and the basics are not that
many. Establishing laws and acting on principle is the same thing for
great and small clans alike. There are carpenters who don’t even own
their own houses, yet they construct palaces, towers, shrines, and
temples, building the homes of great personages as they see fit. With
only plumb line and square, provided their use is well practiced, projects
are completed without being onerous.
Similarly, in all endeavors, it’s not a matter of personal estate but
depends whether or not someone has acquired the appropriate tradition
and training.

Question Twelve: Since olden times, Minamoto Yoshitsune1 and

Kusunoki Masashige have been considered model warriors. Now if you
consider Kansuke’s system the quintessence of guidance, does that
mean he was better than Yoshitsune and Masashige?

Answer: Although Yoshitsune surpassed others in wit and bravery, his

strategy wasn’t as good as Masashige’s. While Masashige’s strategy was
peerless, his preparatory instruction method was imperfect. The
Yamamoto system first teaches principles, then teaches about castles,
battle formations, preparations, and operations, and finally teaches arts
of war and certain victory. The traditional teaching methods are still taken
for guides. The power of arms and the usages of arms in this system are
incomparable.

Question Thirteen: Do the teachings of this system consist only of the

Yamamoto system, not using other systems?

Answer: Although there are many different systems in the world, they
lean toward operation of energy and are insufficiently realistic, they are
short on strategy on account of planning, or they attend to mental states
and don’t apply physical forms, or they have the core but stumble at the
outgrowths. This system develops presence and form from the root,
teaching perfection of the outgrowths as well, so nothing else can
compare.

Question Fourteen: Is this system the armament of the way of kings, or

the armament of the way of overlords?

Answer: I’m not learned or literate enough to discuss the difference

between kings and overlords. It’s just a matter of justly striking the unjust.
Rooted in perpetuation of the populace, it only consists of things people
can readily do.

Question Fifteen: So you don’t have a doctrine for governing the

country?

Answer: Cultivating the person, ordering the home, and governing the
country constitute the everyday path of the science of sages. The chapter
in Mencius on using mind fully says, “Sages are teachers of a hundred
generations.” Also, “The world has three wishes: ordinary people wish to
be obeyed, conscientious people wish to be upright, sages wish to be
guided.” It is imperative to discourse on this to people who aspire to the
Way without asserting themselves, and it also requires thorough inquiry.

The science of sages is in everyday activities, not the laws of arms.

Military science is the teaching of arms, not a philosophy of everyday life.
If you discuss them together, this is essentially disorganized information
and is of no use. If the laws of war and everyday life are compared in
terms of ultimate logic, how could they be separate? Nevertheless, when
their significance is distinct, their doctrines are also different.

Question Sixteen: Is there a difference depending on the place even if

one studies with determination? If one works in an isolated area or
remote region, is there a difference in quality?

Answer: Wherever the particular profession is concentrated, famous

experts may be found there. For literary and artistic pursuits, Kyoto is the
place. While those with the ambition can also learn the work of warriors
there, in that place there are few warriors and lots of writers and artists.
As the works of these latter are seen and heard, warriorhood weakens
while culture is enriched.

For boats, it’s best to ask people of Kyushu and Shikoku, and other
seaboard regions. In such places, the existence of that profession is a
matter of course, and expert craftsmen will be there. Otherwise, without
boats, a lot of operations are not feasible.
Among people of the eastern provinces there are distinguished
experts in land maneuvers. This again is also due to matters of physical
possibility and constant familiarization.
Nagasaki is the place where great merchants foreign and native
interact, so they are knowledgeable about business there, and because
that is the ordinary habit, people’s mentalities tend to be influenced by it.
As for the ways of warriors, they are concentrated in the capital city
Edo (Tokyo), where they all practice martial activities and military offices
as their everyday occupation, so military science can’t be mastered
effectively anywhere but Edo. Especially as teachers of military science,
even those of outstanding talent and intelligence in isolated and remote
provinces are in a different class from the teachers to be found in Edo.
Within Edo as well, the same would be so of those who associate with
the great personages as their teachers.

Question Seventeen: Not only military science—in other endeavors as

well, those in isolated and rustic areas who are famed as experts find
their skills cannot match up when they come to Edo. With no one to
acknowledge them, they become like ordinary people. What about that?

Answer: Even if there are people in remote and isolated regions who
have aspirations, since all professions are underdeveloped there, there
are few who are better than they, so people praise them, and they think
no one is better or more expert than they. When they show up in the
capital, however, and are put to the test in a major arena, their faults,
failures, and inadequacies all become evident. Because of this their
aspirations are thwarted, and they even fade away physically.

Analogously, the same principle applies to mastery of calligraphy and

writing. When you have someone write a crude inscription on poor paper
or scrap paper with a coarse brush, the words of the inscription sound
fine and the calligraphy too appears to be all right, but when you give him
good paper and a good brush and have him rewrite, the flaws in the
words and the irregularities in the characters become clear, so his
mistakes and his faults become evident.
Even practices such as meditation, copying and memorizing, and
internal dialogue seem quite all right when noted in private, but when it is
set out in the open, what you had originally been certain was good turns
out to be unacceptable.
These examples all show that when presented in public it becomes
clear whether or not one has mastered an activity. Be it siege,
preparation, march, and so on, the reality is not known through crude
diagrams on rough paper with a coarse brush. Therefore even those who
are battle-seasoned and have accomplished great feats of heroism in
remote and isolated regions may be famed thereabouts, yet people of the
capital city never talk about them. Combat means civil war, and the proof
of the arms of distinguished commanders and good generals. This is how
different art and arms in the countryside are from the way things are in
the center of events.

Question Eighteen: Is there proof that rustics are not employed even if
they are acknowledged commanders and brave warriors?

Answer: The standard of arms of the generalissimo who rules the whole
land serves as proof. Next are the distinguished generals and excellent
leaders, next the warriors of major campaigns.

In olden times too, Kusunoki Masashige exercised military authority

on receiving imperial command, and his feats and fame resounded
through the imperial capital. As for Takeda Shingen, though he lived in
Kai province, he fought a number of battles with famous military leaders;
on this account his achievements filled the eastern seaboard. Kiso
Yoshinaka and Shibata Katsuie were unrivaled in bravery, but their
usages were the customs of remote mountains, so their presence was
thoroughly humble and therefore no one is interested in them. This is the
proof. In the case of a lone individual of low status, in particular, even if
he has worked diligently in remote regions, why employ him?

Question Nineteen: Is the region to work in also to be selectively chosen

in the case of sages and savants as well?
Answer: In Discourses and Sayings it says, “When the hometown is
humane, that is excellent. If your choice does not situate you in a
humane context, how can you attain knowledge?” This means that when
you select the right place to live you acquire knowledge.

Sages were glad to visit emperors and contribute their virtues to the
cause of governing the empire, so their discourses to great men and
princes were exhaustive. Even so, ignorant and base people call their
consummate courtesy flattery.
The mother of Mencius moving three times was also an example of
choosing location. Choosing a location, considering the people one can
mix with, planning a practical course, if all is good one’s achievement will
be told throughout the land.
For a knight, aiming to become a man of mettle is called happiness,
and also a great aspiration. The state of a man of mettle is the main basis
of knighthood, a vessel of magnanimous humanity and greatness of
heart. It means focusing on this, unconcerned with petty things or trivial
works, admitting multitudes and maintaining greatness, unwearied even
by the labor of campaigning on a national scale, confident that there is no
hardship and no crisis you cannot work through. Even if a major
emergency arises your thinking does not change—you do not abandon
people, do not abandon things, but consider and apply relevant rules,
comprehending past and present, self and other, clearly distinguishing
justice from profit, good from bad, thus bringing everything to
completeness. Of course, stability of temperament is fundamental; this
should be acknowledged as the capacity of a man of mettle.
A person of such a character as this is no different from an ordinary
man in peacetime, cordial and accommodating, someone people tend to
be attracted to. Then when it comes to major operations, critical planning,
and emergencies, he is not shaken, and his standards don’t change.
A detailed evaluation of what a man of mettle is would take forever, so
I abbreviate it.

The emptiness of the sky lets the birds fly,

The breadth of the sea sets the fish free—
A man of mettle cannot be
Without this greatness of heart.
I set out this ancient saying here for considering the capacity of the man
of mettle. The ultimate attainment of a knight is to be able to do things
freely even when undertaking major enterprises and critical planning on a
national scale, with greatness of heart, magnanimous and humane. His
heart takes in the myriad concerns of the whole world without weariness.
This may be appreciated as being like a mighty river whose end cannot
be found, or an immense mountain lodging plants and trees and birds
and beasts without being crowded.

Question Twenty: Is the judgment of the countryside also inapplicable in

matters of morality and character, humanity and justice? Are sages and
savants also nonexistent in the countryside?

Answer: The conditions and efficacy of morality and character, humanity

and justice, are not different in city and country, near or far, but when it
comes to lectures, classes, and debates, the customs of the marginal
and remote areas should be observed. This is because the branches and
leaves differ even though roots are the same.

