Yamaoka Tesshu, an Enlightened Warrior
From a talk given at the Exhibition, “The Zen Calligraphy of Yamaoka Tesshu” at the Victoria and Albert Museum November 8th 2008
In the year or so since I’ve been back from Japan and teaching Zen in London, one over-arching question has been coming up, “Through what form can people most easily connect with Zen?”
In looking at our own culture it’s clear that there’s an expectation that the life of contemplation is necessarily a life of withdrawal. After all, for long periods, the price-tag for the aspirant contemplative was life imprisonment behind very high walls; on top of that, perhaps a rule of silence. So, of course, the influence of the contemplative experience on western society has been rather attenuated.
Today we’re going to look at the life and artworks of someone who embodies quite a different ideal – an ideal that I believe could be very relevant to our lives. We’re going to get to know the enlightened Japanese samurai, Yamaoka Tesshu.
Now it’s important to stress at the outset that Tesshu embodies an ideal. As with everywhere else, Japanese society has had its share of scoundrels, cowards and mediocrities. Nevertheless, it was able to produce a person like Tesshu, someone who lived an exemplary life. On a wider canvas, he was a pivotal person, highly instrumental in guiding Japan through the difficult transition into the modern world. He was a highly realised Zen practitioner, who nevertheless led an immensely engaged life, and someone who in his mature years produced artworks of tremendous vitality.
Tesshu was born in 1836. In order to understand the world that he was born into, we need to step back in history a little. Now, as you know, Japan is a very rugged country. About 75% of the landmass is covered with mountains. Like all mountainous countries, Japan was very difficult to unify and there were endless rebellions and civil wars. The eventual solution was the strong man. I’m sure you’ve heard of the shogun. He was essentially a military dictator and the shoguns brought peace by control. The country was regulated to the nth degree. Travel was restricted; strict social classes were preserved, even with their own dress codes; if your father was a farmer, you were expected to be a farmer; the country was closed to foreigners; change of any kind was essentially banned. It all sounds pretty draconian, but in this situation, it worked. Japan knew peace for about 250 years and many Japanese will tell you that they consider this time, the Tokugawa period, as the golden age of the country.
So under this regime, Tesshu was born into quite a high-ranking samurai family. He wasn’t the eldest son, but his father recognised the boy’s talents early and he was brought up as the heir-apparent to the family name. .Tesshu’s education was traditional for a member of the ruling class. He studied the four classics of Confucianism and began to train in swordsmanship. He was an enthusiastic Buddhist from early youth in this context, Confucianism and Buddhism weren’t seen to stand against each other. In fact many Zen temples had schools where the Confucian classics were studied. In Tesshu’s case, I think it’s the Confucian studies that give us the key to his marrying of inner and outer work throughout his life. The first sentence of the Daigaku or the “The Great Learning”, as it’s often translated, is:
“The highest way of self-cultivation lies in causing the light of one’s virtue to radiate, in renovating the people and abiding in the highest good.”
So one’s work in the world is seen as springing from the inside and projecting outwards. One’s virtue or integrity is seen as a power, a force through which successful activity can manifest. This radiating quality works such that through this virtue you can bring about harmony in your family. If the families are harmonious, harmony can be brought to your village. As the villages become harmonious, the state can become harmonious. And another thing that’s important here is that cultivation of this virtue or integrity is seen as a life-long process. Confucius himself said, “At fifteen I set my heart on learning; at thirty I took my stand; at forty I came to be free from doubts; at fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven; at sixty my ear was attuned; at seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the mark.” I think this expectation of life-long cultivation is something that we in the west haven’t traditionally stressed and something we can learn. In Japanese society to this day, some of the respect that is shown to elders is related to this expectation that they have been continuing this inner cultivation.
