Bushido: a Modern Adaptation of the Ancient Code of the Samurai

By Mark Edward Cody

Bushido: A Modern Adaptation of the Ancient Code of the Samurai attempts to address the violent nature of the human spirit and to harness and redirect that trait into a constructive force for the betterment of mankind. Bushido examines the metaphor of the Warrior as it appears in human culture both historically and in the stories, philosophies and religions of mankind, drawing heavily upon the stoic martial philosophy of Feudal Japan and on the Judeo-Christian principles which have shaped the West. It is the Author's hope that this work will convey a message of self-reliance, strength and peace that our world so desperately needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 31, 2001
• ISBN: 9781468567120

Mark Edward Cody

Mark Edward Cody began training in the Martial Arts in 1981. The Way of the Warrior led him to a lifetime study of the mental, spiritual and physical aspects of the fighting arts. In 1998 he became a 5th Degree Black Belt in Wado Ryu Karate/Jujutsu and a FCS Guro. In 2000 he published Bushido, his examination of warrior philosophy from a Christian perspective. Cody is an expert in many martial disciplines including Kenjutsu. For 15 years he operated one of Central Florida’s largest martial art/tactical firearm studios. A lifelong friend, and first generation student of the FCS founder, Cody is uniquely qualified to write the first book about Filipino Combat Systems.

Book preview

Bushido

A Modern Adaptation of the

Ancient Code Of the

Samurai

by

Mark Edward Cody

Copyright © 1997, 2000 by Mark Edward Cody

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, restored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted by means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written consent

from the author.

ISBN: 1-58721-837-2

ISBN: 978-1-4685-6712-0 (eBook)

IstBooks-rev. 5/29/00

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One The Nature Of The Beast

Chapter Two A Brief History Of The Warrior Philosophy

Chapter Three A Way Of Life Found In Death

Chapter Four The Will To Live

Chapter Five The Why Of Life

Chapter Six Agape (Divine Love As A Basis For Morality

Chapter Seven The Death Of The Old-The Birth Of The New

Chapter Eight The New World Order: Global Government

Chapter Nine An Eschatology: Dark Days Ahead

Chapter Ten The Ronin-Hope For A Nation

Chapter Eleven Mokuteki-Purpose

Chapter Twelve Sonkei-Reverence

Chapter Thirteen Kansha-Thankfulness

Chapter Fourteen Shugyo-Discipline

Chapter Fifteen Makoto-Sincerity

Chapter Sixteen Tuitsu-Unity

Chapter Seventeen Zen And Stoicism

Chapter Eighteen Haragei And Zanshin

Chapter Nineteen Heiho-Combat Strategy

Chapter Twenty The Warrior As A Symbol

Chapter Twenty-One Wado: The Way Of Peace

About The Book

Bushido: A modern Adaptation of the ancient Code of the Samurai attempts to address the violent nature of the human spirit and to harness and redirect that trait into a constructive force for the betterment of mankind. Bushido examines the metaphor of the Warrior as it appears in human culture both historically and in the stories, philosophies and religions of mankind, drawing heavily upon the stoic martial philosophy of Feudal Japan and on the Judeo-Christian principles which have shaped the West. It is the Author’s hope that this work will convey a message of self-reliance, strength and peace that our world so desperately needs.

This book is dedicated to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and to all those Warriors of the Faith, past, present and future, who take up the Sword of Truth to defend that which is Just.

And in memory of my grandfather, Charles Edward Cody.

Truth, Justice, Honor, self-sacrifice.

He taught me that these were not mere words, but rather a Code by which to live…

I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man…

-Thomas Jefferson

Introduction

Now is the time of twilight. The sun lies just below the horizon. The soft, diffused light bathes the sky like a canvas touched by the hand of a master painter. It is a scene of great hope, mystery, and fear. Is the sun rising or setting? Does the rosy fingered dawn await us, or the dark and dreadful night? There is stillness in the air, a hesitation… A quiet reverence settles on all those who look to the light. It is tempting to wish that time could stand still in this great moment of transition and change, but the sun cares not for the desires of men. The sun will rise, or the sun will set as it is destined in the order of things.

We are at the dawn of a new millennium, a millennium that promises untold wonders and yet warns of incomprehensible dangers. The memories of the past century stand fast in our minds like the monoliths of a long-dead civilization. They tell us much of what we are becoming, and yet they speak of a great, ominous mystery. They fill our minds with wonder and doubt. What will become of this great civilization that struggled and toiled to erect these great cornerstones of achievement? Will these stones stand alone as a reminder of a civilization that could not endure the test of time, or will they serve as a foundation for the continuing labors of a great and enlightened people?

