When Lord Naoshige was passing by a place called Chiriku, someone said to him, “In this place there lives a man who is over ninety years old. Since this man is so fortunate, why don’t you stop and see him?” Naoshige heard this and said, “How could anyone be more pitiful than this man? How many of his children and grandchildren do you suppose he has seen fall before his very eyes? Where is the good fortune in that?”
* Compassion is like a mother who nurtures one’s fate. Examples of the ruin of merciless warriors who were brave alone are conspicuous in both past and present.
* It is said that every time Oki Hyobu’s group gathered and after all their affairs were finished he would say, “Young men should discipline themselves rigorously in intention and courage. This will be accomplished if only courage is fixed in one’s heart. If one’s sword is broken, he will strike with his hands. If his hands are cut off, he will press the enemy down with his shoulders. If his shoulders are cut away, he will bite through ten or fifteen enemy necks with his teeth. Courage is such a thing.”
* Okubo Doko is said to have remarked: Everyone says that no masters of the arts will appear as the world comes to an end. This is something that I cannot claim to understand. Plants such as peonies, azaleas and camellias will be able to produce beautiful flowers, end of the world or not. If men would give some thought to this fact, they would understand. And if people took notice of the masters of even these times, they would be able to say that there are masters in the various arts. But people become imbued with the idea that the world has come to an end and no longer put forth any effort. This is a shame. There is no fault in the times.
* In Yui Shosetsu’s military instructions, “The Way of the Three Ultimates,” there is a passage on the character of karma. He received an oral teaching of about eighteen chapters concerning the Greater Bravery and the Lesser Bravery. He neither wrote them down nor committed them to memory but rather forgot them completely. Then, in facing real situations, he acted on impulse and the things that he had learned became wisdom of his own. This is the character of karma.
* The basic meaning of etiquette is to be quick at both the beginning and end and tranquil in the middle.
* The Buddhist priest Ryozan wrote down some generalities concerning Takanobu’s battles. A certain priest saw this and criticized him, saying, “It is inappropriate for a priest to write about a military commander. No matter how successful his writing style may be, since he is not acquainted with military things, he is liable to be mistaken in understanding a famous general’s mind. It is irreverent to pass on misconceptions concerning a famous general to later generations.”
* A certain person said, “In the Saint’s mausoleum there is a poem that goes:
If in one’s heart
He follows the path of sincerity,
Though he does not pray
Will not the gods protect him?
What is this path of sincerity?”
A man answered him by saying, ”You seem to like poetry. I will answer you with a poem.
As everything in this world is but a shame,
Death is the only sincerity.
It is said that becoming as a dead man in one’s daily living is the following of the path of sincerity.”
* This is among the sayings of the priest Banker. “Not to borrow the strength of another, nor to rely on one’s own strength; to cut off past and future thoughts, and not to live within the everyday mind… then the Great Way is right before one’s eyes.”
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