So how is this work done? Well this is where Zen comes in. Tesshu took up Zen practice at a young age. The Confucian tradition itself had undergone a revival in previous centuries in China, when it became what is known in the west as neo-Confucianism. Part of this renewal had involved taking some of the contemplative disciplines of Zen and adopting them. So from a Zen perspective you had lineage Zen – the Buddhist tradition passing down through the monasteries, and you had a wider, more-diffuse, cultural Zen spreading through society and renewing the Confucian mainstream. And, of course there was a lot of crossover. And from their effects, I believe both were broadly forces for good. Here in the west we already have something of a similar situation with a quite small number of Christian priests studying Zen and applying the insights to their own religion and, probably far more numerous, you have psychologists and psychotherapists engaging in Zen practices to help their work. I know there are some purists who get a bit sniffy about this, but personally, it doesn’t worry me in the slightest. I’m happy to teach people who want to engage with Zen from a perspective other than the Buddhist one. I agree with Koun Yamada Roshi when he said: “And the core, this experience, is not adorned with any thought or philosophy. It is merely a fact, an experienced fact, in the same way that the taste of tea is a fact. A cup of tea has no thought, no idea, no philosophy. It tastes the same to Buddhists as it does to Christians. There is no difference at all.”
So in Tesshu’s case, he was studying Confucianism, and also he began his Zen training quite young, and then he’s training in the sword, a field in which he develops awesome ability – a pretty traditional programme. For hundreds of years upper-class young men would have followed the same course. Now at age seventeen, his father and mother both died and the boy became head of the family. Although he inherited quite a fortune, he divided the money up throughout the whole family and kept just a tiny amount for himself. He went to Edo, modern Tokyo, to continue his study. Almost immediately, the world changed.
In 1853 the American black ships under Commodore Perry appeared, demanding that Japan open to foreign trade. Now it’s hard to over-state the shockwave that these gunboats sent through the country. Suddenly, this fossilized medieval state in which change had been banned, in which the samurai were still devoting years to their swordsmanship, was thrust into the world of artillery and steamships. Over the next few years the instability increased to the level where full-blown civil war erupted. Tesshu is still in Tokyo at this time. Over in the far west of Japan is the island of Kyushu. On this island, a tiny little bit of foreign connection had continued with a few Dutch traders permitted to anchor on an artificial island off the coast. The Kyushu samurai consequently had a more forward-looking approach and sought to renew Japan. The plan was to establish the emperor, who had been in the shadow of the shogun for centuries, as a more visible figurehead, representing the enduring tradition of Japan. At the same time, they wanted modernisation. So a rebel army arose. They were led by Saigo Takamori, a charismatic man of great integrity, who ended up dying a tragic death, thus guaranteeing him a place as a true Japanese hero. Initially, his army did brilliantly, the Shogun’s establishment had become rather weakened over the centuries and this rebel force swept irresistibly through Japan. It came to the point where the rebels had made it all the way over close to Edo, the capital over in the east. Their army was in Shizuoka perhaps fifty or sixty miles away.
Tesshu by this time was a member of the Shogun’s personal guard. You can imagine the situation he was in. This rebel army had swept everything before it. Now the prospect was of a final battle in the capital – likely to be an absolute bloodbath, probably with fire and devastation far beyond anything up to this point. The shogun’s advisors were united in proposing doing nothing. Just waiting for the invevitable. Tesshu thought differently. He sought permission to negotiate with Saigo, the rebel leader. The other advisors considered this madness, any negotiator would be cut down in short order. But Tesshu persisted. When permission was granted, he walked alone out of Tokyo down the Tokaido, the main east-west road. Rather like someone walking straight down the middle of theM4 towards Bristol. The accounts say he didn’t look to left or right, just walked straight through the sentries of the rebel army. However frightened he might have been, his unwavering focus was such that no one challenged him. He continued straight through the main body of the army itself, straight up to Saigo’s tent, stuck his head in through the door and said “I’ve come to negotiate.” Saigo had him sit down and between them, they arranged for a peaceful handover of the capital. It’s hard to estimate how many lives Tesshu had saved. At the end of the meeting, Saigo said, “By the way, how did you get here?”
“On the Tokaido.”
“Did you see anything unusual?” Saigo asked.
“Yes the road was lined with your sentries. It was very impressive.”
