Sunday, March 04, 2007

Learning How to Live from the Samurai of Feudal Japan


The Samurai Way of Living
As if you are Going to Die Today!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all preach the inevitability of death and use this fact in an attempt to persuade (and frighten!) people into behaving in a certain way. It goes without saying that these attempts—often irrational and inhuman—have not been successful.

As contrary to common sense as it might seem, the samurai warriors of feudal Japan were among the few people who fully recognized and accepted the fragility and briefness of life and based their way of living on that knowledge.

Members of the samurai class were taught from childhood that life is as fragile as a cherry blossom that can be wafted away by the slightest breeze, and that they should live their lives accordingly, obeying all of the obligations that made up their world so that they could die at any moment without remorse for having failed to live up to their responsibilities.

Samurai warriors generally followed this philosophy of life with profound diligence for two very simple reasons. First, they were subject to being killed, or having to kill themselves and sometimes their families as well, at a moment’s notice. And second, they believed that if they failed to behave according to the precepts that controlled their class they and their families would be disgraced forever.

The samurai knew that if people are always ready to die at a moment’s notice they are far more likely to follow what was known as the Shichi Toku (She-chee Toh-kuu), or “Seven Virtues.” These seven virtues were:

1) Jizen (Jee-zane)—Benevolence and Charity
2) Kennin (Kane-nee)—An Indomitable Spirit, Fortitude
and Perseverance
3) Kibō (Kee-bohh)—A Life filled with Hope for the Best
4) Seigi (Say-ghee)—Righteousness and Justice
5) Shincho (Sheen-choh)—Care, Caution, Discretion
6) Shinnen (Sheen-nane)—Conviction and Faith
7) Sessei (Say-ssay-ee)—Moderation and Temperance

This is not to infer that all of Japan’s samurai were paragons of these seven virtues, or to ignore the fact that the definitions and nuances of all of these virtues were based on Japanese values and aspirations, which often differed fundamentally from Western precepts.

But within Japanese society during the age of the samurai the level of ethics, manners, morality and overall behavior was as high—if not higher—than has ever been achieved, before or since, in any other society. And this encompassed many of the most desirable and admirable beliefs and behavioral traits that were part of the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic traditions.

The code of conduct prescribed for the samurai (their “commandments” if you will) and the rationale for these codes covered all of the areas and topics of human interest and needs, especially those that involved appearance, personal relationships, and living a well-ordered life.

Japan’s samurai class, which formally came into existence in the 12th century [and was not abolished until the early 1870s], based their beliefs and way of life on the teachings of the great Chinese sage Confucius who lived from 551 to 479 B.C., and on the precepts of Zen Buddhism, founded by the Indian monk Bodhidharma in the 6th century A.D.

Confucius taught an ethical system based on personal virtue, devotion to family—including the spirits of one’s ancestors—justice, and absolute loyalty to one’s superiors.

Bodhidharam, forced to flee his homeland, went to China in 532 A.D., where in addition to having engaged in dialogue with the reigning emperor is said to have sat facing a wall for nine years, meditating. He then taught that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation and intuition, rather than through scriptures written by religious leaders.

The strict discipline and absolute obligations taught by Confucius were a perfect match for Japan’s warrior class, who broadened and strengthened them to encompass virtually every aspect of their lives.

The meditation practices of Zen provided the samurai with the incredible fortitude they needed to accept their strict obligations, to develop equally incredible skills in martial arts, and to face death at any moment with dignified calm resolve.

From an early age members of the samurai class were taught that they should begin each day with the realization that they could die at any moment—and if that moment came they should die with dignity. They were taught that if you are ready for death at all times, dying is easy—and that in life death is the only thing that is absolutely sincere.

As harsh and as unforgiving as the samurai way was, it created a culture in which the rules of life were known to all members of the class and were followed meticulously by the overwhelming majority.

The concept of living your life as if you could die at any moment is, of course, a well-known element in Judaism and Christianity. But it has been a total failure in influencing the conduct of most of the people raised in these religions.

A fundamental part of this failure in so-called Christianized societies is the teaching and the belief that one can be forgiven for his or her “sins” in life right up to the moment or death, and be welcomed into Heaven with open arms. All you have to do is confess your sins and say you believe in God or Jesus.

This belief does not provide sufficient incentive for most people to live a “sinless life,” and because it is inadequate these societies institute secular laws designed to control behavior. Some people make an effort to obey these laws. Others don’t. So god-oriented societies have historically been filled with human violence of every description—much of it perpetrated in the name of the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic God.

Key factors in the historical prevalence of violence in societies that depend on man-made laws for punishment during life and Godly justice after death is that most law-breakers are not punished or the punishments that are meted out do not deter unlawful behavior, there is no real evidence that God has ever punished anyone before or after death, and there is always the death-bed confession that supposedly washes away all sin.