The twentieth century has seen many achievements of science and technology and of almost every other arena of human interest. We have seen diseases that we thought incurable, cured. We have prolonged the human life span and have grasped a basic understanding of the genetic code that shapes life. We have set out to make ourselves as gods, attempting to shape the building blocks of life to our liking. We have seen man voyage forth from the planet to reach for the stars. We have seen countless elements of science fiction become science fact; genetic engineering, cloning, space travel…

We bore witness to the first of our race to set foot on the foreign soil, not of another continent, as Columbus had done some short 400 years before, but upon the soil of another astral body. We, like the ancient ones who toiled together to raise the Tower of Babel, have set our goal to reach to the stars and it often seems to us that there is nothing that our minds can imagine that our hands cannot bring forth.

Our achievements have been great, but so then, have our atrocities and failures. This century of our birth has been the solemn witness to two World Wars. The first Great War we called The war to end all wars. The guns fired and the blood flowed, but when the smoke cleared, the vision of man remained clouded.

Scarcely had the horror subsided in our minds before we found our world again at war. This Second World War came to an end only after the dropping of the atomic bomb. Man now had the means to destroy life on this planet. Since then, America has called its wars police actions, perhaps subconsciously hoping to lesson the horror of the act by referring to it by a different term. We now face the threat of not only nuclear, chemical and bacteriological war, but of the terrorist use of these devastating weapons as well. There are wars and rumors of wars. At any one moment there are more bloody skirmishes taking place somewhere on the globe than we really care to know about.

A car bomb kills a child. The child dies, not understanding why it is that the grown-ups are fighting. The child doesn’t understand things like politics and political parties. The child only knows that he hurts…That he is bleeding…

A terrorist blows up a plane. Someone’s mother is on board. Someone puts the person who brought him or her into this world onto that plane and watches her fly off, never suspecting that they will never see her again. The terrorist never thinks about the broken hearts and the empty chairs around the kitchen tables of the victims the next Christmas, on that day when it seems that the memory of lost loved ones is most strong.

An American soldier is murdered and dragged through the streets of some God-forsaken little country that he had until recently probably never even heard of. His family watches the event as it is replayed time and again on the evening news. How many Americans know, or care about what he was doing in that small African country?

Children kill children on our streets and in our schools. Their senseless rage burns out of control. No one seems understand why. No one knows how to stop it from happening again and again. We ask ourselves What is happening to our nation? What has become of our morality, our strength, and our safety? Is there any hope for our future?

Men of great power and weak conscience sit around tables behind closed doors, deciding what kind of world they want the rest of us to have to live in and none of them bother to ask any of us how we feel about suffering and / or dying to aid them in their quest for godhood.

There has come among us a great pestilence, which gnaws at the root of the liberty tree. Our nation, our world, faces a terrible twofold threat. There are the ruling elite, whose hearts have grown dark and whose consciences have grown numb, protected by the intellectual idealism that is nurtured in the ivory towers of higher learning and twisted by the lust for power and the feeling of intellectual superiority. These people will do anything, kill anyone, and tell any lie, to attain, or maintain power and wealth. And then there are the apathetic masses that want nothing more than to have someone to think for them and something to keep them entertained. They want government to do everything for them and they fear anyone who seeks independence and who treasures self-reliance. These people curse the tree of liberty.

Freedom is a delicate flower and when the hand of tyranny threatens it, it is only the thorns of a Warrior spirit that protects it. Like the flower of a rose bush, America’s freedom cannot stand alone, isolated from the qualities which first made the soil of this land fertile so that the seeds of personal liberty could take root.

Wisdom, Benevolence and Courage serve as the roots, which anchor us to the soil. It is through wisdom that men strive to seek out justice. Wisdom causes men to forever yearn to be free. Wisdom is the fire that is kindled when men curse the darkness. Only through great care and dedication can this flame grow.

Benevolence is the fruit of wisdom. It is the love of one’s fellow man that has been the driving force behind every worthwhile act that our race has ever set its hands to. Love is the bonding agent that holds society together. It is love that causes us to have courage.

Courage is the willingness to do what one has to do to protect the things one loves, regardless of the cost. Courage is the selfless guardian of justice. It is through the hands of courageous men that the soil in which freedom grows is sometimes called to be watered by the blood of those who would enslave mankind.

