: Bushido_boy Thread :

[MorphRC]

[font="Times"][color=red]Bushido Tenets[/color][/font]

[color=red][b]Honesty & Justice[/b][/color]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/GI.jpg[/img]

[b]GI[/b]

Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in Justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true Samurai, there are no shades of grey in the question of Honesty & Justice.

[b]There is only Right and Wrong.[/b]

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[color=red][b]Polite Courtesy[/b][/color]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/REI.jpg[/img]

[b]REI[/b]

Samurai have no reason to be cruel, they do not need to prove their strength. A Samurai is courteous even to his enemies. Without this outward show of respect, we are nothing more than animals.

A Samurai is not only respected for his strength in battle, but also by his dealing with othermen.

The true strength of a Samurai becomes apparent during difficult times.

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[color=gray][b]Next 2 Tenets...[/b][/color]

Edited July 17, 2004 by MorphRC

[MorphRC]

[color=red][b]Heroic Courage[/b][/color]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/YU.jpg[/img]

[b]YU[/b]

Rise up above the masses of people who are afraid to act. Hiding like a turtle in a shell is not living at all. A Samurai must have heroic courage. It is absolutely risky, it is dangerous, it is living completely, fully, wonderfully. Heroic Courage is not blind. It is intellect and strong.

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[color=red][b]Honour[/b][/color]

[img]http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/MEIYO.jpg[/img]

[b]MEIYO[/b]

A true Samurai has only one judge of honour, and this is himself. Decisions you make and how these decisions are carried out are a reflection of whom you truly are.

[b]You cannot hide from yourself.[/b]

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[color=gray][b]Next 2 Tenets...[/b][/color]

[MorphRC]

[color=red][b]Compassion[/b][/color]

[img]http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/JIN.jpg[/img]

[b]JIN[/b]

Through intense training the Samurai becomes quick and strong. He is not as other men. He develops a power that must be used for the good of all. He has compassion. He helps his fellow man at every opporunity. If an opportunity does not arise, he goes out of his way to find one

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[color=red][b]Complete Sincerity[/b][/color]

[img]http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/MAKATO.jpg[/img]

[b]MAKATO[/b]

When a Samurai has said he will perform an act, it is as good as done. Nothing will stop him from completing what he has said he will do. He does not have to "give his word." He does not have to "promise."

[b]Speaking and doing are the same action[/b]

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[color=red][b]Duty & Loyalty[/b][/color]

[img]http://img78.photobucket.com/albums/v285/Bushido_Boy/Bushido/CHU.jpg[/img]

[b]CHU[/b]

For the Samurai, having done some "thing" or said some "thing" he knows he owns that "thing". He is responsible for it, and all the consequences that follow. A Samurai is immensely loyal to those in his care. To those he is responisble for, he remains fiercely true.

[b]--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]

[b]Source:[/b] THe Last Samurai: [i]Disc 2[/i] - Special Features: Bushido: Way of the Samurai

[b]Verified:[/b] Hagakure, [i]Yamamoto Tsunetomo[/i], The Book of the Samurai.

Edited July 17, 2004 by MorphRC

[MorphRC]

[font="Times"][color=red][b]ORIGINS AND INFLUENCES[/b] [/color][/font]

Bushido comes out of Buddhism, Zen, Confucianism, and Shintoism. The combination of these schools of thought and religions has formed the code of warrior values known as Bushido.

From Buddhism, Bushido gets its relationship to danger and death. The samurai do not fear death because they believe as Buddhism teaches, after death one will be reincarnated and may live another life here on earth. The samurai are warriors from the time they become samurai until their death; they have no fear of danger. Through Zen, a school of Buddhism one can reach the ultimate "Absolute." Zen meditation teaches one to focus and reach a level of thought words cannot describe. Zen teaches one to "know thyself" and do not to limit yourself. Samurai used this as a tool to drive out fear, unsteadiness and ultimately mistakes. These things could get him killed.