In contrast to this ideology, the fundamental factor in the “religion” of the samurai was that punishment for breaking the codes of life was immediate and was based on all-inclusive unending shame in the here and now.

Virtually all of the shame culture of the samurai class gradually seeped into Japanese society as a whole. Rather than fearing the retribution and punishment of an unseen god who never actually punished anyone for their sinful behavior—at least directly and visibly—the Japanese were conditioned to feel intense shame for any kind of conduct that was not accepted in their society.

In its Japanese context, having done something shameful—or just being perceived as having committed a shameful act—was often enough to not only totally ruin the lives of individuals but often that of their families as well.

In other words, in samurai-influenced Japanese society punishment for unacceptable acts did not necessarily depend upon the enforcement of secular laws, or promises of after-death punishment by an all-knowing, all-seeing god.

Individuals who failed to live up to the cultural requirements of Japanese society suffered intense feelings of personal shame combined with losing their place in society. This latter sanction was especially powerful because of the family and group orientation of Japanese culture.

All other people around the world are, of course, familiar with the sense of shame but most of them are not culturally programmed to suffer very much from it, so shame has never been a paramount influence in controlling conduct.

Even more important in most other societies, particularly in contemporary times, the independent, self-directed mentality of the people significantly limits the degree of influence family and social approval has on the behavior of the vast majority. In simple terms, many people do whatever they can get away with, untroubled by their conscience or any threat of delayed punishment.

In Christian theology, Adam, the first human being, almost immediately disobeyed the commandments of God resulting in all human beings thereafter being born in a state of disgrace known as “original sin,” which could be erased only by strict obedience to the [man-made!] laws of God.

Unlike Christians who are said to be tainted with this “original sin,” the samurai of feudal Japan were born with an “original debt” that they owed to their parents, to their future teachers and to their superiors. The concept of this debt was one of the prime principles of Confucianism, and was subsumed in the Japanese word giri (ghee-ree), which refers to the debt of gratitude that one automatically owes to parents, teachers and superiors.

The power of giri in shaping and controlling the lives of the samurai was virtually unbounded, and was taught in the form of a sense of honor that was instilled in the samurai from childhood. It was not a secondary religious concept. It was a fundamental way of life. Failure to live up to the precepts of giri resulted in acute feelings of personal shame.

I suggest that teaching the young a sense of shame in the here and now, rather than depending on a sense of guilt which thay can easily ignore would be far more effective in ensuring a positive and enriching standard of behavior.

Copyright © 2007 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Boye Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Japan, Korea, China and Mexico since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, student, journalist, and editor. He is the author of more than 50 books on these countries, including the first books ever on the Japanese way of doing business: Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business published in 1959, and How to Do Business in Japan, published in 1961. To see a complete list of his titles [each one linked to Amazon.com’s buy page], go to his personal website: http://www.phoenixbookspublishers.com/

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Samurai Principles & Practices that Could Change the World!


Cultures of the World Could be Transformed
By Simple, Proven Training Method

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

(BNS) -- I believe that modern-day samurai-type training should be introduced into all public educational systems worldwide, and have published a “samurai training manual” to help achieve that goal.

On the basis of personal experience in Japan since the late 1940's and having researched and written more than 30 cultural-insight books on Japan, I have identified the principles and practices that made up the educational and training process of samurai youths and published them in a book entitled: Samurai Principles & Practices That Will Help Preteens & Teens in School, Sports, Social Activities & Choosing Careers.

The book covers all of the basics of the samurai training—setting goals, discipline, diligence, perseverance, respect for others and one’s self, personal appearance, keeping things in order, living frugally, using intuitive and emotional intelligence, and tapping into cosmic power.

Japan’s famous samurai warriors ruled the country from 1192 until 1868. During the latter centuries of their reign their training went beyond martial arts to include such cultural pursuits as poetry, painting, calligraphy, history, philosophy and social behavior, making them one of the most remarkable groups of people the world has ever seen.

Schooling in the skills and knowledge necessary to produce a samurai began in early childhood, and was a lifelong effort--a concept that has just begun to emerge into the conscious of all people everywhere as the need for ongoing training and learning becomes more and more imperative.

Training in modern-day karate, kendo (“the way of the sword”) and meditation are paths to learning the skills, morality and motivation that made the samurai so successful, and I recommend that this training be incorporated into the educational systems of all countries around the world.

The present-day systems of parenting and educating in the U.S. and elsewhere obviously fail to provide the physical, intellectual and emotional framework that youths need to even approach their full potential—and that now includes Japan.

