悪を征服する
Aku wo seifuku suru
Conquering evil
“Conquering evil, not the opponent, is the essence of swordsmanship.” - Yagyu Munenori
A true warrior is selfless. The great sword master, Yagyu Munenori said, “Conquering evil, not the opponent, is the essence of swordsmanship.” Evil in this sense means either the evil within ourselves or the evil out in the world. Regardless, the evil that we are trying to prevent is the harm that we inflicted upon ourselves or that will be inflicted upon others. That is why in the martial arts, it is thought that a true warrior should help the weak or those less fortunate. In Japanese, having the warrior spirit to help others is referred to as bushidate (武士達 ) which literally translates as “the accomplished warrior.” Thus, the accomplished warrior has developed the ability to help others and that’s probably why the word samurai (侍) actually translates as “One who serves.” Probably without knowing it, we learn selflessness every day in the dojo. In a circuitous way, we learn selflessness as we learn to hurt people. Realizing that someone can really get hurt or killed by the things that we do instills in us a certain level of responsibility and deference for life. We take care of our training partners or those who face us because there is a responsibility in hurting others or in taking a life. The samurai weren’t maniacs and didn’t glorify killing. Hurting others was thought of as an unfortunate consequence of a job that they were tasked to do. Realizing the gravity of the situation, a samurai always showed deference to not only their opponents, but to everyone around them. Having this deference gave them an air of affluence that money can’t buy and that’s why the samurai were held in high esteem and were thought to be accomplished. Nowadays, we don’t fight in battles and so to learn to have a deference for life in the face of death is hard to attain. Today, the only way that we can try and teach ourselves this samurai selflessness is by training ourselves in the martial arts. The best martial artists aren’t the ones who can beat everyone up. On the contrary, the best martial artist is the one who can think of others and lend a helping hand to those in need.
Today’s goal: What can you do to be of service to others?
Watch this to better understand selflessness