Miyamoto Musashi was born in 16th century feudal Japan. The exact year of his birth is debated. His accomplishments, however, are not.
At the age of 13 Musashi challenged an older samurai to a duel. His uncle, hearing the news, scurried to the agreed location and began to beg for his nephew’s life.
Ignoring the commotion, Musashi engaged his opponent and knocked him from his feet, before beating him to death.
This victory marked the beginning of a violent but prosperous career, during which Musashi fought over 60 duels. He won all of them. Later in life, he wrote The Book of Five Rings, a text that details his tactics, philosophies, and strategies. The following five quotes are excerpts from this masterpiece. I deeply resonate with all of them.
1. “There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, richer, stronger, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself.”
2. “In battle, if you you make your opponent flinch, you have already won.”
3. “Do not regret what you have done.”
4. “All man are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them.”
5. “Do nothing which is of no use.”
The values of self improvement, independence, forward-thinking, and productivity are all communicated through these passages. However, confidence and self-assurance undoubtedly stand out as Musashi’s most prominent ideals. And I agree. The majority of problems people face today can be traced back to a lack of belief in one’s self.
So heed these wise words, and proceed to crush your life, and your enemies – from within, but without regret.
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“His uncle, hearing the news, scurried to the agreed location and began to beg for his niece’s life.”
His niece?
Miyamoto Musashi is one of my heroes. I first learned about him from The Lone Samurai, and it’s still probably my favorite Musashi biography.
I’m glad to see this article here, and I have a few quick corrections.
I think you mean nephew’s life.
You mean all men are the same.
This isn’t quite right. Musashi never lost a duel, but he didn’t win them all—there were some draws in there as well. (See The Lone Samurai for details.)
These are nitpicks, though. Musashi is a fascinating character, and I’m happy to see him introduced here to the Return of Kings audience.
No he means all man, as in all mankind, as in all humankind.
It still should’ve been “all men”, bud. As in “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all MEN are created equal.” Now either the founding fathers’ grammar suck or they were trying to futuristically troll the feminists.
Return of Kings is above such things as usage, spelling, and grammar. It has been stated so by the site owner himself.
i seem to remember a quote about being utterly relentless in attack. certainly needed to win a fight using a wooden sword!
No one expected it, also it wasn’t a sword, more like a club made from an oar.
“All man are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them” <– This does not apply to short men. People will always thing short men are inferior in society and hence a short man( 5’4-5’5) cannot do well with Caucasian women.
Vintage Michael James. I’m starting to warm up to you.
I wish there was a thread on short man game. How buff short men, who don’t have wide shoulders( referring to bone structure no shoulder muscle mass) , not rich with average faces can get 8s and 9s. I hate banging fat chicks cause I’m so horny…they even banned prostitution in my state so I can’t even pay for a slim chick..
Here’s short man game: change your name to Peter Dinklage.
his wife is ugly though. And old. And he probably only had one chick in his life.
That’s still one more than you, though.
Nah I have banged a bunch of fatties…just could not get a hotties cause i would get rejected for my height. Being 5’5 is rough.
Fatties don’t count, bro. My dog could bang a fatty.
Move to Asia or other islands- Have heard of short dudes doin’ this.
His wife counts cause his wife is fat….his wife is getting it from your dog every night.
“All man are the same except for their belief in their own selves, regardless of what others may think of them”
One of the greatest quotes I’ve yet seen^^
Good. Now someone write an article on Bruce Lee.
My favorite Miyamoto Mushashi quote is “accept everything just the way it is.” This is deep, and people who do not understand it will be compelled to quickly gloss over it, or argue with it. They will argue that you should never accept something you do not like, for example.
But what “is” — by definition — already is. It already exists.
Too many people are distracted by a past they cannot change, or unrealized dreams of a hopeful future which has not yet occurred. Everything that is real, exists at this moment. Anything that does not exist at this moment, is not real. To refuse to accept “what is” — the reality of this moment — is a futile struggle against reality that you cannot win.
This is not to suggest that you cannot create your own future, or that you cannot take steps to rectify your past. But any action that you take can only occur “now.” No change in your life will ever occur in the past. No change can ever happen in the future. When the future arrives, it will be “now.” If there is a step to be taken, it must be taken now.
Accept everything that is, as if you had chosen it yourself. To do anything else is to struggle against reality, and that is a battle you cannot win.
