Direction in the Shade of the Leaves

“If one has no earnest daily intention, does not consider what it is to be a warrior even in his dreams, and lives through the day idly, he can be said to be worthy of punishment.”

—Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure

This is the second in a series of meditations on lessons from the Hagakure—in the Shade of the Leaves. My suspicion is that the wisdom imparted to us by the adherents of Bushido is applicable far beyond its original, intended context; and my hope is that we people of today might apply these lessons in overcoming our own adversities, anxieties, depression, and resentments.

It is a rare thing to meet a man whose vision of his potential has been laid bare for himself to see. Mostly, men are of the opposite kind: listless drifters, blindfolded and aimless, ears occluded with wax for fear of the voice of conscience—a condition of blindness and deafness made from one’s own artifice—and he suffers for it, endlessly, his life bleeding meaning with the passing of each day. Why? And how can one change his outlook, discover what he wants, and begin to move toward it?

“What are you doing?” That question is my earliest recollection of an articulated thought born from of my conscience. I was in my early twenties, a burgeoning adult just beginning to achieve actual conscious awareness, when I first heard it nagging me. Whenever I found myself sitting around being unproductive, engaged in pleasurable but meaningless activities such as playing video games or watching T.V., the voice would find its way to my lips and hijack them. Spontaneously, I would ask aloud to myself, “What are you doing?” Never did I have an answer, and so the following day, the question posed itself again. “What are you doing? … What are you doing?” over and over, until it was not each day but every few hours that I was haunted by that voice. And that was only the half of it; for it was not long before the full meaning of those words revealed itself. While playing a game in the evening after work, I’d suddenly blurt out, “What are you doing with your life?”

It is still harrowing to think back on those times, to relive the discovery of the meaninglessness of my existence—or better said: how I was leading a meaningless life. But reflection is necessary, because it was this moment when I decided to pay attention to what that inner voice was warning against. Regret. I did not want to arrive on my deathbed filled with a sense of shame for wasting my life, for not living in a way that I would feel compelled to admire—or worse—for not even trying to live such a life. Somehow, I knew implicitly that to do so was cowardice. I found this echoed in the Hagakure:

We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaming one’s aim is a dog’s death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. (Yamamoto)

My conscience was punishing me for my lack of daily intention, for avoiding the frightening prospect of failing to attain my aim—and this avoidance I accomplished by choosing to aim at nothing at all. You can’t fail if you don’t try, and you can’t know you’ve failed if you don’t ever identify what it is you should be doing. But the problem with such a mindset is that your potential is not something arbitrary or random; it’s something intrinsic to who you are—and who you could be. That means that a part of you already knows the potential you should be reaching, even if you’re not conscious of it. That is what makes this line dangerous. On the one side, you face a wasted, regretful, shameful, & tortured existence in which your better self will see you with disgust. On the other side, there is immediate hardship, the sudden and enduring pain of recognizing the chasm between who you are and who you should be—let alone the reality that you may die without ever achieving your dreams. Given these options, it is understandable why so few people discover their life-direction. Understandable, yet regrettable all the same.

At first it is an oppressive thing to run until one is breathless. But it is an extraordinarily good feeling when one is standing around after the running. More than that, it is even better to sit down. More than that, it is even better to lie down. And more than that, to put down a pillow and sleep soundly is even better. A man’s whole life should be like this. To exert oneself to a great extent when one is young and then to sleep when he is old or at the point of death is the way it should be. But to first sleep and then exert oneself....To exert oneself to the end, and to end one’s whole life in toil is regrettable. (Yamamoto)

Or, said another way:

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything. (Yamamoto)

Regardless what you choose to do, whether to gain direction now or to stave off the psychological pain as long as possible, you will suffer for it. The only question is which aspect of yourself are you willing to sacrifice? Your current, inadequate self who is in large part the one responsible for your suffering? Or will it be your potential, better self—your future—that you sacrifice in an attempt to avoid pain in the transient present? If by now I’ve dug enough wax from your ears, perhaps you can hear your own voice of conscience answering these questions for you. And perhaps, having heard this voice, you object, “Of course it would be better to live one’s dreams, but what do I do if I don’t have any? There is nothing that calls out to me, nothing that motivates me to get up and move! What then?”