As an analogy, plants and trees that flower and fruit become entirely
different according to their nourishment and care, or the manner and
mode in which they are groomed. Similarly, even the painting of a master
or the calligraphy of an expert will not be attractive if the mounting,
framing, or hanging is bad. Even for sages and savants the manners of
sophistication are inappropriate when they live in the countryside;
because of this knights with aspirations, men of humanity, like to go from
the countryside to the city to work.

Question Twenty One: I am not extremely stupid by nature, my

homeland is martial and active, and I even live in Edo, the capital city. I
aspire to military science and am a follower of this system. I mix with
distinguished men of great estate and have sat in attendance on men
with ambitions. As for books, I struggle over the writings of sages,
savants, and military leaders, steeping mind and body in this lore for
years. In spite of this my disposition hasn’t changed, and I haven’t
qualified as a teacher. Is there a reason?

Answer:
If you have received the transmitted tradition but have not reached its
reality, there is a flaw there. To begin with there are five points to focus
on. First, the method of instruction makes form basic and begins with
this. Correctness of form is considered the rule and the key. Four forms
of warfare are the beginning of the teaching. The form of a military
commander includes both the sophistication and substantiality of a
military commander. There are rules governing the capacities of military
commanders and the implements of military commanders. Without the
appropriate forms, without the appropriate rules, what merits the name of
warriorhood?

Second, though you’ve received the transmission of the tradition from

olden times, you haven’t effectively practiced it to the point of mastery, so
the reality is not right.
Third, though you’ve received the tradition, you prefer your own
rhetoric and rationalization, with but slight interest in the tradition, so you
don’t match up to the time-honored principles.
Fourth, the instruction of a teacher is military education, but what he
does is not military education. Everything in military teaching and training
is application of what great generals make their officers and soldiers do in
order to train them. It is because you don’t act on precedents that you
haven’t penetrated the basic mentality of warriorhood, the ways of
warriors, or the deeds of warriors.
Fifth, after acquiring competence in the forms and the principles, then
the arts of combat, the requirements of emergencies, and principles of
total invincibility and certain victory are settled. You do not know the
traditional principle of the importance of surprise in the art of certain
victory.
Using these parameters to consider the question of one’s success or
lack thereof, it may be that while you have gotten the traditions for each
task you haven’t mastered their application; your ambition is warriorhood
but your efforts have been slight. Or it may be that you’ve fallen into
theoretical discussion of arms and are ineffective in dealing with the tasks
of the day, failing to “think in the morning and practice in the evening.” Or
it may be that you can understand but not explain, or you can talk but
can’t understand. It may be that you’re inclined to theoretical inquiry and
have no heart for real action. It may be that you are unaware of your own
faults and only notice others’ faults and errors. It may be that you know
yourself but don’t know others.
The steps of this inquiry are not the same, having a thousand
differences and myriad distinctions. Ultimately, if you have your will,
develop your form, take to what is good in others, see what is bad in
others as a warning to yourself, practice principles fully in respect to self
and others, accumulating years of experience within the guidelines of
your job and status, eventually you may become famous for courageous
achievements, lauded as a man of will, a conscientious knight, a
distinguished commander, a fine general, or a good man, a wise man, a
princely man, or even a sage.
But our practice must be well-informed and thoroughly considered,
followed up with corrective introspection, personal practice, and testing
on others without confusion or danger. This is the basic intent of the
warrior leader, the mastery of perpetual survival by arms.

Footnotes

1 Minamoto Yoshitsune (1159-1189) was a half brother of Minamoto Yoritomo who

collaborated with him in the destruction of the rival Taira clan in the famous Genpei war that
consumed the 1180’s and paved the way for the establishment of the military government in
Kamakura. Yoshitsune is noted for winning brilliant victories by employing novel methods
quite different from the conventions of his time. He fell out with Yoritomo over an
appointment, and was kept out of Kamakura. He obtained a warrant from the emperor to
attack Yoritomo, who was a usurper from the imperial perspective, but was assassinated in
the process of plotting against him.
 BOOK FOUR
The Education of
Warriors
by Yamaga Soko
Author’s Preface
Why was this treatise composed? It is for a young reader to educate his posterity.
There are more than a hundred writers on military science, ancient and modern,
but their books and their prose are either prolix or excessively abbreviated, and
they only discuss combat and arts of deception, very far from the Divine Warrior.
Therefore martial arts have degenerated into schools of strategy and technique.
Ah, the doctrine of the supreme penalty surely has a reason!1

In this country, the government of the nation emerges from the military caste, but
warriorhood includes cultural education, so the martial element naturally has its
own doctrine.

Footnotes

1 This refers to Mencius’ statement, “Those who enriched lands that did not
exercise humane government were repudiated by Confucius; how much the more
those who aggressively warred for them—fighting for territory, they killed so
many people they filled the fields; contending for cities, they killed so many
people they filled the cities. This is what is called leading the land to eat human
flesh. Death is not enough for this crime. Therefore those who make war out to
be good deserve the supreme penalty.”
I. The Universal Sources
1. The Source of Humanity

There are many things between heaven and earth that derive their forms and
produce their functions by combinations of structure and energy, but it seems
logical to consider humans the most intelligent of beings. Humans are imbued
with the essences of heaven and earth, imbued with soundness of reason and
spirit; so we observe heaven above, examine the earth below, and depend on
people in between.

So when we use the unchanging nature of the Way, we comprehend the great and
the small, the fine and the crude; we find out everything past and present. That
wonder is immense; it is why humanity forms a triad with heaven and earth.

Physically there are male and female, functionally there are poor and rich, noble
and base; there is no deviating from the Way. Even if there are differences in
willpower, when you don’t follow the Way as a human being, the way of
humanity comes to an end. Then even riches and rank, longevity and health, are
all out of place—how are they worth grasping? The function of the Way of
humanity is very important indeed.

When there are exceptional complete sages whose knowledge comprehends

heaven, earth, and humanity, whose virtue nurtures all beings, and whose action
is informed by the whole world, they become lords and masters of millions,
lawmakers for myriad generations. Their Way is the Way of heaven and earth,
their virtues are the virtues of heaven and earth, their conduct is the action of
heaven and earth, their laws are the laws of heaven and earth, upon which sage
after sage has successively established the central pillar1 of leadership.

Footnotes

1 Central Pillar: an epithet of leadership, is a very ancient constitutional concept

outlined in the Hong Fan, or Universal Guidelines, a text contained in the Shang
Shu or Ancient Documents allegedly compiled in the Zhou Dynasty (1122-255
BCE), to which culture Confucians typically looked for their concepts of social
ideals. The image of the Central Pillar derives from the concept of the ruler as
bearing the burden of responsibility for social welfare and political order.
2. The Source of the Way

The Way involves no fabrication; wherever it appears is natural truth. All events
and objects have inevitable natural laws. When you deduce them truthfully, you
have actualities and principles. The ignorant do not attain this, and do not
understand, while intellectuals analyze excessively; thus there is the difference
between going too far and not far enough.

Sages establish education and institute teaching, to enable younger minds to find
out the roots of heaven and earth with the help of mature minds. When there is
truthfulness inside, it naturally shows its form and function outwardly. The way
is not accomplished just by thinking about it, but must be put into practice before
it can be accomplished.
3. The Source of Phenomena

Nature circulates inevitably through the interdependence of yin and yang and the
natural suppression and mutual production of the five elements. Even the
functions of water and fire alone among them, it appears, never cease
regeneration. Imbued with these, earth produces warmth, heat, cool, cold, rain,
dew, frost, snow, wind, thunder, flood, and drought. By their means humans
produce plenty and scarcity, disaster and fortune, flourishing and decline,
emergence and disappearance. Sages systematize them to define the four
seasons, arrange the years, months, days, and hours, determine the four
directions, distinguish the eight trigrams,1 consider past and present to recognize
what to reduce or increase, guard and rest by day and by night, make changes by
supersession. They judge success and failure according to the time. The function
of natural time is very important indeed.

Earth is still and level, with natural forms and natural conditions. Its forms
include high and low, dangerous and safe, broad and narrow, long and short. Its
conditions are created by wood and stone, mud and water. Individually, there are
natural forms and conditions, and there are artificial forms and conditions. Sages
examine the patterns of the earth, create provinces and prefectures, set
boundaries at mountains and rivers, determine border lines, organize agricultural
land, consider customs far and near, correct conduct indirectly and directly, and
establish laws coordinating heaven, earth, and humanity.

Humans and other beings belong to heaven and earth; heaven and earth are the
father and mother of all beings. Among humans there are higher and lower,
intelligent and ignorant; among other beings there are animals and plants, things
that exist by nature and things that are manufactured.

As long as there are high and low and intelligent and ignorant humans, their
functions come to fruition when their types are distinguished, offices are
established, classes are defined, education is provided, high and low
communicate, and the intelligent and the ignorant assist each other.

As long as there are animals and plants, and natural and artificial objects, people
profit from birds and beasts, fish and turtles, plants and trees, grains, salt,
minerals, metals, jades, and the manufacture of implements. There are natural
laws governing them, of which humans make systems from time to time. For
every single thing there is also a principle; its function is very important indeed.

