Editorial: Book Study in Budo

Or, "When to not Read Hagakure​"

If just starting out, Hagakure is not the place to begin a book study of budo.

Yukio Mishima spares no words on his negative perception of book study in budo. In his essay “Hagakure and I,” Mishima Yukio derides the study of books in budo: “Manuals of samurai ethics, Confucian tracts, and the military arts themselves tended to degenerate into idle moral philosophizing.” [1] His inspiration, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, expresses similar disdain for cultural pursuits, despite his Confucian background, “In all cases, the person who practices an art is an artist, not a samurai, and one should have the intention of being called a samurai.” [2] These conclusions, however, are limited both in their scope of understanding but also their historical influence. 

In an ironic twist, an intellectual analysis is exactly what this issue of Budo Book Review applies to the study of Hagakure, especially the English tradition. This essays presented here will evaluate how Hagakure came to English readers and how the common conceptions of the work restrict the wealth of thought it contains significantly. The second essay—the product of the class described in the first essay—will highlight one, but important, difference between the role of death (a feature popularly audiences associate with the Hagakure) in Yamamoto’s and Sunzi’s writings. While there are limitations to this analysis in covering few works, the parallels drawn are indicative of larger trends.

Ideally, Hagakure will be a work that students come to after having spent some time between the page of other, more historically significant works. Some solid reads, of both primary and secondary sources, include:

Ames, Roger T. The Analects of Confucius. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998.

_____. Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine, 2003.

Bennett, Alexander. Japan the Ultimate Samurai Guide. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2018.

​_____. Cleary, Thomas. The Book of Five Rings. Boston: Shambhala, 2005.

_____. Training the Samurai Mind: A Bushido Sourcebook. Boston: Shambhala, 2009.

_____. Samurai Wisdom: Lessons from Japan’s Warrior Culture. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2009.

Friday, Karl. Legacies of the Sword. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.

Hoff, Benjamin. The Tao of Pooh. London: Penguin Books, 1983.

Hurst, G. Cameron III. Armed Martial Arts of Japan: Swordsmanship and Archery. New Haven: Yale, 1998.

Sawyer, Ralph D. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

Wilson, William S. The Life Giving Sword: Secret Teachings from the House of the Shogun. Boston: Shambhala, 2012.

_____. The Swordsman’s Handbook: Samurai Teachings on the Path of the Sword. Boston: Shambhala, 2014.

_____. The Unfettered Mind. Boston: Shambhala, 2012.

​After going through this list—or something similar that builds a reasonable foundation of knowledge in history and philosophy—then read through these essays and reviews in this journal. These will help provide some much needed context to come to a deeper understanding of Yamamoto’s writing—to see his work as one of service and selflessness—that cannot be summarized in an easily quotable line “The Way of the Samurai is found in death.”

Edward N. Smith, Oklahoma City
February 18, 2021

Works Cited

1. Mishima Yukio. “Hagakure and I.” The Way of the Samurai: Yukio Mishima on Hagakure in Modern Life, trans. Kathryn Sparling (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 37.
2. Yamamoto Tsunetomo. Hagakure, trans. William S. Wilson (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992), 27.