Shintoism, another Japanese doctrine, gives Bushido its loyalty and patriotism. [1]Shintoism includes ancestor-worship which makes the Imperial family the fountain-head of the whole nation. It awards the emperor a god-like reverence. He is the embodiment of Heaven on earth. With such loyalty, the samurai pledge themselves to the emperor and their daimyo or feudal landlords, higher ranking samurai. Shintoism also provides the backbone for patriotism to their country, Japan. They believe the land is not merely there for their needs, "it is the sacred abode to the gods, the spirits of their forefathers . . ." (Nitobe, 14). The land is cared for, protected and nurtured through an intense patriotism.

Confucianism gives Bushido its beliefs in relationships with the human world, their environment and family. Confucianism's stress on the five moral relations between master and servant, father and son, husband and wife, older and younger brother, and friend and friend, are what the samurai follow. However, the samurai disagreed strongly with many of the writings of Confucius. They believed that man should not sit and read books all day, nor shall he write poems all day, for an intellectual specialist was considered to be a machine. Instead, Bushido believes man and the universe were made to be alike in both the spirit and ethics.

Along with these virtues, Bushido also holds justice, benevolence, love, sincerity, honesty, and self-control in utmost respect. Justice is one of the main factors in the code of the samurai. Crooked ways and unjust actions are thought to be lowly and inhumane. Love and benevolence were supreme virtues and princely acts. Samurai followed a specific etiquette in every day life as well as in war. Sincerity and honesty were as valued as their lives. Bushi no ichi-gon, or "the word of a samurai," transcends a pact of complete faithfulness and trust. [3]With such pacts there was no need for a written pledge; it was thought beneath one's dignity. The samurai also needed self-control and stoicism to be fully honored. He showed no sign of pain or joy. He endured all within--no groans, no crying. He held a calmness of behavior and composure of the mind neither of which should be bothered by passion of any kind. He was a true and complete warrior.

These factors which make up Bushido were few and simple. Though simple, Bushido created a way of life that was to nourish a nation through its most troubling times, through civil wars, despair and uncertainty. "The wholesome unsophisticated nature of our warrior ancestors derived ample food for their spirit from a sheaf of commonplace and fragmentary teachings, gleaned as it were on the highways and byways of ancient thought, and, stimulated by the demands of the age formed from these gleanings a new and unique way of life" (Nitobe, 20).

[MorphRC]

[b]What is Bushido?[/b]

[b]Bushido[/b] (Japanese, “the way of the warrior”), code of ethics observed by the warrior noblemen, or samurai, of feudal Japan. Like the rules of chivalry that prevailed in medieval Europe, Bushido was based on such virtues as rectitude, endurance, frugality, courage, politeness, veracity, and, especially, loyalty to ruler and country. Only through the exercise of these virtues could a knight maintain his honour, and one who had forfeited honour was compelled to commit suicide by hara-kiri. Fully developed by the late 12th century, Bushido became a written code in the 16th century. When feudalism was abolished (by about the middle of the 19th century), the code was abandoned, but its influence, mainly on the army, persisted.

[color=gray][b]Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard - Bushido
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.[/b][/color]

[MorphRC]

[color=red][font="Times"][b]Bushido[/b][/color][/font]

In Japanese tradition, Bushido ([b]武士道[/b]), is a term which translates "way of the warrior". Many samurai devoted their lives to bushido, a strict code that demanded loyalty and honor to the death. If a samurai failed to uphold his honor he could regain it by committing seppuku (ritual suicide).

Bushido is an internally-consistent ethical code. In its purest form, it demands of its practitioners that they look effectively backward at the present from the moment of their own death, as if they were already, in effect, dead. This is particularly true of the earlier forms of Bushido or budo. Of later forms, traditionalists would scoff, "they reason with staying alive kept clearly in mind."

[b]There are seven virtues associated with Bushido:[/b]

義 - [b]Gi[/b] - Rectitude
勇 - [b]Yu[/b] - Courage
仁 - [b]Jin[/b] - Benevolence
礼 - [b]Rei[/b] - Respect
誠 - [b]Makoto[/b] - Honesty
名誉 - [b]Meiyo[/b] - Honor
尽忠 - [b]Chugi[/b] - Loyalty

[b]Important figures in the development of Bushido:[/b]

[b]1:[/b] Miyamoto Musashi
[b]2:[/b] Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Bushido was also a spiritual basis for those who committed kamikaze attack during World War II. For this reason many of the martial arts that are rooted in bushido were banned by the occupying Americans during the post-war occupation.