The nineteen sixties and the Vietnam War saw the emergence of a subculture within America and throughout the world which came to call itself The Peace Movement. The major portion of the group’s members was students and so called intellectuals. These people protested the United States’ involvement in the war. They cited many reasons for their dissent. Some of these protesters were self-proclaimed Communists or Socialists who saw the war as a liberation of Vietnam by its people. Some were pacifists who did not believe in violence for any cause, no matter how noble. Others were simply cowards who were afraid that they might be called on to die for the freedom which they took for granted. Many were motivated by the belief that the war was not ours to fight. They felt that Americans should not be called on to die for what they believed to be another countries problem. A small minority perhaps saw the Vietnam War as the latest manifestation of an ongoing conspiracy on the part of men in high places to further themselves in their quest for riches and power.

Regardless of what the Peace Movement’s motives and goals were, one thing became clear as a result of the movement… Military service and patriotism were no longer considered as they once were, to be a badge of merit and honor. In previous wars our fighting men returned home to be hailed as heroes and defenders of freedom. The Vietnam veterans returned home only to find scorn and hatred. A fundamental change had taken place at the core of our country’s soul. It had lost its fighting spirit.

Throughout the nineteen sixties our country moved further and further away from the concept of the citizen soldier from which our country was born. Nineteen sixty-eight saw the birth of a gun control act which greatly restricted the rights of law abiding citizens in the acquisition and possession of firearms. This law was based on the Nazi’s gun control act of the nineteen thirties in Germany. In the decades that were to follow, America would see various groups come forth and demand under various guises that the Warrior spirit be forever extinguished.

The misguided youth of the sixties grew up to be the leaders and educators of the present. This brings us to the America that we now live in. Ours is a country full of fear and injustice. On many issues, the conservative forces that remain within our government have been unable to hold back the influence of those who would strip America of its strength and its citizens of their rights.

Our national sovereignty is under constant attack. Under various guises such as free trade agreements and environmental protection agreements, our Federal Government prostitutes itself to the international power elite. Hostile nations taunt us with their terrorist actions. The threat of terrorism is used as an excuse to seek to rob us of the inalienable rights which God has granted us and which our Constitution guarantees us. Third world drug tsars pollute our country with tons of their poison each year. It has been alleged that our own Central Intelligence Agency works hand in hand with such elements when it furthers the agency’s agenda. Our Justice System is a revolving door through which hardened criminals pass right back onto our streets.

How do today’s peace activists and liberals wish to handle these problems? They tell us that the answer lies in turning our backs on our National identity and on the values which formed it. They point to multi-culturalism and international cooperation under the auspices of the United Nations as the only hope for Humanity. They want us to believe that we can negotiate with terrorists. They think we should dismantle our nuclear arsenal in the hope that the rest of the nuclear community will do the same. They would have us believe that nations that have always been our bitter enemies are now our friends. They seek to de-emphasize the fact that our foreign enemies remain ideologically opposed to all that America is supposed to stand for. The pacifists of our country tell us that prisons should rehabilitate, not punish. They call the death penalty barbaric, but rapists and murders are victims of society.

The internationalists have brought America to the point at which some segments of our military finds itself on occasion, to be put under foreign command. We now have foreign military bases on U.S. soil. Many of our law enforcement agencies are internationally certified (This fact is proudly documented in bold letters on the side of patrol cars in many cities). The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun to work closely with the Russians, even going so far as to engage in joint training exercises with the (former) KGB.

After effectively neutralizing the strength of the police and military, The internationalists wish to destroy the one remaining force that could hope to defend individual freedom. They purpose that the American civilian population should be disarmed, claiming that the military and the police and ultimately, the International Peacekeeping Force can protect us. One has to wonder who they expect to protect us from them.

The New World Order movement teaches its principles to tomorrow’s leaders through the education system and through the media, which they dominate. Many textbooks are appearing within our schools that engage in revisionist history, retelling the past as it suits those who seek to shape the future by reshaping the past. One textbook even went so far as to tell school children that the Thanksgiving holiday came about as a remembrance of our pilgrim ancestors giving thanks to the Indians for teaching them how to plant corn and for teaching them other survival skills that helped them make it through the first few bitter winters in this new land. No mention is made of giving thanks to God for Divine protection.

The importance of the American Revolution in world history is becoming de-emphasized. Multiculturalism has replaced Americanism versus Communism in high school curriculum. Our Founding Fathers are being portrayed as greedy, capitalist, slave owners instead of as patriots, assuming they are being portrayed at all instead of being simply ignored.