Whom do you admire? Who, when you think of him, fills you involuntarily with a feeling of awe or respect? Who is it, if given the opportunity, that you would like to trade places with? And if there is no one, then find someone in fiction. You have no excuse. For whether or not you find a model in life or in fantasy, there is always yourself to fall back on. Ask, how would you have to imagine yourself in order to earn your own admiration? Contemplate these feelings: awe and respect. Notice the intrinsic meaningfulness in each of them, how each pulls you forward, how their attainment is an end in itself. This is my answer to your objections. Any or all of the three figures you’ve conjured in your mind (real, imagined, or yourself) are models for what you could become—what you want to become, at least in part. The evidence is in the way you feel about these figures. You’ve identified them because you already believe them to be good according to whatever conscious or unconscious standard you’ve set. They are your unique guides to start you on your own life-direction. But perhaps you are insistent and despondent as well. You object further, “But for me, there is no good role model! I admire no one, real or imagined. And myself? I’m so terribly wretched that even my highest potential is something to be pitied!”

To answer that, turn again to the Hagakure:

Today, however, there are no models of good retainers. In light of this, it would be good to make a model and to learn from that. To do this, one should look at many people and choose from each person his best point only. For example, one person for politeness, one for bravery, one for the proper way of speaking, one for correct conduct and one for steadiness of mind. Thus will the model be made. (Yamamoto)

You see, your objections are not new. They are stale as hard bread. You have no excuses. Shall we cut down another? For I can hear you saying, “But I could never succeed like the people I admire! My respect for them comes because they can do what I’ll never be able to. My potential just isn’t that great.” If this is you, shed yourself of such weakness. For all your breath is but wasted, self-fulfilling fear.

It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon. (Yamamoto)

You are afraid of the pain of failure, of getting wet while walking in a rainstorm. Thus, you uselessly add to the torture of your own inadequacy. Your expectations of perfection leave you frustrated and perplexed. You say, “No matter how I try to run or hide, I get soaked and disappointed every time, so what’s the point?” The point, you coward, is to unlearn your fear of the storm and—if you’re ever to get to where you’re going—that you’re going to have to accept getting wet. Furthermore, it does no good to hesitate. The longer you wait, the longer it will take, the greater chance that you will miss your moment—or spoil it; for your hesitation will make a beginner of you long passed when you ought to have accrued sufficient strength, skill, experience, and virtue. Such old novices, like old dogs, struggle to learn new tricks and threaten to congest whatever institution they touch with their crystalized idiosyncrasies; whereas, the young man who errors early retains the ability to adapt and learn. In the Hagakure, Tsunetomo describes as much in the form of a parable.

At the time when there was a council concerning the promotion of a certain man, the council members were at the point of deciding that promotion was useless because of the fact that the man had previously been involved in a drunken brawl. But someone said, “If we were to cast aside every man who had made a mistake once, useful men could probably not be come by. A man who makes a mistake once will be considerably more prudent and useful because of his repentance. I feel that he should be promoted.” Someone else then asked, “Will you guarantee him?” The man replied, “Of course I will.” The others asked, “By what will you guarantee him?” And he replied, “I can guarantee him by the fact that he is a man who has erred once. A man who has never once erred is dangerous.” This said, the man was promoted. (Yamamoto)

Do not hesitate. Do not plan. Do not think when it is your self-respect that is at risk of degenerating. Strike now and seize the moment—hurl yourself toward an irrational death. Yes, you may fail. Chances are that you will. Many times, you’ll be beaten down. This is a certainty. So what? Do it any way. Better that you fail honorably than wait and plan and stall and hesitate until your chance is gone and you’re brought to shame like a certain man...

...because he did not take revenge. The way of revenge lies in simply forcing one’s way into a place and being cut down. There is no shame in this. By thinking that you must complete the job you will run out of time. By considering things like how many men the enemy has, time piles up; in the end you will give up. No matter if the enemy has thousands of men, there is fulfillment in simply standing them off and being determined to cut them all down, starting from one end. You will finish the greater part of it. (Yamamoto)

So go. Stop being a coward. Hold your head high and be brave enough to look, to identify what it is you could become, who you ought to be. Make no excuses; you don’t have any, no matter how lofty your dreams might be. There is only the pain intrinsic to being and perhaps—if you’re willing to aim, to draw your weapon and move forward in the face of overwhelming forces—the satisfaction of dying in a noble pursuit. Choose.

Yamamoto, Tsunetomo. Hagakure.