Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Precept 21:
Never stray from the Way
“As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so
the master directs his straying thoughts.” — Buddha
Monk:
Rhythm and ritual are soothing to a child. Any parent can tell you
that a disruption in their child’s pattern during the day results in
behavior within the child that is awkward, disruptive, or just generally
out of sorts. Honestly, most adults are not too far removed from
stimuli-response behavior too if we look closely. Path and ritual are
often so integrated into our existence that they become seamless,
smooth. For example, when your coffee vendor sees you coming
and starts your “special” cup of coffee, say a quad, two-pump
caramel macchiato with soy milk, you are buoyed by the full
engagement in your path. All is right and good in the world. These
habits help ensure that our pattern in life is smooth, and smooth is
not well seen. Like driving to work and not remembering exactly how
we got there, we can move on autopilot through our world.
Oddly a path is better seen when the trail is broken. To continue that
analogy, if the cup of coffee order is wrong, “This is not how I take
my coffee, there’s whole milk in it!” we spot the break in the pattern.
We’re disrupted. The ritual actually becomes more visible as it is
called out by the person whose path has been interrupted. They
actually make a point of, well… pointing out the disruption. Paths
have ritualistic expectations. When those expectations are not met,
or violated, it is an issue that often attacks the core of the person.

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This attack may not be not a life-threatening issue, but rather a
metaphorical shove to the sense of self that oftentimes feels like it.
Ritual and path create a comfort level, and comfort reduces stress.
The ritual assures us we are doing the “correct” things via
experience or authority, and the path gives us direction. No biological
life is designed for a constant state of alert or stress, it’s too
psychologically and physically taxing; most life is designed for rest.
Being in a state of stress is the opposite of ritual and path. The
modern world is a minefield of shifting ritual, and paths, invalidations,
and condescension, ad infinitum… Rest and ritual build assurances
into the day that allows for a lower ambient state of alertness, a
manageable level of stress.
Ritual and path are necessary for human life. Ritual can be religious
in nature such as a communal prayer, or as secular as watching a
popular television show in the evening. Regardless, it is essential.
Every path contains its ritual. The more ingrained the ritual becomes,
the more essential it becomes to the path. Consequently the path
and the ritual often become confused and incorrectly inseparable.
Alfred Korzybski, a leader in the study of semantics coined the
phrase, “The map is not the territory.” I will go further and say the
ritual is not the territory. The path is not the knowledge.
Musashi took a discipline, the way of the sword, and made it his own
by breaking the rules. He broke from his teacher, an incredibly anti-
social act in his time and culture. He left his family, again a deep
statement especially in a society that placed the family name before
the individual name. Musashi decided that one hand on two blades
was better that two hands on one blade and began to fight with two
swords, clearly unorthodox.
Musashi forged his own path and, as a result, we know of him today.
Yet he admonishes us to never stray from the path. Incongruent
don’t you think? I submit that Musashi was really telling his students
was to understand why they were doing what they were doing, to not
get distracted with extraneous actions, to focus.

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A man once said to a monk, “That was a beautiful prayer, may I
come back to the monastery and see your prayer tomorrow.” The
monk responded, “You have never seen my prayer, you have only
seen what I do in preparation of prayer.” Never confuse the map for
the territory, as the territory of ritual and path is where you live, and
for the most part, never seen.