Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Precept 15:
Do not act following customary
beliefs
“One should guard against preaching to young people
success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The
most important motive for work in school and in life is
pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge
of the value of the result to the community.” — Albert
Einstein
Monk:
Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726) was by all accounts one for the
greatest minds that ever strode upon the face of the Earth. For
example, he wrote the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
the foundational work for the study of mathematics as we know it
today. He used prisms to manipulate light and built the first practical
reflecting telescope too. He studied sound, motion, cooling, fluids,
and much, much more. Newton’s scientific studies are
transformational, profound, and utterly brilliant even centuries after
they were written.
That was all accomplished during his lifetime, however. The majority
of his work released posthumously dealt with alchemy, mysticism,
and biblical research, dangerously touchy subjects in his day. You
see, because the Church and the Crown were one for all intents and
purposes during his time, going against any doctrine of the Church
was the same as going against the Crown. Even though he
disagreed with some of their tenants he wisely held his counsel. Had
he pushed the boundaries too far he would have been considered a

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heretic and punished accordingly, and his vast contributions to
science may never have seen the light of day.
Times may be different today, you almost certainly don’t risk getting
burned at the stake for apostasy, but if you plan to leave the comfort
of customary beliefs, attitudes, and ideas you will need to first be
prepared to get called out, dismissed, browbeat, and marginalized.
This is because every community believes that they are different,
they are special and unique, that they are in fact just a little smarter,
a little better than the people over in that other town. And why
wouldn’t somebody think that way? Whether you live where you live
by choice or by chance, the odds are good that your residence is in a
place where you like the rules and norms that the community has
decided to live by. You find enough value, enough reason to stay
where you are. It works.
The challenge is that staying in your comfort zone, following the
crowd, may serve you well but it simultaneously makes you average.
Doing what everybody else does has never been a formula for
becoming extraordinary. It’s the folks who stray far from the beaten
path who make things happen. We all know that Musashi used two
swords when everyone else used one. One sword held with two
hands on the grip worked well, it won. It was the norm in feudal
Japan. This two-hands on one-sword method was refined and
perfected until it became truly effective at killing. Musashi rejected
this tried and true norm of two-hands on one sword. He went off into
the woods alone and came back holding two swords, one in each
hand, with which he blazed his bloody path through history. Soon he
had grown from bludgeoning a man to death in the street with a
wooden stick to perfecting his innovative two-sword method, and
even took on disciples whom he felt worthy to learn this new style.
While innovative ideas can set you apart and above the rest, it is
important to listen to what is being said about a community. Norms
are normal for a reason and we break them at our peril. However, to
understand them we must dig deeper. The basic driving forces of life
are the same. Everybody wants to be loved, everybody has fear, and

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everybody has some form of hope or faith. So the customary beliefs
are not really customary beliefs, they are affectations of an
expression of core human behaviors. You don’t necessarily need to
break from these values, but rather finding the way that best
expresses them uniquely is your challenge.
In other words, if you focus on the affectation, because it is how the
community differentiates itself from the rest of the world, then you
have lost. Every community, real or virtual, has its rules of
membership. Metaphorical dances that must be engaged in and the
folks who dance those dances are the mean, the sum of all values
divided by the total number of participants. The mean is safe. The
mean is comfortable. But, the mean is also conventional.
Look at every great person of history and you will see that he or she
not only rejected the norm but more often than not shattered it. Your
path to greatness then is to know where the lines are drawn and
figure out how far and how fast you can stretch them. You might
think outside the box yet keep your counsel like Newton, or boldly
challenge the status quo like Musashi, but either way it’s vital not to
blindly stride along the well-beaten path. Chart your own course in
order to leave your mark in life.