As a practical example, it does not mean that if a waiter brings you bad food you must accept it. People who miss this teaching but feel compelled to blindly follow a flawed interpretation of it will say “well, I am suppose to accept what is, just the way it is, and so I should just accept this bad food and eat it.” No. Wrong. That person has missed the boat entirely.
It means that you should accept the fact that you have been served bad food; it has already happened. What happens now is up to you, and you can always control your actions in this moment. You can choose to react like a fool, and throw a fit, and demand better service, and let everyone within earshot know how deeply offended you are. You can choose to react like a meek weakling, and eat the food without complaint.
Or you can choose to react like an enlightened person, and realize that your goal at this moment was to eat something delicious. Rather than allow your ego to be bruised, and insult the waiter in a flawed and failed attempt to repair your wounded self-esteem, as though you had suffered some personal blow, you can simply accept without judgment that you have been served bad food.
And then you can react with confidence and clarity of thought, and simply say “No. This food is not acceptable. Do you have something else?”
You have then accepted the moment as it is — good or bad, it makes no difference — and chosen your path accordingly. You have not dwelt on the memory of the past (“this place USED to have GOOD food!), nor have you projected some hopeful future (Well NEXT TIME I sure hope you idiots get it RIGHT!) You have instead chosen the higher path to success, and have realized that what exists in front of you, already is. And realized that your actions, now, at this moment, will always determine your level of contentment and success.
When life serves you bad food, don’t dwell on some thought from the past that you remember as being better, or some hope that the future is going to be better. Take action in this moment, right now, to acknowledge that what already exists, cannot be changed, and realize that you can act right now, to create a different existence to your liking. When you can achieve this without reflecting negative energy upon others, without taking self-pity, and without getting lost in some hopeful yet unrealized future that has not yet occurred, you will move through life effortlessly, and you will never be dissatisfied with the present moment.
This is what Miyamoto Mushashi meant by “accept everything just the way it is.”
Beautiful interpretation, however, this is actually not a Musashi quote lol. The real quote (the first line of Dokkodo) is correctly translated as “Do not go against the way of the world”. I don’t know what the translator was thinking to write “Accept everything just the way it is”
Nailed it. Nicely done, Happy D!! Thank you.
Good quotes. In the hostile, anti-male climate of Western society,
caring too much what the mainstream thinks is the first step to defeat.
I go by this standard: the more they call me a “bigot”, the more they assume I’m a “straight white male”, the more I know I’m on target.
I wish I could invent a Hipster neutron bomb…it would target everyone who walks in a gay way, wears Clark Gable hats combined with shorts, woolen huts and giant headphones in the summertime…what a wonderful world it would be after.
“during which Musashi fought over 60 duels. He won all of them.”
Well duh. Confirmation bias. We would have never heard of him otherwise. How about that samurai who won 57 duels and lost the next one? Never heard of him? I wonder why…
“Do nothing which is of no use.”
Starts feeling guilty for reading ROK instead of doing some work.
So I can just think myself rich, since everything already exists within? Sounds like a bunch of new age mumbo jumbo bullshit.
Always read this stuff with the proverbial grain of salt. The quotes, for example:
1. Bullshit. You need to balance the outside with the inside. There’s plenty of stuff “outside of yourself” that can make you better, richer, stronger if you can get it and use it. Sure, willpower and good intentions and ideas are good things to have and groom inside, but if you don’t act in the real world nothing will come out of it.
2. Not necessarily. The enemy might come back better prepared/equipped. It might redouble its efforts. (see: Arms Race) It might attack anyway on grounds of honor or whathaveyou, and still somehow win.
3.If you’ve done something stupid, regretting it is exactly what you should do. Regret it, examine why it went the way it went, and move on.
4. Belief in yourself can take you far, but only so far. Isolate yourself in a bubble of positive-affirmations-fueled, reality-ignoring self-conceit and you risk to be the salesguy with the toothy smile, the ready wit and sleeping in his office.
What other people think of you, sometimes called “social status” or “social standing” is not something to be ignored. One should always have some feelers out.
5. Something that’s of “no use” today might become very much of use someday. I’m a successful semi-retired IT professional because I spent my youth programming games, playing with them. tinkering with computers and socializing with like-minded friends. Certainly of “no use” at the time (‘neeeeeeeeed’!), very much “of use” later when the hobby because quasi-automagically a profession.
And so on…
Context matters. Mushashi’s work is directed at a very limited audience – people who must kill or be killed. The Book of Five Rings is not really a business or lifestyle manual, although it does contain some general lifestyle advice; it’s a manual on how to win samurai duels.