Footnotes

1 Eight trigrams: the elemental symbols of the I Ching or Book of Changes, the
most ancient Chinese classic, studied by both Confucians and Taoists. They also
represent natural forces and phenomena, and are used to construct all sorts of
symbolic systems.
II. Essentials of Leadership
1. The Office of the Lord

Humans are the most intelligent of beings, and leaders are chief in intelligence
among humans. They eat without tilling, dress without weaving, and reside
without building. Those who are able to stand over the multitude do nothing
else.

The people are too involved in their work to have time to get to know the Way;
their behavior when uneducated is like that of birds and beasts. Therefore the
central pillar of sovereignty is set up in their midst to cause the manners of
people to return to the rule of heaven and earth and embrace the order of natural
norms.

The office of leadership involves first knowing the trouble of being a lord.
Mediocre leaders are conceited on account of their country, and take wealth and
status for ease. Therefore they have a lot of leisure, and can hardly fill up a
whole day. Hosting parties, hunting for sport, pursuing whatever is pleasant, they
know nothing of the peasants’ hardships. They don’t ask about the toil of the
common people.

Obsequious ministers also do the leader’s job, becoming shadow rulers by

connecting with the sympathies of subordinates. This is the meaning of the
saying of the Duke of Zhou,1 “Ah, the right position for a lord to take is in not
being negligent.” Thus is one capable of exerting an edifying influence.

In golden ages of the past, education was based on ethics, order was based on
family structure, and each class of people was settled in its own occupation. So
they harmonized with heaven and earth, responded to the gods, profited from the
mountains and rivers, cultivated fields, spread civilization, and were cordial in
their manners.

Footnotes
1 Dan Shao, one of the co-founders of the Zhou dynasty in the 12th century
B.C.E, a major contributor to the crafting of the cultural and legal system of
Zhou, a classical Confucian ideal.
2. Three Tasks

The office of lordship has three essentials: learning, knowledge, and action.

Learning means familiarization with the realities of things past and present. It’s
not just a matter of reading books.

Knowledge means clarifying your knowledge and information. If you study but
your knowledge is unclear, you’ll be confused. When you’re confused, you don’t
know what to do, and can’t get through.

Action means acting on what you learn and know. If you don’t put it into
practice, there’s no use to learning or knowledge.

If you want to fulfill these three tasks, there are also three assistants: mentors,
friends,1 and retainers. With mentors you can correct deviations, with friends
you can discuss details, with retainers you can observe effects.

Footnotes

1 Confucius said, “Three friends are beneficial, three friends are harmful.
Friendship with the honest, the truthful, and the learned is beneficial; friendship
with the ingratiating, the hypocritical, and the obsequious is harmful.”
3. Admonition

Negligence when not admonished is natural. It is like the opposition of yin and
yang, the mutual suppression and mutual fostering of water and fire, metal and
water, cyclically producing one another. This is true even of the eternity of
heaven and earth; how much more of human affairs! How much more of the
family, the nation, the world!

In general, admonition refers to mind, body, home, country, and the world, all in
terms of principle, form, object, function, time, and place. It is on this that civil
and military authority rely.
4. Establishing Offi ces

When there are superiors, there are subordinates; when there are rulers, there are
ministers. This is a material law of heaven and earth. When ministers do not
divide their offices, their functions are inadequate. Therefore when the hundred
offices are indefinite, each is uncertain of its role, so the court is not correct.
When the court is not correct, ruler and minister are confused. This is why the
origin of established offices is inevitable.

Essential among the hundred offices are civil and military affairs. Overall, one
man is made an exemplar, a model of conduct for the whole country, directly
serving the virtue of the lord, deciding affairs in myriad situations, a prime
minister for civil affairs and a general for military affairs.

Society is especially decadent these days, and talented people are hard to find, or
they pursue different occupations. The selection of a prime minister and a
general is very serious. But character, knowledge, and courage constitute a
sequence. Character means mental balance and personal cultivation. It is simple
and uncomplicated, harmonious and not harsh. Knowledge means skillful
strategy, intelligence, knowing self and others, knowing heaven and earth,
familiarity with past and present, and distinction of black and white. Courage is
effort in action, it is boldness and daring, it is being imperturbable and
indomitable, it is awe-inspiring gravity, it is straightforward simplicity. Someone
who has all three of these qualities is called a great minister or a great general.

The prime minister and the general each has his own responsibilities of office.
When the ruler chooses them correctly, he can entrust everything to them
without hesitation. When the selection of department chiefs and officials is
inappropriate, they cause clogs, unaware, so the conditions of subjects are not
communicated. So their selection should not be done casually. Take into account,
in that context, intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and loyalty.
5. Selection and Training

The Strategies of Gao Yao1 says, “Don’t leave offices empty; humans stand in
for the forces of Nature.” Generally speaking, the way to accomplish order is in
finding people. The way to find people is all in selection and training.

When the Zhou Dynasty was flourishing, it used a method of local nomination
and hometown selection to get men. This is how earnest the interest in finding
people was in ancient times.

Even the sages consider it hard to know people. That is because human
subjectivity fabricates falsehood every day, acting so selfish as to dare deceive
one another, forming factions to overshadow each other, while claiming it to be
in the public interest.

If you unsuspectingly appoint people without merit to office, and trust words
without wondering, then subjective artifice will grow day by day, until you can
no longer distinguish who is worthy or not. This is why even the method of local
nomination and hometown selection is inapt for later ages.

The method of testing men is by their words and conduct. Each has three
essentials. To examine them, eight methods and eight indicators are employed.
Without at least having methods of testing, administration of security and
observation, and principles of examination and appointment, true and false will
not be clear.

When people are uneducated, they are prone to prejudice and false conceit. If
they are incorrectly educated, they fall into un-orthodox eccentricities. People all
have an inclination for good, but because they’re uneducated they are ignorant of
social principles. When they are not educated and trained, they don’t fully
comprehend these matters. If they are not slowly steeped and developed,
efficiency is unclear.

Therefore the decadence in education without training is clever talk and eloquent
insincerity. Education and training must sustain one another for things to be
clear.

In ancient times the method of selection and promotion through the school
system began in hometowns and ended in the capital city. They taught virtuous
conduct and arts of the Way, then promoted the intelligent and able. This is
where election and education were interdependent.

When education and training are unknown, there are no diligent and earnest
people among the lower classes, so the process of selection and promotion
doesn’t work. When there is selection and promotion but no education and
training, there are no knights of any service to their superiors.

Generally speaking, when superiors employ subordinates, they do not merely

seek utility, but have them educate and train others. This is the virtue of the
leader, so even when he appoints a prime minister and a general he still
establishes rules: cultivate yourself, rectify external defects, be dignified in
appearance, be loyal and diligent, develop and educate subordinates.

There are, moreover, methods of development and education to teach knights.

Development means improvement, capable cultivation. Education means
learning and practice. There is physical cultivation and there is psychological
cultivation. Education has knights establish their will, study literature and arts,
master etiquette and harmony, speak correctly, regulate their appearance, and
make their manners cordial.

Unless the people are adequately educated, they will be indolent in their work
and have no normal production. With many idlers in a state, the state finances
will be inadequate as expenditures go out day by day; the people cannot help
having no constancy. When this is widespread, the country falls into chaos.
Therefore when you teach these occupations, define their status, establish
education, correct their customs, and make rewards and punishments clear, the
people will have enough to eat, and a civilian militia will also be effective.

Footnotes

1 Strategies of Gao Yao: a text contained in the Chinese classic Shang Shu or
Ancient Documents
6. Military Preparedness

Military preparedness is the basis of being alert. The sacred warrior of the Book
of Change, Kings Wen and Wu in the Documents 1 — all the sages discuss this.
All beings created by Nature, even animals and plants, have their own means of
preserving their lives—how much the more so human beings! How much the
more so human leaders!

Being careful of your attitude, guarding your speech and facial expression, being
careful as you walk, stand, sit, and recline, observing the proprieties of the four
seasons and the daytime and nighttime, being careful in court courtesies,
regulation of city construction, palace security, castle administration,
encampments outside the citadel, safeguarding suburbs and countryside,
preparations of nearby states, imperial organization—in peace or in chaos, be
serious about all this, be prepared for all this. This is the basis of alertness and
military preparedness.

Formation is settling, in that people quietly settle down. It means setting people
out in lines to instruct them. A standard court ceremony as well as an ad-hoc
administrative method, in military affairs it is called formation. In reality they’re
the same thing.

Generally speaking, for superiors and subordinates to face each other, rulers and
subjects to protect each other, is a natural formation. It is the way of sky and
earth, the norm of the individual. Subordinates gather facing the superiors; the
ruler commands the center, in charge of orders. This is what is meant by the
presence of stillness within motion.

When superiors and subordinates protect each other, they naturally create a form,
circling four sides, organized to be readily deployable far or near. Relative
number and strength, advance and retreat, and strategic projection of
appearances, each produce specific forms, depending on time and terrain. It’s a
matter of deducing the realities of the situation to form the structure.

Considering the composition of teams, the advantages of equipment, the

interdependent use of movement and stillness, yin and yang, surprise and
convention, appearance and intention, internal and external, there are natural
measures in calculating manpower and materiel, timing and terrain. In later
times, names have been affixed according to those formations.

