Category Archives: Thinking outside the box: why all this samurai stuff matters in the 21st century

“Now is the time to reread Ryoma’s letters.” Miyaji Saichiro

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Sakamoto Ryoma

“Now is the time for us to act. Soon we must decide on our direction, whether it lead to pandemonium or paradise.” (Sakamoto Ryoma to Hayashi Kenzo, Keio 3/11/11)    実ハ可レ為の時ハ、今ニて 御座候。やがて方向を定め、シユラ（修羅）か極楽かに御供可レ申奉レ存候。（坂本龍馬より林謙三宛、暗殺４日前の書簡）

During the volatile days just before the fall of the Tokugawa Bakufu, Sakamoto Ryoma wrote the above words to Hayashi Kenzo, a cohort in the revolution, in which he alluded to the great danger facing Japan under the Bakufu and urged him to be careful for his life. Four days later Ryoma was assassinated at his hideout in Kyoto.

Miyaji
These same words were quoted in a New Year’s card I received from Miyaji Saichiro in January 2002, just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Miyaji was a distinguished writer, who compiled and published two monumental, meticulously annotated volumes focused on the writings of Sakamoto Ryoma and Nakaoka Shintaro, respectively. After quoting Ryoma’s above-cited letter, Mr. Miyaji alluded to 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, then wrote that he “felt that he had heard Ryoma’s voice many times” over those past few months. “We are on the brink of World War III,” Miyaji fretted, before conjuring up Ryoma’s voice: “All holy war is folly.” “We must not allow the destruction of mankind and the earth.” Mr. Miyaji concluded his New Year’s greeting with a terse admonition, though as if speaking to himself: “Now is the time to reread Ryoma’s letters.” (「龍馬の手紙を読み直す秋（とき）です。」宮地佐一郎先生)    (The above photo of Miyaji Saichiro was taken in Tokyo in December 1999.)
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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.

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Bushido for the 21st Century

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Makoto Aoyama of the Tokyo-based Bushido Kyokai (武士道協会) (http://www.bushido.or.jp/index.html) posted on his Facebook page (October 27, 2015) some very interesting ideas about self-discipline and bushido, focusing on the concept of “hikyo” (卑怯), which means something like “petty cowardice” or “meanness.” Through my research over the past thirty years, I have become very interested in and attracted to bushido, “the way of the warrior.” One of Mr. Aoyama’s lines struck me:

多くの人が『卑怯』を他の人に向けて発信しますが、『卑怯』は自分自身を律する為の基軸とし、自分自身が卑怯を行わない事が大事で、他に強要するものではないと考えます。

My translation:

Many people use the word “hikyo” about others, but I think that “hikyo” is a standard by which to judge oneself; and what is important is that a person himself does not act cowardly [in the sense of hikyo] and not that he demands the same of others.

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For more on bushido, see my Samurai Revolution, Chapter 8: A Brief Discussion on Bushido.

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Clean up the world once and for all!

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As I announce the launching of the Ryoma Society of America, I recall these famous words of Sakamoto Ryoma: 日本を今一度せんたくいたし申候 – in which he vowed to “clean up Japan once and for all.” By “cleaning up” his country, Ryoma meant to eliminate the corrupt and antiquated Tokugawa Shogunate, which had ruled Japan for 260 years, and replace it with a modern democracy based on Western models.

Ryoma wrote the above words in a letter to his sister Otome in the tumultuous summer of 1863, as Japan’s modern revolution was heating up. But these words are universal, I believe, and just as relevant in today’s world rife with war, violence, and chaos.

As the United States presidential campaign heats up, the American people, along with their fellow citizens of the world, desperately need a leader who can substitute “Japan” for “the world” in Ryoma’s famous dictum, and vow to “clean up the world once and for all.”

Membership in the borderless Ryoma Society of America, which I have organized “for a better understanding of modern Japan,” is free and open to all citizens of the world, regardless of geographical location, nationality, or ideology. To learn more, including how to join, visit the Society’s website.

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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.

