I understand that Miyamoto Musashi was a great man who over the course of 60 omething years, accumulated a vast amount of knowlege ranging from swordsmanship to india ink painting and Zen buddhist philosophy. towards the end of his life Musashi seemed to have had several epiphany's in which he expressed through his ink brush, poetry and caligraphy. What i want to know is what drove him to continously search for the way and pursue the life of Shugyosha. Why did he do all that? what were his motives? it didnt seem like he was trying to be the best swordsman nor find the ultimate answers to the great mysteries of life? i want to know why? Thank you.
it is said he was the veteran of over 60 katana-katana duels by the time he was 30. it is fair to assume he killed around 60 people by this time (provided my memory on the no. of duels is correct) that is a lot of blood on your hands... i expect the experiences of the first half of his life made him think pretty deeply about what he wanted to spend the rest of life doing...after all that destruction of life i'd be pretty creative...it probably calmed his demons.
I have a better explanation: He was friggin' crazy! He did what he wanted to do. Why do you do what you do? You have at least some control over it, so why not do something else instead? PL
Considering he was a veteran of the battle of sekigahara, he likely suffered some post traumatic stress disorder that may have forced him to find peace. As well, he was samurai, and on the losing side of the war, he was a hunted man. -bambeer
It's said that he was a bully, killing guys in duels that they didn't want to fight and hadn't asked for. He didn't fight champions - just anybody he felt like going for. Of course he was keen to brag about it afterwards, rationalising along the way. Or something.
Unlike ninjas, Musashi found that flipping out and killing people all the time was not actually satisfactory from a spiritual point of view. Of course, it took some dozens of duels and god knows how many deaths for him to find that out. But by the end of that bloodbath he had reached enlightenment, so that´s all good, right?
CobraMaximus, you've solved me a problem, your not going to believe this but I've been trying to remember where I'd heard the name of Miyamato Musashi without cheating through the search engine lol, and you've solved it The Five Rings, I read the book years ago and couldn't really get into it before but I'm going to have another go. thanks sweetie, my hero for the day lol lisa (fallentoa) xx
I feel so honoured fair maiden. I partially agree with What David and WingChun said. He most probably was a bully after fighting some hard duels. I think he most probably fought a lot to make a name for himself but then began to find the true essence of the art so stopped because he thought killing didnt fulfill it
We have to remember that everything we read about Musashi is conjecture, there is no hard evidence of his exploits. I have read that he lost to the founder of shinto muso ryu - Muso Gonnosuke Katsuyoshi and that Muso let him live as Musashi let him live after having beat him years before. The idea of beating "champions" in fuedal japan does not really make sense, "champions" would be the men still alive, non champions would be the dead. We have to remember that fuedal japan after the battle of sekigahara was an extremely brutal place with thousands of wandering ronin looking to eat, often at the cost of someone's life. That that we are dicussing Musashi this many years after his death says something of his amazing skill. You should try reading "the unfettered mind", three letters by Takuan Soho to one of the Yagyus. Soho was also the teacher of Musashi in terms of "spiritual enlightenment". Cheers, bambeer
even though he was a veteren of the Sekigahara he participated in about 5 other campaigns and he did participate and accept duels for at least 2 decades following his duel with Sasaki Kojiro, "the demon of the western provinces" which was the last duel he fought with intent to kill. He fought other duels and showed great restrain by not killing or crippling them unlike what he did to Sejuro Yoshioka. he was supposed to have a duel with one shugyosha or samurai but after spending time with him they decided that they should fight just to compare techniques and spent the time discussing Zen Buddhism. this shows that he is not a bully and that even though he has seen more than a human should he shouldnt have been too devastated