Stillness is the root of movement. The formation of movement is called a march.

A march has its own structure; the rule is for movement and stillness to protect
each other, such that it is easy to set up a battle formation. Generally speaking,
on a march the commander, officers, and soldiers protect each other, equipment
and transport vehicles are properly placed. Safeguarding their deployment in all
conditions, following regulations, advancing and withdrawing in an orderly
fashion, signals agreed upon so as to be prepared for the unexpected—these are
the rules of the march. When it comes to deployment of troops according to
terrain, timing, and change, these must of course be taught and practiced.

Encampment is when people stop, form a circle, and keep each other on the
alert. When squads are set out in battle formations for a long time, not a matter
of days, people tire and gaps occur. There-fore equipment is used to replace
human power; wood, bamboo, and earth constructions are built for temporary
barriers. Their structures should be such as to provide for shelter from rain and
for rest, in addition to stationing squadrons.

So make the equipment in a battle formation light and the walls of the
encampment crude. Consider how to call the inside and outside guards; consider
curved and straight and square and round forms; consider measures of relative
breadth and density; consider construction of cabins, walls, and moats.
Consideration of roads and open space, establishment of alerts and signals;
setting up observers and keeping out spies; making rules strict, figuring distances
and setting up temporary barriers; discerning the weather patterns; and warding
offcold and heat—this is the general outline.

The distinction of commander, officers, and soldiers; differences in numbers;

where to set up equipment and store baggage; quantities of water, food, wood,
and bamboo; calculations of danger and ease, where to go and what to avoid—
these are organized according to the time.

Land regulation refers to the admonition of kings and lords to build barriers. The
land has natural formations, human labor makes constructions, and there are
substitutes for human labor. Whenever rulers establish cities according to the
terrain, there are distant establishments of prefectures and provinces, and
regulation of rural districts. At hand, there is the construction of the suburbs and
the citadel.
Now a camp is not for the long term, so the citadel is where formation is
perfected. Battle formations and encampments are regulated entirely according
to the terrain. The principle is based on the battle front, the form is made for
security. The people and the ground are interdependent, danger and ease are
relative; all that matters is inner and outer security. Now when deployment is the
first concern, occupy easy terrain; when defense is the foremost concern, stay on
inaccessible ground.

To make the easy inaccessible, set up impediments high and low. Walls, moats,
barriers, shields, bamboo and wooden fences, all have their functions. Use them
according to how light or heavy they are, depending on whether they’re to be
used inside or outside.

To make the inaccessible easy, set up facilities for free passage. Roads, boats,
bridges, stairs, and doors have their functions; observe the terrain to consider
their uses in order to organize them. When they are organized in accord with
both the terrain and the time, then they complement one another.

Generally speaking, formation is formulation of reason, while reason is

rationalization of formation. Formation is rooted in reason, rationale is rooted in
form. Where there are form and reason, there is actually a corresponding
phenomenon. When you discourse on reason without comprehending formation,
that doctrine is aberrant and has no use. If you speak of formation without
clarifying reason, the application is alienated and obsessive.

Footnotes

1 Documents: the Chinese classic Shang Shu or Ancient Documents, one of the
main source books of Confucianism.
7. Rules and Regulations

Rules are rules to be followed; orders issue rules, enjoining them on the
multitude. Rules and orders give verbal forms to the guidelines of heaven and
earth, setting up limits so people won’t go beyond them.

There are instructional orders, seasonal orders, and situational orders. Human
feelings always change according to time, place, and events. A commander must
observe those occasions at the outset, secretly take precautions against what they
conceal, consider them in light of natural laws, and induce people to take to
what’s good. This is what rules and orders come from and relate to.

Rules are rooted in loyalty, respect, care, and conscientiousness. Orders

distinguish manners according to hierarchy, relationship, precedence, and
comparative refinement. Regulations facilitate functions and fulfill needs by
implements and objects. Agreements use formal terms to communicate
commitments and eliminate uncertainties. In civil life there are implements and
objects for utility, ritual, and music. In military affairs there are implements and
objects for essential preparedness and communication of commitments. So if the
regulation isn’t according to agreement, the actual objects won’t be appropriate.

Forms are the means by which the eyes are enabled to sense things, while names
are the means by which the ears and mouth are enabled to refer to things. Forms
and names being what ear, eye, and mouth experience, they are what affect
feelings. So they have a great many uses, in communicating far and near, uniting
the inaccessible and the easy, engaging the feelings of the multitude, advising
them of the ordinary and the abnormal.

The use of sounds such as of gongs and drums, as well as flags, fires, and
various signs, depends on the time, according to the place.
8. Internalization and Examination

Internalization and examination mean effectively educating internally and

examining its development externally. If you educate without examination,
principles will not be actualized, and suffocation will ensue. Therefore when
what may seem suitable in private testing is not examined thoroughly, it surely
will not be perfected. There will invariably be something concealed, and one
should not make assumptions about the whole of affairs or objects based on but a
part.

There is refinement of atmosphere, refinement of speech, refinement of ears and

eyes, refinement of face, hand, and foot. If these are not internalized and
examined, it will, it seems, be quite mistaken to wonder why they are not ready
when needed one day in an emergency.

When the Zhou Dynasty was flourishing, ritual hunts were conducted four times
a year, with a major expedition every three years. They’d call the excursion a
peacetime war, refer to the conclusion as lining up the troops, toast their return at
the ancestral shrine, and count the spoils of war. They called it a peacetime war
instead of peacetime hunting, and referred to spoils of war instead of the catch of
the hunt, in order to use this to teach military matters and cultivate awe-inspiring
conduct.
9. Reward and Punishment

Good doesn’t happen without encouragement, and evil doesn’t stop without
chastisement. Reward and punishment are used to educate people to each resort
to what is good for them. They are the means by which the ruler controls
subordinates, lessons for teaching and training. Words and acts of loyalty, duty,
and bravery are weighed according to their efficacy, as they apply to the time
and place. When rewards and punishments are out of order, people will
invariably become negligent.
III. War Strategy
1. Military Education

What is basic and essential all depends on military education. There-fore, when a
leader can capably comprehend the means and ends, educate subjects and
cultivate the people, thoroughly training inside and out, examining actualities to
consider their success or otherwise, and make this clear by means of reward and
punishment, then military education has been successful. Only then should arms
be employed.
2. Planning and Intelligence

The principles of planning and intelligence are to plan ahead and always be
informed, broadening seeing and hearing. When you search inside and out by
watching, observing, and examining, nothing is concealed.

Planning is keeping strategy secret within; intelligence is knowing by seeing and

hearing outside. When you plan and know inside and outside, it is clear who will
win and lose even without fighting.

Generally speaking, in matters of the commander’s principles, intelligence, and

methodology, the development of officers and troops, the amount of supplies and
equipment, and the advantages of weather and terrain, with skillful planning and
intelligence there is no confusion.

Planning requires the employment of people of superior intellect. Intelligence

requires three kinds of spying—remote, nearby, and anticipatory. These won’t
work without the right methods.

Strategic spying on the harmony of a ruler and ministers, or superior and

subordinates, may be done by using officials, or compatriots, or secret agents, or
interlopers’ arts. When strategic spying is successful and you find out their
condition, rival states will submit.

The method of employing spies requires selection of personnel. There are times
when it is necessary, and there are places where it is imperative. There are ways
of using secret agents. There is a restriction that when you are doing detailed
planning, outside agents are not to watch inside. When information and
observation are lacking, external affairs are not watched. When strategic spying
isn’t done, plans do not succeed. How can military affairs succeed if there are no
men of superior intellect inside, and no one to look and listen carefully outside?
3. Principles of Warfare

Train repeatedly before warring, making the principles clear. Give your pledge to
the knights, making commitments firm. Be careful about internal and external
investigation and observation. On the eve of battle, be on high alert, and be strict
about rules. Considering proper measure, be circumspect after battle, sharing the
spoils to reward merit. These are principles of warfare.
4. Battlegrounds

To go to another’s territory to fight is called invasion. Invaders always go

by way of difficult terrain, overcoming perils and crossing defiles,
becoming most acquainted with those methods. Those who go do so with
security, so they lose none of their momentum or force. They do not look
down upon the other, and do not covet small gains. Taking advantage of
the food and water, making signals clear, facilitating their way back,
reassuring the populace but seizing their wives and daughters, cutting
offtheir supply routes, burning their stores, taking over the places where
they’d seek security, thus forcing them to have no choice but to come and
fight—this is turning invasion into occupation.

Waiting to fight on your own territory is called being on the defensive.