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Sakamoto Ryoma and International Law

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“. . . we are going to have to learn more than just the arts of war.” [将来は武のみを以て立つべからず、学問が必要なり。]

The United Nations states on its website: “The development of International Law is one of the primary goals of the United Nations.” Sakamoto Ryoma, the “Renaissance Samurai” of my historical novel Ryoma, also had a high regard for international law. Ryoma of course never left Japan and his progressiveness is all the more remarkable when you consider that he lived his entire short life in a highly structured, repressive feudal society under the Tokugawa Shogunate, which ruled the country under a policy of isolationism from the outside world for over two centuries.

ryoma bronze

Which highlights the enigma presented by his pose in the ubiquitous standing photograph, upon which the famous bronze statue is modeled: What does he hold in his right hand, concealed inside his kimono? Is he holding the Smith & Wesson revolver that the political outlaw used to defend himself in the nearly fatal attack by a Tokugawa police force? Or is it a book on international law, by which he defeated his political enemies (representatives of the Tokugawa clan) in a legal battle during the final year of his life? The question underlies the following famous anecdote from Chikami Kiyomi’s 1914 biography, included in my Samurai Tales (Tuttle 2010), which, regardless of its authenticity, informs the development of Ryoma’s character: from an anti-foreign swordsman advocating violent revolution to the founder of Japan’s first trading company and author of a peace plan to prevent civil war:

One day the outlaw Sakamoto Ryoma encountered a friend in the streets of Kyoto. The man wore a long sword at his side, as was popular during those bloody days. Ryoma took one look at the sword, and said, “That sword’s too long. If you get caught in close quarters you won’t be able to draw the blade.” Showing the man his own sword, Ryoma said, “This is a better length.”

Soon after, the man replaced his long sword with a shorter one, and showed it to Ryoma. Laughing derisively, Ryoma produced a pistol from his breast pocket. He fired a shot in the air, and with a wide grin on his face said, “This is the weapon I’ve been using lately.” The two friends met again some time later, when Ryoma took from his pocket a book of international law. “In the future,” he said, “we are going to have to learn more than just the arts of war. I’ve been reading this recently, and it is so very interesting.”

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Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.

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Sakamoto Ryoma’s Last Words of Wisdom

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A headline in today’s New York Times announces: “Critics Fault Failure of Western Policies in Growing Syrian Refugee Crisis.” Though it “was never any secret that a rising tide of Syrian refugees would sooner or later burst at the seams,” the Times reports, “little was done in Western capitals” to avert the disaster befalling Syrian civilians.

Amid this crisis, I recall words of wisdom of one of the most important men of the “samurai revolution at the dawn of modern Japan.” At the height of the tumult of the revolution, and less than one month since the last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, had announced his intention to abdicate and restore Imperial rule based on an historic peace plan, the author of that plan was engrossed in yet another plan to send men to Ezo (modern-day Hokkaido) in the far north of Japan to settle and exploit that mineral-rich wilderness, train them in the naval sciences, and save them from dying in the revolution.

Sakamoto Ryoma
Sakamoto Ryoma was working on the plan with Hayashi Kenzo, a Hiroshima samurai in the employ of Satsuma. In the eerily prophetic closing to a letter to Hayashi, Ryoma, just four days before his assassination, advised his friend to be very careful for his life, then wrote, “Now is the time for us to act. Soon we must decide on our direction, whether it lead to pandemonium or paradise” (my translation). Would that the current leaders of nations around the world heed Ryoma’s final words of wisdom to at least mitigate the current disaster.

ryoma's letter to Hayashi

(The image of Ryoma’s letter, dated the 11th day of the 11th month of Keio 3 (1867), is from the website of The Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum. It is published in Miyaji Saichiro’s “Sakamoto Ryoma Zenshu” (坂本龍馬全集 = Complete Writings of Sakamoto Ryoma, 3rd edition, 1982). The photo of Sakamoto Ryoma is used in my Samurai Revolution, courtesy of Kochi Prefectural Museum of History.)

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ryoma

Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, the only biographical novel about Sakamoto Ryoma in English, is available on Amazon.com.

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