Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Insurance Executive:
A woman came to the Buddha in great anguish, carrying her dead
child pleading him to bring the little one back to life. The Buddha
said, “Bring to me a mustard seed from any household where no-one
has ever died and I will fulfill your wish.” The woman couldn’t find

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any household in which no one had ever died and it was then that
she realized the universality of death.
It’s often said the samurai were greatly feared on the battlefield
because unlike most people, they didn’t fear death. They followed
the soldier’s paradox: If you fear death, you will die. Might their
courage have been fortified a little from alcohol? My husband and I
have a large and colorful samurai figurine that depicts a warrior in
kimono, holding a sword with one hand and in the other a large bowl.
The bowl, if the figure were life sized, would have a diameter of 12 to
15 inches. An expert on samurai told us the bowl would hold an
alcoholic beverage the warrior would consume before heading out to
the battlefield.
If I knocked back that much, even if it were Bud Light, I would no
longer be afraid of spiders.
The highly disciplined samurai valued their traditions, one of which
was to drink sake together before they commenced to fight. It would
be a time to imbibe and promise each other to either be victorious or
die with honor and courage. The tradition was brought back during
World War II by the kamikaze. They too would drink before diving
their planes and themselves into American ships. After the samurai
completed their battle, they drank again, but more so than before the
battle. The kamikaze never got to enjoy that part of the custom.
I’m in no way making light of the great samurai. Certainly, their
courage is legend. I’m just pointing out that in many instances sake
helped to calm the warriors’ nerves.
Although Buddhism teaches much about death, it teaches more
about living a life of peace, compassion, love for each other, and
doing good. While living in this fashion certainly doesn’t make one
want to hurry the inevitable, it does give the Buddhist, and for that
matter the Christian, some modicum of comfort that there is
something after death: Buddhists will be reincarnated and Christians
will go to heaven. Musashi would have known this from the Buddhist
perspective.

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Experts on the samurai believe they intuitively knew that fear causes
the brain to shut down—the result of an accelerated heartbeat,
shallow breathing, tunnel vision, and the exclusion of select sounds.
The impact of this prevents the warrior from employing any fine-
motor skills and having to rely only on broad and crude slashes with
his sword. The samurai weren’t technically knowledgeable of these
fine points but they surely must have experienced them in the early
stages of their development. For this reason it was critical they went
into battle with a firm grip on their fear of death.
I fear death but I probably fear suffering before my death more.
There is nothing I can do about this but accept the inevitable and
have some degree of comfort with the acceptance. With this
objective, I try, “try” being the significant word here, to accept that my
life will end in an hour, tomorrow, or 20 years from now, and accept I
might suffer in the process. If I can truly accept this reality, this
impermanence—lots of people carry on as if they were going to be
the one that death passes by—I believe it will help me to live the
best life I can, be the best person I can be, and leave a positive
footprint that indicates I was here and I helped smooth the path for
others to do the same.