Realising that he was dealing with someone out of the ordinary, Saigo gave him a safe conduct pass for his return. And Tesshu made it back into Edo unscathed except for being fired at in error by his own troops.
Under the new regime, Tesshu became part of the emperor’s household. He was busy but his commitment to his Zen practice was unwavering. He was allowed one day off a month, and every month, once he was free the evening before, he would start walking out of Tokyo all the way to Ryutakuji, about seventy five miles, to do sanzen with a teacher called Seijo Roshi. After his interview and a quick meal, he would turn around and walk back into the capital, ready to work the next day. This kind of diligence paid off, but first a huge obstacle appeared.
Asari Gimei was a famous sword teacher. He was half the size of Tesshu and much older. When they faced each other in a sword match, the contest lasted half a day. Finally, Tesshu was defeated. The custom of the day was for the defeated party to become the victor’s student. Now, when Tesshu turned up for training, Asari, faced him, sword to sword and beat the bigger man backwards, forced him out of the door, knocked him down onto the ground and slammed the door in his face. You can imagine how it felt. The younger man, regarded as a fearless hero and swordsman of the first rank, now had the rug ripped out from beneath him. Before, he was unsurpassed, now he’d lost the indomitable confidence that had buoyed him up. He could slink away in defeat, perhaps even give up the sword and put his energies into his administrative work, or he could search within himself for the resources to master this challenge. How often in your own life have you achieved an early success only to find that there’s still more demanded of you? It’s often easy to find ways to avoid facing the truth of the setback. Tesshu, however went at it straight on.
Ever the fighter, he threw himself into his Zen practice. He continued working with the sword and eventually Tekisui Roshi, the master of Tenryuji in Kyoto gave him a koan to penetrate in his meditation:
“Crossed swords; neither permits retreat.
The sword-master, like a lotus in the fire,
Has a heaven-soaring spirit.”
This is an advanced koan. In our Rinzai system, if you’re studying koans in sanzen, by the time you reach this one, you’ve come a long way. It comes from of a sequence of five poems written by the T’ang dynasty Chinese Zen master Tozan Ryokai. You can see the relevance for Tesshu.
Day and night Tesshu wrestled with this koan, seeking to penetrate the experience it represented. We’re told that he was spotted acting-out swordfights with chopsticks or long-stemmed smoking pipes. He kept a couple of practice swords by the bed and more than once he woke his poor wife demanding that she hold one as he worked out whether he’d found a solution or not.
To this day in Japan, similar situations arise. My master, Shinzan Roshi told me about Tetsuharu Kawakami. He was a baseball player, a batter for the Yomiuri Giants. His record was absolutely outstanding. He was so good they called him, Dageki no Kamisama, the god of batters. But he lost his edge. Just like Tesshu, his confidence went. He just couldn’t do it any more. In this despondent state, Kawakami came to Shogenji, the so-called oni-sodo (the devil’s dojo) the strictest Zen temple in Japan. Like Tesshu he threw himself into his Zen practice, through this he got back his eye and became an outstanding batter once again. He wrote a famous book about how his Zen training had made the difference. When Shinzan Roshi knew him, Kawakami, had become coach of the Giants. Every year he brought his players to Shogenji and insisted they went through the strict training. The results he got as a coach were almost as outstanding as those as a player.
So Tesshu threw himself into the crossed swords koan. Three years he struggled with it until, one morning as he was sitting in zazen, BOOM! The walls crumbled and he was free. He went to face Asari in the dojo. The sword master realised straightaway that Tesshu was through. Very soon afterward, Asari formally named Tesshu as his successor. It is said that, after that, Asari never again picked up a sword.
So after ten tremendously successful years in the imperial service, Tesshu retired. How then did he continue the expression of his Zen practice? Well, he divided his days into three periods. In the early mornings he would practice and teach the way of the sword. Then he would switch to calligraphy and at night he would sit in zazen. His sword school was very popular, he had over four hundred students. Now, bear in mind a couple of things. Firstly, Tesshu is reckoned to be the greatest Japanese swordsman ever, and despite this and the turbulent times he lived in, he never actually killed anyone. That said, by the time he was ready to teach, the sword was a military irrelevance. Japan was now in the modern world, along with the rest of the world. The skill that Tesshu had spent so many years developing was obsolete.