Harmonize the citizens, keep wives and children for security, make food
and water accessible, be careful of supplies, occupy narrows and defiles.
Make the enemy keep their troops exposed for a long time, cutting
offtheir food and water, occupying the roads, blocking their way back,
threatening their rear, breaking their spirit, exhausting the strength of their
troops. When you take advantage of this, you’ll benefit without fail.
Generally speaking, there are grounds for defense, support, and
battle; there are times when it is necessary to fight and times when it is
necessary to defend; there are fake troops and false surrender, which
can be used in many ways to deceive opponents.
These are battles of aggression and defense.
Going to besiege a citadel is called attack. Besieging a citadel is an
inferior strategy, used only when unavoidable; unless you have five or ten
times the opponent’s strength you don’t surround and besiege. On the
other side there are fundamentals and outgrowths, material and mental
factors, and differences in distance, accessibility, order, and urgency.
There are differences in encircling and besieging a citadel.
When encircling, you set up a battle formation on critical ground, and
occupy the strategic positions of the situation. Once you are not in
danger, then you observe the opponent’s condition. Cut offfood and water
supplies, take over the places they need. Reassure the local people,
respect boundaries, and when your opponents leave then you become
the defender.
 When besieging, encamp securely on critical ground, prepare shields
against arrows and missiles, sharpen your weapons and secure your
battle formation, with fore and rear in communication, supporting each
other in movement and at rest, with a strict system of signals. To take
over without attacking and conquer a citadel without a siege, is
considered foremost. It is essential to attack where there are no people.
There are methods of withdrawing without conquering, and also methods
of putting in troops after conquering.
As for methods of defending a citadel, the formation to be used is
whatever is necessary. First the commander settles his resolve and then
fortifies the feelings of the multitude, getting rid of doubt and hesitation.
Food and water are supplied sufficiently, all tools and implements are
stored in abundance, troops are distributed and battle formations
practiced. Castle walls, ramparts, gates, and doors are prepared for
defensive battle, signals and orders are strictly systematized.
Observing outside, examining conditions, you weary opponents and
induce them to err. Guarding and going out as appropriate, each has its
function. When others surround you, you must fight; when others attack,
you just defend—this how to battle on the attack and on the defense.
Defense and attack are one rule, but aggression and defense are
interdependent, and their functions are fulfilled when defense and attack
are properly timed.
In a battle on level, accessible ground, there is advantage in forming a
battle front with a mass of troops. On high ground, observe the enemy’s
condition. Hide in the woods, set up barriers, conceal troops, divide into
groups, tire the enemy out, watch over front and rear, facilitate food
supply routes.
In mountaintop fighting, conceal your forms; send your soldiers on
circuitous routes, coordinating advance and withdrawal, light and heavy
troops supporting each other, not losing any momentum.
In fighting at the foot of a mountain, hold out long enough to make the
opponent stay put, waiting until they’re tired out, then lure them down
with the prospect of gain. Set your signals skillfully, and be careful of the
road behind.
This is mountain combat.
A ravine is no place for a battle. If you come to one, search for
enemies hiding there and get out right away, without halting. If you are in
a bind, just use strategy.
When you are waiting to battle, there is advantage in cutting off the
front and rear, blocking supply routes, and closing in like a scissors to
strike. On territory where the roads are narrow and the paths are steep,
the ones on the move and the ones awaiting are all in the same straits.
On densely wooded ground, there is advantage in deploying a small
number and setting up an ambush. The ones on the move must be alert
on the lookout, find ambushers and burn them out, according to the wind.
The ones who await stay put, tire the enemy with diversions, and fight
with fire and ambushers. This is valley forest combat.
Cover for ambush is entirely dependent on the lay of the land. It is a
matter of concealing troops physically to assail enemies on the move,
acting unexpectedly to confuse them.
When there are a lot of soldiers, there are many uncertainties in the
use of signals. The appropriate timing for ambushers to rise up is all a
matter of observing the energy of the moment.
To find ambushers, consider the lay of the land and look for
indications, or figure out where they are strategically, or find out by
searching. When you are alert to the unexpected, there’s nothing
ambushers can do.
These are the principles of ambush fighting.
To control a river, you have to have strategies for defense and
combat. When defending, carefully consider the advantages of the land,
calculate the force of the water, set up barriers and stick by them,
causing opponents to get tired out and grow weary. Set up spies and
lookouts to observe their condition, apportion troops to form battle lines,
set out ambushers and spoilers, send light troops to attack those half
across; those who maintain the follow-up fight, occupying the barriers in
defense, are reinforcement troops. When you don’t keep to your battle
plan, once they have crossed over you’ll be at a loss for a strategy.
Crossing is only done in the interests of advantage. The rule for
crossing is to observe the lay of the land and the conditions. However, it
is done by strategic division and combination. It is imperative to be
careful about configuration on the verge of crossing and after having
crossed.
This is river combat.
 Boat battle means methods of land-to-boat combat and boat-to-boat
combat. There are large and small vessels, military and service vessels,
designs for river and for sea. There are considerations of tides, currents,
wind and rain, places for mooring and stationing. In applying these,
moreover, there are principles of forming battle fronts, operating vessels,
making naval stations, agreeing on signals, fighting and defending. And
there are also matters of setting up facilities for supplying equipment and
machinery, food and water.
In battle between land and boat, on land it is comparable to occupying
a river; scouting far afield, observing from on high, finding out conditions.
As enemies are about to land their boats, sink them and attack them right
away. If they manage to debark onto land, seize their boats and cut
offtheir rear; employ ambushers and light troops, with emphasis on
subsequent security.
As for the boats, it’s like crossing a river; wear opponents out while at
ease yourself, agitate opponents while staying calm yourself. Attack
unexpectedly, strike the unwary. Defend and rest at appropriate times,
stay or leave according to the terrain. Let those on sea and land support
each other, use shielded scaffolds to shelter from arrows and shot, take
down tents and conceal the troops. There is even a ruse of burning boats
and sinking supplies.
Boat-to-boat battle is done only when unavoidable. Sometimes
momentum is maximized by taking advantage of wind and tide, or
machinery is used to assist in battle. There are methods of offense and
defense that are employed in boat-to-boat battle.
As for a naval station, consider the land, figure out the opponent, go
out and in at appropriate times, and tie down the boats in conformity with
the current. Determining signals and gathering kindling and water each
involve practical principles.
This is boat battle.
Fighting with water means using water to help your battle. Taking
away their spirit and cutting offtheir retreat, you flood and drown them.
Therefore to refrain from camping or making a battle formation on
observing the lay of the land is to keep the troops useful. Wetlands and
mud flats are no place for battle—double your march, keeping yourself
away from them while luring opponents toward them, with you facing
them while opponents have their backs to them. When they try to cross
over, to defend with pitfalls and bamboo spikes, or battling by cutting
offthe rear and setting up ambushes, each has its uses. When you
yourself have no choice but to cross, first send someone to find a way
over. Make a separate path, call on combat strategy—the direction and
distance depend on the relative positions of you and your opponents.
5. The Time to Fight

Generally speaking, there are morning, afternoon, and evening battles. The mood
of morning is keen, the mood of afternoon is lazy, the mood of evening is to
head back home. These are natural tendencies.

In the year there are differences of cold and heat; in the day there are distinctions
of day and night, dark and light. Times may tend to survival or destruction,
fortune or disaster. For combat, timing is uniquely important.

To fight by night, consider the enemy’s mood, take advantage of their gaps by
the dark of night to create confusion and take away their energy. Select the
soldiers, keep equipment light, agree on signals, use tactics to tire opponents out.
Startle them with fires and drums, have your defense and offense support each
other, make your strategy according to your aim, go out and in at opportune
junctures, with emphasis on rapidity of advance and withdrawal.

For night defense, there is strictness of formation, encampment, and signaling.

When enemies come, hold out to tire them, eventually eroding their discipline.
Then either attack their rear or occupy their return route.

When there is violent wind and rain, that is a time not to fight. Avoid it, but if
you can’t help it, then make your battle front solid, station your equipment, and
wait for the storm to stop. When enemies get caught out, take advantage of the
opportunity to startle them left and right, cut offtheir rear, send out ambushes,
and strike while they’re in disarray. The use of the timing of the weather is very
great indeed!
6. Practicalities of Combat

When commanding a multitude in battle, it is especially important to divide up

your numbers in formation and encampment. The way this is done requires
barriers and signals to be clear. As for the lay of the land, this depends on even
ground. Battle strategy is kept carefully, configurations are made complete. The
mood is made spirited, work and leisure is balanced, guard duty and rest are
timely. If you depend on large numbers and forget about practicalities, acting
impulsively in eagerness for gain, you will eventually fall into an enemy‘s trap.

When commanding a small number in battle, select your soldiers and solidify
your lines; consider the timing, go by the lay of the land, conceal your forms and
arouse your spirits, causing opponents to weary and lose their coherence, cutting
offtheir rear and striking in the center. There is particular advantage in night
ambush fighting, taking advantage of conditions to advance softly, using the
element of surprise when you see an opportunity.

This is how to deploy large and small forces.

Deploying infantry and cavalry together is a practicality of the battle formation.

Deploying cavalry or infantry alone is an adaptation according to the time.

Mounted combat requires level ground. Going in from left and right, you startle
them from front and rear; swiftness is uniquely important.

In infantry combat there are officers and soldiers. When infantry encounters
cavalry, there is benefit in setting up temporary barriers and waiting and
watching for an opening.

As for the deployment of foot soldiers, let them concentrate on training with
their equipment, getting their formations and principles straight, advancing and
withdrawing in an orderly manner, making their signals clear, calculating
distances, preparing for security and safety.