The modern sport of kendo takes its basic philosophy from bushido, in particular, the theory that the entire purpose of the sport is "[i]one cut, one kill[/i]". Unlike in other martial arts, extended contact, or multiple strikes, tends to be discouraged in favor of clean single strokes on the body or the head.

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[b]Source:[/b] Wikipedia - [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido"][i]Bushido[/i][/url]

[MorphRC]

[b]The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.[/b]

[b]Bushido[/b]


(bsh´d, b´shd) (KEY) [Jap.,=way of the warrior], code of honor and conduct of the Japanese nobility. Of ancient origin, it grew out of the old feudal bond that required unwavering loyalty on the part of the vassal. It borrowed heavily from Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. In its fullest expression the code emphasized loyalty to one’s superior, personal honor, and the virtues of austerity, self-sacrifice, and indifference to pain. For the warrior, commerce and the profit motive were to be scorned. The code was first formulated in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and put into writing in the 16th cent.; the term itself, however, did not come into use until the 17th cent. It became the standard of conduct for the daimyo and samurai under the Tokugawa shoguns and was taught in state schools as a prerequisite for government service. After the Meiji restoration (1868), it was the basis for the cult of emperor worship taught until 1945.

[b]Source:[/b] [url="http://www.bartleby.com/65/bu/bushido.html"]Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001 © - Bushido[/url]

[MorphRC]

[b]The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.[/b]

[b]Samurai [/b]


(sä´´mr´) (KEY) , knights of feudal Japan, retainers of the daimyo. This aristocratic warrior class arose during the 12th-century wars between the Taira and Minamoto clans and was consolidated in the Tokugawa period. Samurai were privileged to wear two swords, and at one time had the right to cut down any commoner who offended them. They cultivated the martial virtues, indifference to pain or death, and unfailing loyalty to their overlords (see bushido). Samurai were the dominant group in Japan, and the masterless samurai, the ronin, were a serious social problem. Under the Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1867), the samurai were removed from direct control of the villages, moved into the domain castle towns, and given government stipends. They were encouraged to take up bureaucratic posts. As a result, they lost a measure of their earlier martial skill. Dissatisfied samurai from the Choshu and Satsuma domains of W Japan were largely responsible for overthrowing the shogun in 1867. When feudalism was abolished after the Meiji restoration, some former samurai also took part in the Satsuma revolt under Takamori Saigo in 1877. As statesmen, soldiers, and businessmen, former samurai took the lead in building modern Japan. 1
See H. P. Varley, The Samurai (1970).

[b]Source:[/b] [url="http://www.bartleby.com/65/sa/samurai.html"]Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001 © - Samurai[/url]

[MorphRC]

[b]The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001.[/b]

[b]Ronin[/b]


(r´nn) (KEY) , in Japanese history, masterless samurai. Ronin were retainers who were deprived of their place in the usual loyalty patterns of Japanese feudalism. The daimyo they had served might have died, been exiled, or become so poor that the samurai had to abandon his lord. Ronin became farmers, monks, soldiers of fortune, or even bandits. In demand in times of war, they were often a burden on society in times of peace. At their best, as in the story of the 47 Ronin depicted by Chikamatsu in his popular drama, they are a model of loyalty and self-sacrifice exemplifying bushido. In modern Japan, the term ronin is often given to high-school graduates who, having failed to pass college entrance exams, are preparing for another opportunity.

