Kindle Notes & Highlights
Night comes. Wild geese fly in formation in the moonlight. The mountains of Etchu are silhouetted against the dreamlike waves of Noto Bay.
Grace, composure, awareness, and controlled, powerful vigor: all are components of kantoku.
Control of others, to the Japanese mind, invariably begins with control of one's self.
"A flake of snow on a blazing stove."
"No matter how you antagonize me, you cannot unsettle my equanimity. My inner self is still serene, and with that advantage I am going to beat you."
And like most effective weapons, it is best kept hidden
until needed.
Masters are usually indistinguishable from the rest of the people until they are required to express themselves through their creations, just as a drum is made to produce sound that varies according to the degree of strength applied to the beater.
jikishin. The direct mind.
ichi-go, ichi-e, one encounter, one chance.
when something is worth doing, and worth doing well, time is not important.
"When the superior man fails to hit the target with his arrow," noted Confucius, "he looks for faults, not in his bow, but in himself."
Shoji Hamada, whose life spanned the first three quarters of the twentieth century, was one of the outstanding figures of modern Japanese art.
"Anger is a luxury," he said quietly. "One that you cannot afford."
Fortunately, much of Zeami's writings on Zen have been translated and are available in English. Those budoka who have not read any of his work should do so as soon as possible.
shugyo. But among budoka it is more colloquially known by an ironically descriptive term: they often call it hiya meshi o Michi, or "the Way of eating cold rice."
It is not exactly accurate to say that the budoka "prefers" cold rice. More to the point, he accepts it, believing as he does that if he spends his life always looking for and demanding comfort and ease, he will never be tested, he'll never be pushed to refine his body and spirit. The budoka accepts the hardships and austerity of cold rice because he feels that true contentment is not to be gained by acquiring things. If you cannot be satisfied and happy unless you have hot rice with every meal (or a new car every year, or the latest fashions in clothing), you are apt to spend a whole lot of
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With the bamboo, flexibility is possible because of the strong, tough roots at the base of the plant.
mono o mirume. In the parlance of everyday Japanese, this phrase can mean simply "to look at things." Yet it has a deeper connotation, meaning "to look into things."
The budo are more than sport. They are a Way of life, one that, as champions like Yamashita Yasuhiro know, can only be traveled completely by facing death.
sabi-shiori, a term borrowed from the idiom of Japanese aesthetics. It is best, though awkwardly, translated as "solitary aloneness."
Enryo may best be described as "emotional reticence" or "stoicism."
toku iva shiru ni yorazu okono ni ari: "Virtue lies not in knowing but in doing."
The heart that can hear frost forming in the middle of a cold night, when confronted with an opponent, will be victorious.
concept of suigetsu, "the moon and the water," advice on keeping the mind as still as the water of a pond, perfectly reflecting the moon.