Every element of our society is being attacked and weakened. Anyone who sees the threat to our way of life is labeled as a paranoid, right wing fanatic. Anyone who sees the need to arm himself, or in any way attempt to prepare themselves for the dark days that may come are considered to be a threat to society.

Some even go so far as to call for a ban on war toys such as toy guns, tanks and the like. This hatred for anything militaristic, which is to say hatred for anything that suggests aggressive resistance to any hostile force, is a trend that no nation can long endure.

The great Chinese combat strategist Sun Tzu states in his Art of War that War is a matter of vital importance to the state; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied. It would do well for America to heed the warnings of this sage of old, for our response to his words may make the difference between the life and death of freedom for our country as we enter the twenty-first century. The option lies before us to bequeath to our children a legacy of strength and freedom, or of weakness and slavery. If we fail them, they may be forced to stand and fight because we stood still, oblivious to the threat of weakness while it could still be easily prevented.

Strength and weakness both begin as ideas, or mental attitudes. Physical strength is to a degree determined by birth, but physical strength is only a small portion of true strength. True strength must come from within. An attitude of self-reliance and of personal discipline will cause a person to strive to be physically strong as well as mentally and spiritually strong. Together, the mental and the physical blend with the spiritual to form a true strength that cannot be easily overcome.

A nation is nothing more than a collection of like-minded individuals, living together in one geographical location. It stands to reason then, that the easiest way to strengthen the nation is to cultivate strong citizens. The first step in doing this is to instill the proper concept of strength into the minds of our youth. It is my belief that this will lead to the True Pacifism and True Peace, which eludes the World Peace Movement that we know today.

It is the desire of this text to explore the nature of peace and violence and to explore the nature of the human psyche, which yearns for both. Only when Man comes to terms with his own aggressive behavior which sinks its roots deep into his very nature, only then can he hope to bring it under some level of control.

It is my belief that it is only the individual who strives to master both the Art of Peace and the Art of War, who can ever come to a true appreciation of Peace and humility. This concept is not a new one. It is a familiar thing to the oriental mind. As one Samurai Warrior of Japan put it, The Arts of Peace and the Arts of War are like the two wheels of a cart, which lacking one, will have difficulty in standing. It seems that the philosophers of the East have long concerned themselves with the problem of the dualistic, peace craving, yet warlike nature of man. It then is to the East that we shall look for the initial insight into the state of the human condition.

I shall attempt in this text to explore the origin and nature of the Warrior spirit and its cultivation for the purpose of promoting peacefulness and self-control. We shall see how this philosophy traveled from the dawn of time moving silently through the centuries until it found its place in the island nation of Japan where it would reach its zenith as a philosophy of self-reliance, strength and self-discipline.

It was the Warrior class of Japan, the Samurai, who distilled the nectar of the Warrior spirit into a well defined written code, which they came to call "Bushido-The Way of the Warrior. " Bushido was a philosophy for a time of great danger and change. I assert that such a time is upon us once more. It is an age-old truth that only the strong and those protected by the strong will survive.

Let us then, hang the sword of intellect by our sides and seek out the masters of a simpler age. Let us carefully consider their technique, master it and adapt it to the needs of our own time and circumstance; for the code of Bushido is a code of adaptability and change.

The Bushido of Japan need not be an inescapable mold to which the Bushido of the twenty-first century must conform. But rather let it be a finger pointing to the sun. Let us take care that we do not fix our gaze on the finger and miss the light of the sun itself.

Adaptability is a necessary quality for a code of Warriors. A Warrior’s code must dictate appropriate action in any circumstance. This code must be like water, which will take on the shape of its container and yet retain those essential qualities, which makes it what it is. With this in mind I would like to state most emphatically that Bushido and the Zen philosophy which it embodies should in no way be misconstrued as a religion. It is true that Bushido as a recognized philosophy is the product of a culture influenced by Taoism, Shinto, Confucianism and Buddhism, but I believe that we shall see that this system is completely compatible with the teachings of Christ and with most other belief systems.

Ours is a Christian nation and our Christian heritage and system of values and beliefs are our greatest strength. We possess truths that the Samurai never knew, but it is to no avail to know Truth and lack the courage to expound it and to lack the ability to defend it. Ours is a solemn charge to Secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. Let us, then, be ever vigilant to seek out and nurture those qualities that create and maintain freedom so that freedom shall not perish from the earth.