[url="http://www.bartleby.com/65/ro/ronin.html"]Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001 © - Ronin - Masterless Samurai[/url]

[kaidoh]

bushido doesnt mean like swordsman or something like that

[MorphRC]

[color=blue][font="Times"][b]Samurai[/b][/color][/font]

[b]Samurai[/b], warrior class in Japan, or a member of that class. Samurai first arose as provincial administrators acting for absentee estate-owning courtiers who remained in the capital Kyoto. In the unruly provinces, these officials were recruited from local warrior clans bound by bonds of fealty, and led by offshoots of the imperial family, such as the Taira and Minamoto family. By the beginning of the feudal period in the 12th century, the term had come to denote the military retainers of a daimyo, who was a feudal baron under the shogun, or military governor, of Japan. The replacement of the Hojo shogunate with the Ashikaga shogunate in the 14th century led to an even more feudal system, where samurai held lands awarded by their daimyo lords, and collected taxes from peasants. During the turbulent 15th and 16th centuries, the samurai formed the backbone of the clan armies whose feuds convulsed Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate, which finally restored stable government in 1603, segregated the samurai in castle towns. The now samurai formed a distinct class in the rigid Tokugawa system, wearing two swords as a symbol of their caste and following a rigid code of ethics known as bushido. In the peaceful Edo period, the samurai became shogunal or diamyo officials, or simply idle stiperdiaries. Poverty led some to renounce their status or take up trades; others became important scholars or artists. In 1867 the last shogun resigned, and the samurai class lost its privileges in 1871 when the whole feudal system was abolished. The daimyo returned their lands to the emperor, both nobles and retainers were granted pensions, and the practice of wearing swords was prohibited. In 1878, the names daimyo and samurai were changed to kazoku, or nobility, and shizoku, or gentry, respectively.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard - Samurai [i]CD-ROM[/i]
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[MorphRC]

[quote name='kaidoh' date='Jul 17 2004, 10:15 PM'] bushido doesnt mean like swordsman or something like that [/quote]
Nope. Bushido - Way of the Samurai, or Warrior for a slightly looser translation.

Swordsmanship is called Iaido. Theres another one that starts with K. Kenjutsu I think its called, thats the proper art of the Sword, the Samurai trained to.

[MorphRC]

[color=blue][font="Times"][b]Ronin[/b][/color][/font]

[b]Ronin[/b], class of masterless samurai, who had lost their place in the normal loyalty pattern of Japanese feudal society. Samurai could become ronin for various reasons, such as the death of their lord, their own transgressions, or defeat in battle. Although some ronin, once they had lost their fiefs, became farmers or even monks, others found it difficult to adjust to their new status and tended to become a disruptive element, sometimes resorting to banditry. The peace established by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 drove many to take up professions. The famous incident of the 47 ronin took place in 1703. While attending the shogun at Edo (now Tokyo) in 1701, the young daimyo Asano Naganori, lord of Ako domain, attacked Kira, the shogun's master of etiquette, who had supposedly provoked him beyond endurance, inside the shogunal castle. For this crime, he was ordered to commit hara-kiri, and his estates were forfeited. Now ronin, 47 of his followers swore vengence on Kira, and spent two years planning their revenge. They stormed Kira's mansion, killed him, and presented his head at Asano's grave. The ronin were ordered to commit suicide, and were buried near their master's grave. An example of bushido, the samurai code of ethics, at its noblest, the incident became a favourite theme of fiction and drama.

[color=gray]Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard - Ronin CD-ROM
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.[/color]

[MorphRC]

[font="Times"][color=blue][b]Kendo[/b][/color][/font]

[b]Kendo[/b], (Japanese, “way of the sword”), martial art using a sword (ken), formerly called ken-jutsu,ken-no-michi, and gekken during the Meiji period (1868-1912) in Japan. Nowadays kendo is practised with shinai (bamboo swords) and fighters wear protective equipment. The bogu (armour) consists of a men (face mask), a do (breastplate), kote (gauntlets), and the tare, a kind of apron to protect the stomach and hips. Under the armour kendoka wear a hakama or wide split “skirt” reaching the ankles. The shinai is made of four lengths of seasoned bamboo bound by waxed cord. Contestants are barefoot and fight on a smooth floor.

