自業自得
Jigou jitoku
We reap what we sow
A warrior is never bored. Warriors pride themselves on their ability to toil. Japanese society seems to pride itself on industriousness. This can be traced back to the 1500s and the hierarchical structure of society: nobles, samurai, farmers, artisans and merchants. Interestingly, when we examine the structure, we see that the system is based upon industriousness. War and agriculture require constant toil and so it's natural that the farmer would follow the samurai as they tend to share the same values of hard work. In the past, a common insult to a Japanese person was to accuse them of laziness because to be lazy was to be useless to society. Martial artists also hate laziness because laziness is an attitude that is often accompanied by a lack of effort and care. To a teacher of old, the worst possible thing a student could say was, “I am bored.” Saying this would set a teacher off because they knew that boredom was nothing more than applied laziness. To be bored only shows off one’s laziness and their lack of sophistication and depth. By being bored, we show our short-sightedness and what we are really saying is that we don’t care enough about what we are doing to work hard and look deeper. Author Robert Pirsig said, “Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.” What he means is that when we become bored the cure is curiosity. When we become curious, we tend to look deeper and when we do, we find wonderment which then fuels our creativity. With this curiosity, there is no bottom and things become endless and thus no boredom. A martial artist constantly toils because they understand jigou jitoku or that “we reap what we sow.” We get out of training and life what we put into it. The more we train, the more we see its beauty and sophistication and that is why a warrior is never bored.
Today’s goal: Think about the definition of boredom and ask yourself when you are bored if you are really just being lazy.