Mark Edward Cody

10 October, 1997

Chapter One

The Nature of the Beast

From where come wars and fightings among you? Come they not here, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust and have not; Ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain; Ye fight and war, and ye have not…

(James 4:1,2)

With this one simple statement, the Scriptures reveal to us the entire problem of our violent nature and its cause. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life has been the source of violence since the day upon which the earth first tasted the blood of Abel, who was murdered by the hand of his brother Cain. Cain’s pride had been injured because God respected the sacrifice of his brother, but rejected his own sacrifice.

From the first few pages of Genesis to the front page of today’s newspaper, we see the reoccurring theme of violence inspired by desire and pride. It is the nature of man. This is the paper upon which our history is written in our own blood.

Mankind has come far in the few thousand years of recorded history in which we have walked this earth. We have built mighty civilizations and beautiful monuments to mark our great achievements, but civilizations crumble from decay within and from outside aggression. Our monuments, like Shelley’s Ozymandias, are marred by time and covered with sand:

I met a traveler from an antique land who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk a shattered visage lies, who’s frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things. The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; and on the pedestal these words appear My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works ye mighty and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.

Despite all that which we have achieved, we cannot escape the simple underlying problem-we are Evil. It is not to be said that there have not been great men who have walked among us, living lives of hardship and pain, in service to the greater good of all mankind, but such men were those who overcame their basic nature, not those who acted as was in accordance with their basic nature.

Self-denial is the common trait of all great men who seek to serve justice. History speaks of many men of diverse origins, with completely differing goals and circumstances, who were only alike in that they put aside their own comfort and needs in the service of a good cause.

So then, we see a dualism in man. We see a creature who is by nature evil and selfish, but who is capable of rebelling against the very essence of that which he is in order to perform great acts of love and sacrifice. The very fact that benevolence is alien to man’s nature gives greater virtue to the quality when it presents itself within us. Man may be viewed as a microcosm. Within the confines of his body, mind and spirit, we see the battle between Good and Evil that fills the universe.

In the fourteenth chapter of The Book of Isaiah we witness the birth of evil into the universe:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the side of the north, I will ascend above the heights in the clouds, I will be like the Most High.

Here Satan laid down the basic principles from which all evil springs, desire and pride. The Buddhist and Christian Scriptures both agree that pride and desire are the qualities within us which prevent enlightenment, or salvation as a natural result of our basic nature. With the coming of the Zen sect of Buddhism, the concept of Ego became more prevalent. It was believed that satori (enlightenment) only came with the killing of the ego. Only when a man eliminated his ill-conceived self-image could he see into his true nature. The apostle Paul has this to say on the subject of self-image: For now we see through a glass darkly; but then [in heaven] face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known. (I Corinthians. 13:12)

What we know of ourselves, it seems, is a very dark and distorted image. It is perhaps one of Christianity’s greatest challenges to convince man that he is basically evil. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes… (Proverbs.21: 2). Satori can only come when a man sees his own true nature and his consciousness wakes from its illusion. As long as there exists within the mind of man a concept of ego, he will forever be a slave to it. He will always be in danger of having his pride injured and he will always desire to prove himself to others.

The Scriptures tell us that man is created in the image of God. In the pages of the Holy Writ we also find that God reveals Himself to us as a triune (three part) Godhead. God the Father is the first aspect of the Godhead that has been revealed to us. He is the Mind of the Trinity. Christ, The Son was God made flesh, the physical manifestation of God on earth. The Holy Ghost is the omnipresent Spirit of God. It is in this triune nature that we are of God’s image. We have a mind from which we have thought. We have a body from which we obtain form and we have a spirit from which we obtain the quality of immortality. Before man said in his heart I will… as Satan did, he was close to the image of God. He was like three sticks bound together burning with one flame. Each aspect of his person lived in harmony. With the coming of sin, ego was born. The mind of man cried out against the body and the body warred against the spirit.

This is the state in which we now exist, a state of discord in which we lack peace within ourselves. As long as we walk this earth as mortals we are fragmented, attaining only a portion of our true potential. The trinity of our nature might be compared to the construction of a triangle. If any one of the three sides is too weak, the structure cannot stand. Even if the other two sides are incredibly strong, the weak side will cause them to be ineffectual. Three sides of great strength will likewise be weak if they are not joined together well at the corners. A structure of three strong, but divided sides may have the appearance of true strength, but the slightest amount of force exerted against it will upset the delicate balance and cause it to topple.

Only the person whose three sides are both strong and unified is the possessor of true strength. Any person who seeks strength must exercise each aspect of his person. He must cultivate the mind, harden the body and discipline the spirit. Each aspect of