1. This isn’t bullshit. Give any two men the same “outside” things – one will make more of them than the other. The difference is the man.
2. He’s talking about one-on-one battle – a duel – not war. If Mushashi’s opponent loses, he’s dead. He’s not coming back with more firepower.
3. Regret is a useless emotion and is not at all necessary to analysis of past deeds.
4. You’re misconstruing belief in yourself, at least the way Mushashi understood it. His belief in himself, and what he’s discussing, was a belief built on objective analysis and perfect practice of his craft, not positive affirmations and feelgood bullshit. Additionally, he’s not saying that reputation or social standing have no value whatsoever. He’s saying that when it comes time to throw down, one on one, reputation is irrelevant. The duel will be decided by who and what each man is at that moment, not by how others have sized them up.
5. He’s referring to wasteful flourishes in the art of duelling. Mushashi’s philosophy was to dispense with those and to move to attacking and killing his opponent in an efficient and direct manner. He’s not being critical of those who spend time doing things that others might have thought useless in order to perfect their own craft. The fact that you, internally, correctly viewed activities as useful to you that others may have deemed useless demonstrates Mushashi’s points on the internal man and belief in one’s self.
5.
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Ah, now he is a great role model. Conquered many lands and their women through sheer force of will. I would definitely recommend reading Conn Iggulden’s books on him, they are well researched and a great read.
Hey nice post but I’m afraid its completely inaccurate. Quote no.1, 2
and 4 are NOT Musashi’s. They come from Stephen Kaufman’s interpretation
of the book of five rings. They are often attributed to musashi by
mistake. In fact they are not his style and there’s no saying that he
would even aprove of Kaufmans interpretation. However Kaufman takes full
responsibility for this in the intro to his book ( book of five rings:
the definitive interpretation), its none the less a good read. Quote 5
is from the book of five rings. although quote 3 is musashi’s, its not
from the book of five rings but from his later work called dokkodo (the
path of solitude). Its a shame that people are attributing these quotes
to musashi when they in fact polute his message. you should add these
corrections to your post so as to not contribute to this
misunderstanding.
The book of 5 Rings is next on my list.
I would agree, a lack of belief in one’s self, but to take it a step further, what self are you believing in? The one you unconsciously, albeit innocently constructed at a very young age by the actions and reactions of the people in your life mainly towards you? Your parents, teachers, priest maybe, society’s, what you learned you “should” and “should not” do, say, think, feel? What you could/should expect and do in life to be acceptable, happy, “successful?” That self is who most people think they are, and that is the “Problem.” However even that at higher if you will, levels of thinking is not a problem which suggests something is amiss or wrong. It is a normal phase of development in the evolution of the individual toward the realization of the authentic self, also commonly referred to as “who you really are.” This has always been I think in the works so to speak just not brought into consciousness as much as we’re seeing today. There were the few in past history who understood this long before it began to be understood in the numbers we’re seeing today. Most people still go through their entire lives completely identified with this “self” as who they are, yes, ego. We are taught, especially I think in the West, right from the start, either overtly or indirectly that there is something wrong with us. But then we are taught how to overcome this apparent deficiency, you know the drill, get good grades, get the degree, get a good job, find “the one” get married have kids, get the house, bla bla bla. Well this is much like your Buzz Aldrin story right? We do what everyone tells us to do, it all comes from outside of us, all these “shoulds” – THEN you’ll be secure, happy, acceptable, successful. So you do all this shit, and all of it you’ll notice involves judgements and comparisons with other people, believing you know how you think things “should be” or “should look like.” Well guess what? You do it all, let’s say. You wake up one day thinking “What the fuck? I did everything they said to do. I have everything. I have an education, money, maybe even a hot wife, a couple of beautiful children, check check check, why am I still fucking unhappy? I’ll tell you what I think: because you are a person who hasn’t a clue in fuck who they really are! So then, let’s say this guy is thinking well obviously there is something WRONG with ME because I have no reason to be unhappy or discontented or depressed. So the guy goes (of course ) to the Dr. who is only more than happy to agree with this guy that something is wrong with him. He fits all the criteria in the DSM bible for depression. So he gets an antidepressant and is sent on his way. All of which likely takes about 10 whole minutes as the Dr. hangs on the doorknob like he’s about to piss his pants. Anyway, either way it goes, maybe the guy gets some relief from this nagging sense of anxiety and negative bewilderment because of a dulling down of these symptoms and is able to go on with his life in the same manner as before for a while, great. Or it does nothing for him, but he struggles along and perseveres anyway especially since he has been heavily conditioned to