In combat there are times to rush and times to relax. There are uses for surprise
and straightforward tactics, there are structures for lines and squads, there are
methods of mixing infantry and cavalry in battle formations, and there are
methods for deploying foot soldiers alone. The orders of chief officers are most
exacting; when cavalry and infantry are each unable to regroup, then their
deployment is not entirely effective.

These are the uses of cavalry and infantry.

In fighting with fire, accelerants are employed depending on wind and dryness,
according to the ground cover. Generally speaking, fire is alarming and burns
quickly, so fire is used as an auxiliary weapon. Burning forests, villages, and
stockpiles, raising smoke, each has its uses. Just be careful to keep watching the
direction of the wind.

In defensive combat, strategic mutual reinforcement of fire and arms is

advantageous.

In order to utilize fire, first tear down houses and cut down trees, being careful
of your own supplies and preparing water buckets, having troops at the ready
once fire breaks out, guarding all gaps, calmly awaiting developments. This is
the use of fire fighting.

When you go forth in pursuit, there’s no thought of stopping; lines and squads
scatter, moving and resting at different times, so on the advance you use signals
to alert and advise, units and squads each on guard, keeping infantry and cavalry
in unison, lining up the equipment, the brave inspiring the timid.

Chasing the fleeing, when you overtake them and fight, be bold, not looking for
ambushers, not keeping up sustained battle. Limiting the range, therefore, and
determining the time, keeping the troops whole and uniting their minds, there are
arts of hasty and unhurried pacing, light and heavy arms.

When you withdraw troops, they’ll be scared; so practice your formations and
make sure of your signals, help each other defend and fight, know the lay of the
land precisely and consider the timing to withdraw; then the enemy will not be
able to overtake you.

When you retreat in defeat, your soldiers’ spirits will all be down. So set up
impasses and consider timing, contriving ruses to confuse the enemy, settling the
troops with the thought of death in combat. Their configuration shouldn’t be
considered essential.

These are the practicalities of combat, on the advance and in retreat.

7. Essentials of Combat

Those who fight well plan well. A superior army wins without fighting. One who
plans well is conversant with conditions, opportunities, configurations, and
functions. The enemy is always kept off guard and unprepared; your defense and
attack are elsewhere than he anticipates. Therefore officers and soldiers are
united, as warriors to the death. Unfailingly firm in defense, they invariably
seize what they attack.

Generally speaking, the form of a militia is like water dripping down and fire
flaming up, its momentum like the way water tends to flow downward and fire
takes to what’s dry. Making firm the roots of their actions—surprise and
straightforward, circulating, movement and stillness—when they defend each
other and fight together vertically and horizontally with the fore guard
responding to the rear guard, the way to run a battle is all in strategy, and that is
a matter of actually understanding heaven, earth, and human beings.
 BOOK FIVE
Primer of
Martial Education
by Yamaga Soko
1. Rising Early, Retiring at Night
The general rule for knighthood is first to rise early, wash and groom, dress
properly, including accessories; cultivate the mood of dawn, acknowledge
gratitude to your lord and your father, think about the household tasks of the day,
reflect that you receive your physical body from your parents, so the beginning
of filial piety is not to cause it harm, while the end of filial piety is to establish
yourself, put principles into practice, and elevate your name for future
generations to distinguish your parents.

After that, give instructions for household tasks, and meet with visitors and
guests. If you are in the service of a lord, turn out promptly for duty. In serving
your parents, go look in on them to see how they are. When on duty outside,
your planning should not go beyond your position. In attendance on elders,
respect them as you would your father and elder brothers, being deferential and
not arguing.

Associate with friends in civilized ways, foster humaneness by friendships.

When you have beneficial friends, ask them about things. Be truthful, not
deceptive. Always think of the duties of knighthood, never being negligent. This
is the way to perfect your social relations.

In public service, the way to go is to show up before others in the morning and
leave after others at night. After returning home, first look in on your parents,
with a gentle mood and a cheerful expression. On taking your seat, inquire about
household matters, assess their order of urgency, and see to those tasks.

If you are free, review the day’s activities and events. If there is time, do some
reading to reflect on the right way for knights and recognize just and unjust
actions.

Once the sun has gone down, see to precautions for nighttime. Going to bed, rest
your mind and relax your body. Allow your soldiers physical repose.
2. Living at Ease
A tradition says, “In public life, forty is the age of strong service.” Consider the
capacities of your children and grandchildren, and even at the age of twenty have
them experience public service.

Even when knights serve a lord they have a lot of free time. If they have
unfortunately not entered the service of a lord—perhaps because of the early
death of their parents, or because they’re too far away for duty morning and
night—so they live at ease with a lot of time on their hands, if they become
negligent and don’t maintain the family profession, they’re almost like birds and
beasts.

The Great Learning1 says, “When immature people live at ease and act
immorally, there is nothing they won’t do.”

Therefore knights living in leisure need instruction and admonition.

Rise early, wash and groom yourself, go out and meet your men, greet your
guests, inspect the horses in the yard, and take a horseback ride. Eat breakfast
promptly, then after washing your hands and cleaning your teeth practice
swordsmanship, archery, shooting, or spear fighting. All of these are methods of
improving the physique and developing coordination.

So betake yourself to a teacher, or invite a teacher over, without further delay. If

you slack offfor long, your hands and feet won’t do as you will, you’ll be
uncoordinated, sluggish, and out of condition, inevitably compromising the work
proper to a knight.

If you still have free time, read and reflect on the duties of warriors, study
military science, and inspect your weapons and armor.

When a knight’s will is like this, he is single-minded and un-distracted; no

wayward or distorted ideas occur to him. So Mencius said, “When people have
no consistent occupation, they have no consistent mind.”

Footnotes

1 Great Learning: Daxue, a Confucian work, one of the so-called Four Books
taught in Japanese primary schools in the Tokugawa period. The other three are
the Lunyu or Discourses and Sayings of Confucius, the book of Mencius, and
The Mean.
3. Speech and Interaction
Speech and interaction are outcomes of intention. This is why it is said that even
a joke comes from thought. When a knight’s speech is not correct, his conduct is
invariably loose. One should be particularly wary of weak words and
contemptible talk.

The technical terms for combat methods, military maneuvers, weaponry, and
cavalry each have their proper usage. Speeches for ambassadors and for guests,
for funerals and for feasts, for shrine and for court, each have their models.
When speech is inconsiderate and interaction is inappropriate, this is impolite. It
is sure to bring on trouble.

Topics that knights should typically talk about are issues of justice and injustice,
tales of ancient battles, acts of bravery and righteousness past and present, the
flourishing and decline of righteousness among warriors over the ages. All of
these ought to be discussed in order to become alert to present-day errors. When
you carp on other’s errors, or criticize the government of the time, or chat about
amusements, or talk about sex, your mind will inevitably get carried away, and
your conduct will surely sink. The human heart is very interested in this, so don’t
say anything improper.
4. Walking, Standing, Sitting,
Reclining
When you walk, don’t take shortcuts, don’t get in other people’s way, don’t act
impolitely, don’t say anything unnecessary. Once you’ve gone outside your own
gate, be as if you were facing enemies. When you go out, you should forget
home.

When sitting, keep your bearing correct; have your equipment at hand, and never
forget to be on the alert for the unexpected.

When reclining, don’t lie like a corpse. Keep your swords by your side, make
sure security is strict by night.

You should do all your work in advance of others.

Generally speaking, in the way of knighthood, if you let your mind wander for
even a while, you’ll surely lose constancy in an emergency, and your whole life’s
labor will be lost in a single incident.

Since we can’t know when an emergency may arise, how could we be lax? The
Records of Manners says, “What makes people human is courtesy. The
beginning of courtesy is in presenting a proper appearance, regulating your facial
expression, and harmonizing your speech. Once your appearance is proper, your
expression is regulated, and your speech is harmonious, then courtesy is there.”
5. Clothing, Food, and Housing
If you are ashamed of poor clothing and poor food, and want a comfortable
dwelling, you are not a man of will.

Clothing, food, and housing all have class distinctions. When excessive, they are
immoderate and expensive, exhausting finances and making military
preparedness impossible. When they are sub-standard, the motive is invariably
stinginess, which isn’t right either. To keep the correct moderation is the rule of
knights.

Generally speaking, there are limitations to the attire of knights. In practice, it

always has to be suitable for military readiness. There are norms for dimension
and design.

Unpolished rice should be the staple of the diet, to share the same fare as the
soldiers. Knights who are sickly and have digestive disorders should nourish
themselves physically for the rest of their lives, while having the courage to be
constant to death all along.

Housing should be given little thought. When your house is comfortable and
your rooms are beautiful, your mind is on your home—this is not the mentality
of a man of will. The dimensions and functional layout of your house should of
course conform to military style.