The main cuts or thrusts that may be delivered are limited as follows: (1) o-shomen—a vertical cut aimed at the centre of the forehead; (2) hidari-men—an oblique cut at the left temple; (3) migi-men—an oblique cut at the right temple; (4) migi-do—a downward cut at the right side of the breastplate; (5) gyaku-do—a downward cut at the left side of the breastplate; (6) kote—a cut at the right wrist or lower forearm; (7) hidari-kote—a cut at the left wrist or lower forearm; (8) tsuki—a thrust at the throat.

An important part of training is the use of the kiai—an explosive sound, a kind of controlled yell or shout intended to inspire courage and determination in the utterer and fear in the opponent, and to upset the concentration of the opponent as a cut or thrust is made.

A shiai (match) is normally known as a “three-point” match lasting three to five minutes. The first fighter to score two points is the winner. If a match is drawn it is either declared a draw or an extension is made and the first fighter to take a point is the winner.

Kendo training is hard and so is the discipline which prevails. The discipline or etiquette (reigi) is an essential part of the art and is much respected. To be a good kendoka means much more than being just a good swordsman. It is a character-training art designed to produce equilibrium between mind and body; a harmony of mental and physical fitness.

The earliest known reference to swordsmanship in Japan is ad 789 when kumatichi (sword exercise) was part of education for the sons of noblemen. The samurai perfected the skills and kendo schools were set up to train warriors. Modern kendo is the result of ryu-ha-kenjutsu—the academic study of swordsmanship. It is practised in Japan by over two million people, and has some following in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. In England it caught on with some rapidity and England had the first dojos (schools) in Europe. The governing body is the International Kendo Federation. World Championships were first held in 1970. Japanese kendokas have won the individual and team titles at all the championships.

[b]Contributed By:[/b] [i]Charles Cuddon[/i]

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard - Kendo [i]CD-ROM[/i]
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

[MorphRC]

[font="Times"][color=blue][b]Hara-Kiri[/b][/color][/font]

[b]Hara-Kiri[/b] (Japanese, “belly-cutting”), Japanese practice of ceremonial suicide by disembowelment, a method originally restricted by custom to nobles and later adopted by all classes. The term is also used to signify any suicide performed for the sake of personal honour. Hara-kiri originated in feudal Japan, when it was used by samurai, or warrior noblemen, to avoid the dishonour of capture by their enemies. It later became virtually an indirect method of execution, whereby a noble on receiving a message from the mikado, or emperor, that his death was essential to imperial welfare, performed hara-kiri.

In most cases of so-called obligatory hara-kiri, a richly ornamented dagger accompanied the imperial message, to be used as the suicide weapon. A specified number of days was allotted to the offender for his preparations for the ceremony. A red-carpeted dais was constructed in the home of the offending noble, or in a temple. At the beginning of the final ceremony, the nobleman, dressed in ceremonial costume and attended by a group of friends and officials, took his place on the dais. Assuming a kneeling position, he prayed, took the dagger from the representative of the emperor, and publicly avowed his guilt; then, stripping to the waist, he plunged the dagger into the left side of his abdomen, drawing it slowly across to the right side and making a slight upwards cut. At the final moment a friend or kinsman beheaded the dying nobleman. Subsequently, the blood-stained dagger was customarily sent to the emperor as proof of the death of the nobleman by hara-kiri. If the offender committed voluntary hara-kiri, that is, acted on his own guilty conscience rather than by order of the emperor, his honour was considered restored and his entire estate went to his family. If hara-kiri had been ordered by the emperor, however, half the property of the suicide was confiscated by the State.

As practised by people of all classes, hara-kiri frequently served as an ultimate gesture of devotion to a superior who had died, or as a form of protest against some act or policy of the government. The practice eventually became so widespread that for centuries an estimated total of 1,500 deaths occurred annually by this method; more than half of these were voluntary acts.

Hara-kiri as an obligatory form of suicide (self-execution) was abolished in 1868. Incidences of it as a form of voluntary suicide are rare in modern times. However, many Japanese soldiers in recent wars, including World War II, resorted to hara-kiri to escape the perceived ignominy of defeat or capture.

Microsoft Encarta 2004 Standard - Hara-Kiri CD-ROM
© 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.