his role in society that pegs him as the strong successful provider who has all his shit together, which you can CLEARLY see looking at his life from the outside. (Which is actually irrelevant, and absolutely of no value ultimately, this assuming and judging and coming to conclusions about people and things we do looking at only what we can see with our own eyes which have their own distorted view anyway.). So the guy is able to quell or suppress this shitty feeling for a time, send it underground, by all these ways acquired by drugs and/or maybe drinking, illicit drugs, or working harder or maybe he decides it’s just that midlife crisis (which truly it is) and he is going to start going to the gym and he gets in super good shape and that helps him feel better about himself and with keeping that nagging discontent under the rug. Maybe he has an affair. Whatever. The root cause is never addressed, the depression is never really examined or taken seriously as to what the true cause may be, it is just treated as something unpleasant that shouldn’t quote unquote be, and avoided or gotten rid of at all costs. The feeling of a loss of security or assurance in a person can be devastating, and the more one is identified with who he thinks he is (he/she) all the more so. It’s no one’s fault, the lies and bullshit we buy into, the power we unwittingly give away to whatever is giving us our “self-esteem.” Everyone does it to one degree or another. Everyone is out there hustling for their worth. So yeah, they don’t believe in themselves. But it’s because the self they are believing in does not exist. It is a story made up of the standards, beliefs, and expectations and dreams of other people, and we believe in it. If you get in this lifetime to the stage of questioning your beliefs and thoughts, etc and where they really originated and why you’ll see this. But where to go with this is not blame, of yourself or others. No one including yourself intentionally set out to fuck you over in this way. Your true self never has had a chance. As Happy D says below, everyone is always avoiding some unpleasant truth or chasing some condition or state in the future where then and only then will everything be ok. This is the ego trap that never ends and will either eventually drive you batshit crazy or hopefully wake you up enough to start seeing and being aware of what’s really going on. Most sad, lonely, depressed people do not need drugs, they need acceptance and someone to hear them who has been where they are and understands. No one talks about this shit enough which only adds a layer onto the problem already there. You feel guilt, you feel shame, you feel weak, you feel like a failure. What you don’t realize is that you are actually no different than anyone else, and eventually you come to see this as a very fucking good thing if you can get past the fear and anger you encounter when you first start realizing this shit and going within yourself to get your own unique answers that were always there and unchanged by any circumstance or condition you ever encountered, “good” or “bad.” It’s like, sorry but all that work and striving you did or did not do, was neither here nor there. It was not needed in the way of proving your worth or earning your success, or to justify your existence. Your worth was never on the table; life is not about acquiring it in whatever way you were taught. Your ego will have you believing that you KNOW, inevitably involving right/wrong, good/bad, competing and comparing yourself against others. We hear and give lip service to the idea that everyone is equal etc but you don’t REALLY believe it, you don’t live that way. No one is taught that life is constant change, that our worth is intrinsic and that each one of us is preprogrammed if you will with something equally valuable and unique to give to the world, to be expressed. That finding this inside is the only true fulfillment and purpose to life. That this is taking responsibility for your own experience by tapping into the innate power within. And yes I am talking about a spiritual connection to yourself and life itself, or God, or Love, or Universal Flow, or ground of all being, whatever term you use it has nothing to do with religion, although I believe unbeknownst to most they all have common threads and are basically imbued with the same message. You can explain it in terms of energy if that is better for you it doesn’t matter. The point is is that we were not put here to suffer, compare, compete, judge, but this is the egoic level of being most are still at. Do not get me wrong. I only speak from the only thing I can, my own experience so far. I have struggled much with anx/dep for most of my life. I have run from it, without even knowing I was, for years. Until I began to realize it had a purpose, the pain and would never go away until I stopped denying it, hating it, blaming it for what I perceived the ruination my life had become. All problems are of the mind, of ego, and so cannot be relieved or resolved at that same level. A higher level of awareness can be realized from within that nothing was ever wrong with you to begin with. The only problem was that you thought there was. And you even realize that is not a problem it’s just what fucking happens as part of the human condition or whatever. All anyone ever wants is peace inside, and this occurs as the ego is allowed to fall away. It’s the only way to truly effect change, or the only way it does, and in doing so it is the ultimate gift to others at the same time. I like the quote from Lao Tzu about the best gift you can give to the world is your own transformation. And Krishnamurti: ” It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”