Legend says that when Emperor Yao reigned over the land, he didn’t wear
brocade or finery; his palace walls and residence were not plastered, the beams,
rafters, and pillars were not planed. Reeds grew all over the grounds and yet he
didn’t have them cut. He kept out the cold with deerskin. His clothes were only
enough to cover him. He ate unpolished grain, with spinach soup. Because of
their labor, he didn’t infringe upon the people’s time when they were tilling and
spinning. Humbling his heart and minimizing his ambition, he pursued a course
avoiding artificial contrivance in anything.
6. Money and Material Things
Money is customarily used for providing for the impoverished, helping out the
destitute, eliminating shortages, inviting savants, and gathering knights. Material
things are for fulfilling present needs.

The way for a knight to be is to devote yourself to your lord, constant to death all
along the path. This is a maxim of men of old. If you are stingy with money and
take an interest in material things, martial duty will be missing and you’ll hardly
be able to forget home in an emergency.

Those who are intensely concerned with their homes abandon duty, flee death,
bring censure on themselves and disgrace their fathers and grandfathers. What is
there to enjoy about having a human face but an animal mind?

Throughout history there have been countless wealthy people who lost their
nations and destroyed their families, or traded themselves for money; how can
we be casual about this?

The money that circulates in society is society’s wealth, not the wealth of one
man. Profitably exchanged, it makes myriad things available. That is why it is
called wealth.

People with money all speak of avoiding expense and don’t know how to spend.
When gold and jewels fill the halls and there are money and goods in the
storerooms, yet one doesn’t know how to use it, the wealth of the world
stagnates in one place and does not work for society. What is more costly than
that?

When people like money, they usually hoard it, so sages don’t consider gold and
silver themselves to constitute wealth, and they don’t value hard-to-get goods.
How much more confused it is to store pottery, paintings, bronze and iron
vessels, considering this to be wealth, trading a thousand pieces of gold for this!
7. Food, Drink, and Sexual Desire
Food, drink, and sex are humans’ main desires. Food and drink are for
nourishing the physical body, to act with courtesy and morality. Sexual desire is
to produce heirs, and appease lust.

Everyone has natural measures. Knights are chiefs over the three civilian classes,
with even more burdensome business, their professional responsibilities being
extremely serious—how can we fail to be careful?

Eating too much causes illness, and drinking too much starts arguments. Or else
you get sleepy and feel heavy, so you’re lazy about a lot of things, you neglect
your occupation, and your work piles up. So the cost is very great.

When sexual promiscuity leads to domestic arguments, clandestine

engagements, and loss of vital energy, then plans do not succeed. The
responsibility is heavy and the road is long, so this is considered an important
admonition.
8. Falconry and Hunting
Falconry and hunting are ancient institutions.

Birds and beasts that ravage fields and gardens should be killed as a matter of
course. The way to be a knight involves knowing the lay of the land, the defiles
and dangers, distances, mountains and rivers; surveying the varieties of customs,
popular songs, and local opinion; personally going into the marshes and forests
wielding bow and arrow, gun, sword, and spear, becoming nimble of hand and
foot, training your body; considering the abilities of your knights and soldiers,
and reviewing the warriors’ exercises.

Knights must not fail to work diligently at these things, but there are proper
times for them, appropriate seasons. If you disregard the time and ignore the
season, you ravage the fields and gardens and waste the people’s work even
worse than birds and beasts.

Everything a knight does, even be it entertainment, always has a reason. When

you don’t assess relative importance, you’re always liable to be destructive.
9. Giving and Receiving
Giving and receiving include the duties of ruler and subject, superior and
subordinate, and the courtesies of social relations, about which knights must be
circumspect.

In the laws it says, “When the army has no money, warriors do not enlist. When
the army gives no rewards, warriors do not go. A fish is found hooked where
there’s tasty bait; there will always be men willing to risk death where there are
serious rewards.”

When fish take the bait, they get hooked; when people receive salaries, they
obey their superiors. Enlisting people by rewarding salaries is an ancient system.
Even if you have the wherewithal, if you don’t distribute it soldiers won’t come
follow you. You’ll just be an ordinary man, an isolated individual.

If you pay too much, your resources will run dry and salaries will be stinting;
then how can you arrange military readiness? Therefore the rule for knighthood
is to calculate income and expenses, and consider proper measure in payment
and prizes.

When prizes and payment are not made in a principled way, then men of
principle will not enlist. A tradition says, “Employing moral men is not a matter
of money. Offers of inducement aren’t accepted even by beggars.” Should we
not be circumspect?

When acceptance is ethical, it’s not a matter of the material value, but whether
it’s proper to accept. If there is anything unethical or unprincipled involved, even
an enormous salary, or nationwide authority, should not be accepted.

As for knights serving in office who want to get more than their salaries, beyond
their position, in excess of their measure, do they want extra spending money for
extravagance? Or what about the vulgar who stint to save; do they want rooms
full of gold? Both are unreasonable.

Giving and receiving are matters of which knights ought to be careful. Some say
that for a knight, instead of stinting to save money, it’s better to spend yet still
have a surplus.
10. Instruction of Heirs
The gratitude of heirs is natural, produced by continuity of blood-line. No social
relationship is closer. After we die, if our heirs are wayward, our families will
die out and our people will perish. How can we withhold instruction and
admonition out of excessive affection?

For knights, robust manhood means bravery. If you do not admonish those you
love most and teach them faithfulness and courage, you are not a man of will,
and not a humane man.

Generally speaking, children’s disposition is simply natural; they do not as yet

have a basis for autonomy. Their habits grow day by day and increase month
after month; you should be very careful about the manifestations of good and
bad impulses. Zhang Huangqu1 said, “Males and females these days are already
spoiled rotten from childhood; when they grow up, they become worse and
worse.” He also said, “Failing to instruct children on account of affection is
called spoiling your children.”

Knights’ instruction of their heirs should see to it that their knowledge is

accurate, their conduct is courageous, and they are trustworthy in their affairs. So
as their intelligence emerges, consider wrong and right, admonish the wrong and
praise the right, cultivate their courage so they can’t be intimidated. Don’t do
anything by deceit, however minor it may be. For sport, have them practice the
rituals of bow and arrow and hobby-horse. Conversation should all be about the
ethics of warriorhood, courtesy and deference. To keep their vital energy
complete, minimizing sexual desires, teach them literature. If they get into the
habit of memorization, however, or amuse themselves with poetry and
composition, they forget Japanese customs and want Chinese fashions.

Mingdao2 said, “A hundred amusements rob you of will. If you become

obsessed, even with books, you’ll lose your will by yourself.” Individuals have
different temperaments, so they should be educated and trained according to
their degree of seriousness and transparency. Once children can understand
speech, choose tutors and consider companions; don’t let their character become
degraded.

The interaction between teacher and disciple should be most respectful. Military
texts should not be placed on a dirty seat; they should only be opened after
washing the hands and rinsing the mouth.

As for the education of girls, this requires extreme care. Most methods teach
weakness, but that is a big mistake. The wife of a knight has to take care of
household tasks in her husband’s place, because he is always at court and doesn’t
know about domestic matters. Men don’t know about domestic affairs, and
women don’t speak of public affairs; in making a home, they distinguish inside
and outside. “Men and women don’t use the same wardrobe; a wife doesn’t
presume to hang her clothes on her husband’s hangers. She treats her parents-in-
law properly.”

From the Han through the Tang dynasties, there were women who died dutifully
guarding their chastity; the wives of military leaders all over the country never
altered their standards on account of prosperity or decline, never had a change of
heart on account of survival or destruction. Some of them ran afoul of brigands,
others died at the hands of enemies. How could such morality, such chastity, be
accomplished by teaching weakness?

Women are mainly yin; their bodies are soft, their minds are submissive. This is
their natural character, so in action they are pliant and obedient. They should be
disciplined to be decisive, and their games and conversation should not be
anything lewd. When you teach them the proper principles of duty, and show
them the true meaning of warriorhood, then martial conduct is correct, so the
main avenue of social morality is clear.