So what did he do? He taught the way of the sword as a means of spiritual cultivation. In accordance with his character he emphasised straightforward, full-blast, fearless attacking swordplay. And hard daily training.
At the culmination of the training process were tests called seigan. In these tests the adept would face two hundred opponents in a day in continuous sword matches. Some of the tests would continue for three or seven days – two hundred opponents, day after day. What on earth was this supposed to achieve? Well the way of seigan is typical of the way of asceticism, the true meaning of ascetic practice.
Let me give you an example from my own practice. When I cam back from Japan, I did a walking pilgrimage straight up the middle of the country from St Catherine’s Point on the south tip of the Isle of Wight, to Cape Wrath in Scotland. I carried my alms bowl and, while not accepting money, gratefully accepted food along the way. As the days went by, the days of no visible means of support, of literally not knowing where the next meal was coming from, I found that two states, two mental, emotional, physical states dominated my experience. When I wasn’t aware, I tended to slip into a worrying, calculating state – could I make it to the next town in time to hold out my bowl in the morning? Could I get to the next piece of shelter before the rain? was this person talking to me going to offer me something to eat, or would I walk away hungry? Calculating, calculating, worry, worry, worry. Now this state was limited, narrow, fearful and low-energy. At other times, hopefully more of the time, I could drop all of that, just drop all the nonsense and then I’d have the whole universe running through me, I’d literally be the universe, actually there was no me, just boundless energy. Eating or not eating was no problem whatsoever. I’d be on the crest of a wave, just flying along. And then, for one reason or another, I’d lose it and get snagged into the limitations.
Through the kind of practice that Tesshu promoted with seigan, he was pushing his people – what they were doing was impossible with their own strength. At a certain point they would get exhausted. Now, when you’re in that exhausted state, there’s a possibility that something else can click-in, something indefinable, you drop your self and BOOM! The sword dojo, with people watching you like a hawk, was actually quite a safe arena in which to attempt this – if it didn’t work out you’d get a bit whacked around but you’d probably be fine in a few days. People often do much more dangerous things in search of this opening. But, truth be told, it’s not actually that hard to do. Do you know the line from the light of Asia, “Forsaking self, the universe grows I”? That’s it perfectly. So Tesshu, in his sword school was providing a way in which even rough and tumble warrior types could start to experience something of dropping the self, It’s a useful thing to experience, so you can live your whole life in a new way.
Then, the third aspect of his life was calligraphy. What’s the deal with calligraphy, particularly Zen calligraphy? Well you know how in the west you have these job applications that they have you fill in by hand, and they send it off to a graphologist who can tell whether you’re going to steal the company stationary or be late for work all the time?
Well this sense that character is revealed in writing is vastly more emphasised in East Asia. So an enlightened person like Tesshu would be expected to produce works that revealed his mind-state. His calligraphies were highly collectible and his whole life he was short of money, but Tesshu never charged for his works. Instead he mostly gave them away to temples, which had been torched or damaged in all the unrest. The temples would then sell them on.
Now as we look at these magnificent works, probably produced as temple fundraisers, I want you to know that almost exactly three years ago, November 5th 2005, my temple Gyokuryuji was engulfed in flames. Working with the local volunteer fire people, we just about managed to save half of the temple, the other half was completely destroyed in about forty minutes. So it seems very appropriate that any donations you’d care to give after this talk will go into the temple restoration fund. I could imagine Tesshu would be pleased about that. And I wonder also whether he’d be pleased to know that his life provides an example – perhaps a new kind of role model in the west. One in which fearless inner activity is matched and reflected by fearless outer activity in service of the greater good. We know all about monks living retired lives behind high walls, but the world out there desperately needs more enlightened people. However it comes to you to search the depths of your being and express what you find in enlightened activity, I hope you can truly have your life shine for the benefit of all.
This was previously published in “The Middle Way” Journal of The Buddhist Society, May 2009, Vol 84 No.1