Yukio Mishima on Hagakure: The Samurai Ethic and Modern Japan

Readers of Mishima's novels may not be familiar with this charming (well, charming for me) little book, but should be. The format is a bit different than his quasi-autobiographical portraits thinly disguised as novels; here, Mishima in commentary expresses his fascination with death utilizing the teachings of an obscure 18th-century samurai named Tsunetomo Yamamoto, with whom Mishima shared many attitudes toward life and death. Tsunetomo became a feudal archetype to Mishima for his rather extreme views of a samurai's perception of death. Indeed, the samurai life to Tsunetomo was a "Way of Dying", and since one is already figuratively "dead" by virtue of one's duty to one's lord, one should be willing to give up one's life at any moment. Whether one's actions are right or wrong is not to be dwelt upon; what really matters is that one act immediately, with resolution, in all that one does. Hence, the Hagakure praises spontaneous action and resolve as the keys to a samurai's life, which for Tsunetomo translated into accepting death without hesitation or thinking. It doesn't take a genius to see here why the philosophy of the Hagakure was attractive to Mishima and his troubled psyche. And also why it was attractive to Japanese right-wingers and the military ideologies of Japan leading up to W.W. II. The Hagakure (lit. "in the shadow of the leaves") has traditionally been seen as an extremist segment of samurai culture. To be sure, elements of Tsunetomo's philosophy are commonly seen throughout centuries of samurai literature, but these elements were rarely expressed with such a fascination with death that Tsunetomo had. Most battleground samurai were probably more interested in survival than how to die quickly...look at Musashi's combat strategy, for instance. Most of Japan's famous swordsmen didn't think in terms of dying, they thought in terms of training and a winning strategy. The real battle warriors wanted to win, not lose :-). The irony here in talking about what it meant to be a true "bushi" is that Tsunetomo himself, for all of his "warrrior" posturing, had no actual battle experience and lived in a time of peace. Basically, he was in a situation where absolute devotion to a lord had to be re-interpreted for peaceful times, and so this "willingness to die" for one's lord became more of a personal philosophy than any reality on a battlefield. The irony between ideals and reality doesn't end with Tsunetomo. Mishima wanted to visualize himself as a "warrior" too, as evidenced in his work "Sun and Steel", so he took up bodybuilding and karate and kendo to forge his body and attempt to escape the "corrosion of words". Alas, as for any actual "battlefield" experience, after Mishima received a draft notice for W.W.II, he happened to go to his induction interview with a cold and lied to the army doctor about having symptoms of tuberculosis. He was declared unfit for service. So we seem to have here another idealized vision of being a warrior

This is the only edition of the Hagakure to buy. it is filled with the commentary of Yukio Mishima, the last man to live the bushido life before committing suicide. The illustrations are spare and powerful, suffusing modern despair with ancient tragedy.

The proverbs are great, but since it is about old school Japan pricipals of the Samurai, it is more geared towards men. Women may find it interesting in a historical way, or if they plan to be domesticated by their husband. Overall goob book either way.