The introduction of American culture into Japan following the end of World War II in 1945 resulted in the virtual demise of samurai-type training of the young within a single generation. The negative effects of this cultural shift were painfully conspicuous by the 1980s, prompting a growing number of Japanese to individually take up training in karate and kendo and the practice of meditation to reintroduce a sense of order and spiritual power into their lives.

It was the spirit of the samurai that made it possible for tiny resource-poor Japan to become the world’s second largest economy in less than 30 years, and if that spirit is not retained, the country will eventually become just another kid on the block.

Parents and teachers must take the lead in creating the environment necessary to build positive samurai-like qualities into the mindset and behavior of students -- as is indicated in the "kicker head" on my samurai training manual: "For Parents, Teachers, Preteens & Teens."

The book should be especially interesting to the millions of students who are into Japanese-made manga (comics), video games, super secret agent ninjas, and samurai films.

Copyright © 2007 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente
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Samurai Principles & Practices that Will Help Preteens & Teens in School, Sports, Social Activities & Choosing Careers, by Boyé Lafayette De Mente. Trade paperback, 6x9, 84 pages. ISBN: 0-914778-99-4. $9.95. [Trade distributors: Ingram Book Company; Baker & Taylor. Direct to consumer: Amazon.com, etc.]

For a full list of titles by the author (each one with a link to Amazon.com's buy page) see his personal website: www.phoenixbookspublishers.com.

Which Side of Your Brain Am I Talking To?


Left-side and Right-side of Your Brain
In Ongoing Battle for Supremacy!

Boyé Lafayette De Mente

(BNS) -- It has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that the two sides of the human brain perform different functions, ranging from speech, emotional reactions, sexual pleasure, fear, and analytical thinking to the appreciation of beauty.

There is also growing evidence that one side of the brain is dominant in most people. This is of vital importance because left-brain oriented people think and behave differently from right-brain oriented people.

One noted authority on the function of the brain, Japan’s Dr. Tadanobu Tsunoda (author of The Japanese Brain and numerous other works), claims that the language one first learns as a child is the deciding factor in which side of the brain is dominant for the rest of the person’s life.

Dr. Tsunoda has spent several decades studying the influence of languages on brain function, using electronic devices he developed to test thousands of people in his Tokyo laboratory—both Japanese and non-Japanese—with some amazing results. [I was one of his test subjects.]

He found that people whose native tongue is Japanese (or Polynesian!) are primarily right-brain oriented, while all other people are primarily left-brain oriented. (It is the preponderance of vowels in Japanese and Polynesian that programs their brains differently!)

It seems that right-brain oriented people are primarily motivated by their emotions and a holistic approach to life, while left-brain oriented people are programmed to be logical and practical-minded, and to take a short-term approach to things.

I used Dr. Tsunoda’s theory as the basis for evaluating the differences between the mind-set and behavior of the right-brained oriented Japanese and the left-brain oriented rest of the world in my book, Which Side of Your Brain Am I Talking To?—The Advantages of Using Both Sides of Your Brain.

I believe that the right-brain orientation of the Japanese was one of the primary factors that made it possible for them to recover from the destruction of World War II and turn tiny Japan into the world’s second largest economy in less than thirty years.

Among other provocative points I discovered is that all women in left-brain oriented cultures are forced to use right-brain thinking and behavior to survive in their male-dominated societies, and that Japanese women, whose culture is primarily right-brain oriented, are forced to use left-brain thinking to cope with their male-dominated society—making them superior in many ways to the male side of the population.

The French and Italians and all Spanish and Portuguese speaking people are more right-brain oriented than Americans, Chinese, Germans, British and other people around the globe. Furthermore, many of the problems that plague Western countries are caused by too much left-brain thinking and not enough right-brain thinking.

In Which Side of Your Brain Am I talking To? I pinpoint many areas where business managers and people in general could benefit greatly from learning how and when to use the right side of their brains. The book attributes the “irrational behavior” of both men and women to which side of their brain they use at a particular time, and provides insights for coping with the built-in gender programming of the brain.

Copyright © by Boyé Lafayette De Mente

For a full list of my titles (each one with a link to Amazon.com's buy page, go to my personal website: www.phoenixbookspublishers.com.
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WHICH SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN AM I TALKING TO?—The Advantages of Using Both Sides of Your Brain (and Why Women Must Use the Less Dominant Side of Their Brains in Order to Survive!), by Boyé Lafayette De Mente. Phoenix Books/Publishers. 6x9 trade paperback. 108 pages. $9.95. ISBN: 0914778-95-1. Distributors to the trade: Ingram Book Company; Baker & Taylor. Consumer distribution: Amazon.com, Borders, Barns and Noble, etc.