Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Precept 18:
Do not seek to possess either goods
or fiefs for your old age
“Make wisdom your provision for the journey from youth to
old age, for it is a more certain support than all other
possessions.” — Bias of Priene
Monk:
My parents live about four hours away by car. When they come to
visit, or I visit them, I often find myself with something in my
possession. “This was your great grandma’s…,” or, “This was Dad’s
(my Grandfather); I thought that you could use it.” My parents are
divesting themselves of items—things that they don’t want or need,
yet still have an emotional value. I have my great grandmother’s
vase on the shelf in my office next to my grandmother’s apple-
shaped candy tin. Little items that have sentimental value… I plan to
pass them on with some written history attached, but if it doesn’t
happen, if I never get around to it, that’s okay because it is just
paraphernalia, stuff that is nice to have and look at, remember, and
enjoy, but not a focal point of my life.
Focal points change as we move through life, each time having its
distinctive trappings and desire for those trappings. It is easy for a
person who is in their seventies like my parents to say, “Here, I don’t
want this anymore, but I think you will find value in it.” When people
reach a more mature place in life, where they have more days
behind them rather than in front of them, their values change. This is
a normal course of life. To behave in a way that is not consistent with
the person’s place in life is odd. The man with the hair plugs and

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Botox injections who buys that expensive sports car and hooks up
with a 20-something trophy wife at age of seventy looks a little weird
to the rest of us. And oftentimes his behavior is chalked up to
immaturity. It is as if we intuitively understand how somebody of a
certain chronological age should behave.
It is a normal and natural flow for divestment to occur as people get
older. Values shift when life is seen through more mature eyes.
Parents pass on family heirlooms, businesspeople groom their
successors, and kings divide their kingdoms.
It is difficult for a younger person to act in such a way, to not seek let
alone divest themselves of what they have. It would be a far tougher
charge for a person to follow if Musashi were to say, “Do not seek to
possess either goods or fiefs for your youth!” The idea of not
building, not owning, and showing prowess via acquisition is not a
normal act. In the same way that the older man with the car and hair
plugs looks odd, a young man in his twenties wearing a
conservative, three-piece suit, and smoking a pipe is just as odd, but
on the other end of the spectrum.
Wisdom and experience are valued at a far higher level for the
mature person than any vase or candy tin. What Musashi is saying is
that you must grow into your role as life moves along. In this