Footnotes

1 Zhang Huangqu: Zhang Cai, a great neo-Confucian scholar of the Song

dynasty, a contemporary of the famous Cheng brothers. Many of Zhang’s
sayings are cited along with those of the Cheng brothers in the neo-Confucian
classic Jinsilu, in Japanese Kinshiroku, an annotated compilation of citations
from the Song neo-Confucian masters made by Zhu Xi, whose work was the
main authority for so-called Shushigaku, or Zhu Xi Studies, the state-sponsored
school of neo-Confucianism espoused by Hayashi Razan, under whom Yamaga
Soko once studied.
2 Mingdao: Cheng Hao, 1032-1085, one of the famous Cheng brothers
associated with the development of neo-Confucian idealism in Song dynasty
China.
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INDEX
acculturation 177-178
action 86, 156, 161, 220
admonition 220, 241, 246-247
appearances 81-96
archery 93, 94, 144, 173, 241
Art of War, The 136
arts 93
Ashikaga Tadayoshi 20
Ashikaga Takauji 20
aspiring to the way 36-37
attitude 84
bases of teaching and training 195-196
basis of knighthood 34-37
battle formations 224-225, 230, 236
battlegrounds 229-230
big-heartedness, 40-41
Book of Changes (I Ching) 48, 53, 60, 106, 126, 218, 223
breadth of mind 59
broad study 62-64
Buddhism 10, 18-24, 28, 55, 147, 167, 184
Bushido 9-32
calligraphy 94-95, 209
certain victory 30, 187, 192-193, 197, 205, 206, 213, 221
character 11, 31-32, 54-58, 154-160, 177, 202
China 10, 19, 24-28, 31, 55, 171
circumspection in daily activities 126-127
circumspection in looking and listening 69-71
circumspection in speech 71-81
civic virtue 11
civil administration 166-169
clarity 195, 198
clothing, food, and housing 243
combat 235-237
Confucious 36, 38, 48-51, 65, 69, 74, 75, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 96, 99,
102, 104, 114, 123, 127, 144, 148, 216, 220 Confucianism 10-18, 26-28, 146,
178
correcting a day’s activities 127-130
courage of the warrior 145-147, 182, 221
courtesy 59, 66, 76, 93, 122-123, 125, 143, 152, 210, 243, 247
cultivating mood 38-39, 55, 201, 240
deception 201, 216
destiny 48-50
Detailed Courtesies 66, 70, 72, 74-75, 77, 79, 80, 86, 89, 91-94, 104-105
devotion to loyalty 55-58
dignifi ed housing design 106-115
dignifi ed manners 65-69, 122-125
discipline 16, 129, 203
distinguishing righteousness from profiteering 46-47
Duke Lu of Ying 85
Duke Wen of Wei 109
duty 35
Edo (Tokyo) 192, 208-209, 212
education 10-11, 30, 177, 180-181, 186, 200-213, 218, 222-223, 227, 228, 247-
248 Education of Warriors, The 30, 216-239
energy 150-151, 207
essentials of combat 237
essentials of leadership 219-228
Essentials of Military Matters 29-30, 185-213
establishing the basis 34-36
establishing offices 220-221
establishing regulations 165-166
establishing will 146, 147-150
facial expression 84
falconry and hunting 133, 153, 173, 245
fate 114
filial piety 55, 61-62, 128, 240
firmness and constancy 53
first constitution of Japan 12
five elements, the 59, 96, 118, 217-218
food and drink 96-106, 132-133, 182, 243, 244-245
forty-seven ronin, the 29
giving and receiving 130-132, 245-246
goodness, characteristics of 154
government 11-12, 30, 32, 166-169, 177, 178-179, 191, 203, 207, 216, 242
harmony 152, 221
Hayakawa Yukitoyo 188-189
Hayashi Razan 16, 247
Heian-jo 19
Hideyoshi, Lord 188
hierarchy 11
Hojo Ujinaga 190, 191
honesty 52-53
horses and horsemanship 93, 94, 117, 144, 153, 173. 193
housing design 106-115
humaneness 31, 37, 44, 58-60, 177, 195, 210, 211, 221, 240
humanity, source of 216-217
implements, clarifying the uses of 115-122
instruction of heirs 179-184, 246-248
integrity 50-52, 157
intelligence 59, 157, 161, 182, 193, 195, 205, 221, 228-229
interaction 241-242
internalization and examination 227-228
Jade Spread 82-85, 87, 88, 91, 92, 104, 105
justness 58-60
Kaibara Ekken 16
Kansuke School 30
Kanto Hatto 15
King Xiang 45
Knight, Way of the 28-32, 34-135
knowing people 153-160, 161
knowledge 220, 221
Kusunoki Masashige 136, 206, 209
Kyoto 19, 36, 188, 208
law of the warrior 192-193
leadership 30, 179-184, 186, 193-195, 213, 219-228
living at ease 241
loyalty 55-58, 81
magic 19-23
making peace with destiny 48-50
Mandate of Heaven, the 179-180
manners in ceremonial functions 122-125
Manners of Zhou 165
martial arts 16, 18, 32, 93, 144, 182, 216
martial virtue 16, 35, 136-140, 141, 142, 146, 164, 170, 177, 178, 182
Master Cheng 16, 48, 124
Master Zeng 37, 41, 43, 57, 64, 80, 84, 85, 129,
Master Zhu 48, 91
mellowness 44-45
Mencius 12, 15, 38-39, 41, 45, 48, 52-54, 99, 106, 118, 128, 148, 175, 179, 207,
210, 216, 241 mental techniques 38-46
mentors 36, 65, 220
militarism 139, 157
military education and manners 83 186, 191, 200-213, 228
military preparedness 223-226, 243
military science and training 16, 30, 32, 138, 143, 162, 164, 171-173, 182, 187,
191-192, 193, 195-200, 207-209, 211, 216, 241 Minamoto clan 13
Minamoto Yoritomo 137
Minamoto Yoshitsune 206
mind 39, 47, 150-151
Miyomoto Musashi 30
moderating consumption 96-106
money 130-132, 169, 244, 245
moral values 11
Muromachi Era 13, 17
Muso Soseki 20, 23
music 94
Nakamura Mototsune 27-28
neo-Confucianism 24, 29-30, 55, 60, 247
Nichiren 21-24
Nirvana Scripture 20-22
Norms of Appearance 70, 76, 81-88, 91
Obata Kagenori 189-190, 191
Oda Nobunaga 14-16, 23, 188
office of the lord 219-220
order of nature, the 30, 48, 179, 180
ordering the home 152-153
ordering offices 162-164
organization 30, 32
peace 31, 61, 149, 170, 186, 200, 201, 203
perfecting ability 54-58
personal cultivation 150-151, 221
personality 45-46
physical training 94
planning 195, 205, 211, 228-229, 237
practical experience 203
practicalities of combat 235-237
Primer of Martial Education 31, 239-248
Prince Shotoku 12, 18, 21
principles of warfare 229
profiteering 46
promoting people 160-161
prudence at parties 132-133
public service 10, 128-129, 240
reading and study 62-64
Records of Manners 72, 106 242-243
rectitude 192
refining character 54-58
regulations 165-166, 226-227
relative importance 46-47
relaxing 82
Relic Writings From Exile 31
rely on humanity and justness 58-60
respectfulness 65-69, 82
retiring at night 92-93, 128-129, 130, 240
review and perceptivity 170-171
reward and punishment 174-177, 196-199, 228, 245
righteousness 46, 142, 143, 168, 242
Rikimaru Tozan 26
rising early 92-93, 127, 129, 240
rules 226-227
Saito Tatsudo 17-18
selection and training 221-223
self-examination and self-discipline 64-65
sex 101, 152-153, 161, 182, 183-184, 242, 244-245
Shingon school of Buddhism 19-20, 24
Shintoism 10, 24-29, 191
Shogun 14, 29, 74, 190
Shun (king of ancient China) 31, 98, 120, 179
sitting 86-87, 243
six corruptions, the 15
social order 11, 14
social responsibility 10, 12
source of humanity 216-217
source of phenomena 217-218
source of the Way 217
speech 150, 155, 241-242
speech at court 74, 80
speech at home 74-75, 80
standing 87-88, 243
strategy 30, 195-196, 205, 207, 221, 229-237
striving to put aspiration into practice 37-38
Sun Wu (Sun-tzu) 136, 144
surprise, advantage of 188, 201, 213, 235, 236
Suzuki Shugetoki 187
swordsmanship 144, 241
sympathy 58
system of Yamamoto Kansuke 187, 200
Taoism 14, 28, 30, 55, 60, 146
Takeda Shingen 30, 136, 144, 163, 188, 189, 190, 192-193, 196, 200, 205-206,
209-210 Takeda System 200
Tao Te Ching 55
teaching and training 195-200, 201, 205-206, 212
Tendai school of Buddhism 19, 24
thoroughly understanding things 60-62
three tasks, the 220
time to fight, the 234-235
Tokugawa clan/shogunate 13, 23, 27, 189, 190
Tokugawa era 13, 30
Tokugawa Ieyasu 15-17, 187, 188-189, 190, 192-193
tolerance 58
tone of voice 84-85
training 195-200, 205-206, 222-223, 247-248
transmission of authority 179-184
Tsugaru Kodo-shi 29, 136-185
understanding 60-62, 164
unfailing respectfulness 65-69
universal absolute 60
universal sources 216-219
utensils 116
victory 30, 187, 192-193, 197, 205
walking, standing, sitting, reclining 86-89, 242-243
war and peace, 31, 126, 201
war strategy 228-237
warriorhood 136-140, 152, 182, 186, 190, 204, 208, 212
warrior justice 141-143
warrior wisdom 140-141, 177
warrior’s preparedness 145
Warrior’s Rule, The 29-30, 135-184
warrior’s work 143-145
Way, the 34-37, 44, 46, 55-56, 126, 128, 148, 207, 216-217, 219, 222
Way of the Knight, The 28-32, 34-135, 146, 204-205
weaponry 117, 121, 153, 171, 172, 242
will 41-44, 147-149, 213
Yamaga (Takasuke) Soko 25-26, 28-32, 34-135, 190-192, 215-248
Yamaga Takatsune 30, 185-215
Yamamoto Kansuke Haruyuki (Doki) 30, 187-188, 192-193, 200, 205-206
Yamamoto Tatewaki 193
Yamamoto System 187-192, 200, 205, 206-207
Yao (king of ancient China) 31, 114-115, 120, 179
yin and yang 162, 205, 217, 220, 224, 247
Zen Buddhism 14, 23-24, 28