Thoughts on Musashi’s Dokkōdō

A while back, in an attempt to make myself write more consistently, I decided to delve into one of Musashi’s famous works, called Dokkōdō, or “The Way of Walking Alone”, which contains 21 principles that the legendary swordsman and philosopher lived by. The goal was to read those principles, one each day and, after some consideration, write down my thoughts on them (pretentious much?) in a short and objective way and share them. In the end, I did follow the plan set for reading the Dokkōdō and writing down my ideas, and I was done 21 days later. However, when it came to writing this article, let’s just say that it’s been over a year since I finished reading everything, so down the drain went the consistency, I guess. Anyway, I decided to write my thoughts in the form of advises to myself and I hope you enjoy.

Miyamoto Musashi - woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

1. Accept everything just the way it is.

To complain is to waste the breath. Do not spend a single moment complaining. If it was effective, there would not be hardships. The present is here and it is already gone, complaining will not prevent the time from slipping away. Also very important is to manage your expectations with an iron fist. There is no problem in having faith in yourself and working to give yourself a more comfortable life, but do not allow your mind to wander through the land of expectations and end up losing itself. The only life that exists is now.

2. Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

Living can be very hard, so enjoying a little pleasure sometimes may help you relax a bit and allow you to forget the difficulties you’re facing even if for just a moment. However, basing your life on the pursuit on pleasure for its own sake is detrimental to one’s character because pleasure by itself is an empty room, holds no meaning and adds no value to your path. Develop your comprehension of life and seek virtue instead.

3. Do not, under any circumstances, depend on a partial feeling.

This was a tricky one for me, and even now I’m not totally sure what to make of it. However, it makes me think that you should always do your best to base your actions in a rational understanding of the situation in hand and to make decisions with full conviction instead of relying on half beliefs and emotions to decide and act upon. Additionally, be true to yourself, base your life on things that you really believe in.

4. Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

Keep your ego in check. Always be aware that you’re just a speck of dust in the sands of time. If left free, ego is a dangerous beast, it devours you and the relationships you love, tricking you with delusions of grandeur, until there is nothing left. Then, it drops the curtain, breaks the illusion, and you’ll look around and wonder why you are so alone. You should, instead, observe and learn from the world around you. See that everyone is fighting their own battles everyday and there’s no shortage of people doing better and worse than you. Be kind.

5. Be detached from desire your whole life long.

Most of the things you desire, you don’t really need. So why is it that you allow desire to rule your life? You are always looking for the next shining thing, be it the newly released cellphone model even though yours works just fine, new pieces of clothes despite the closet having more than enough, etc. It does not matter. What matters is that desire has you jumping from one unfulfilling thing to another and as soon as you get that new cellphone, it suddenly ceases to feel special, and that’s because it was never special to begin with. And just like that, you’ll be back into the cycle, never satisfied.

6. Do not regret what you have done.

Act consciously, do your utmost best to not act based on your emotions. Also, think of how your decisions and actions may affect others, keep your well-being in mind, but do not damage the well-being of others. That being said, once you’ve made a decision and acted upon it, that’s it, there is no going back. It’s done and the only way now is forward. Keep in mind that if you’ve gone through the previously mentioned steps, you acted on your best judgement and the only thing that matters is to keep going. Regrets won’t accomplish anything. That’s not to say that you should not apologize if you were wrong.

7. Never be jealous.

There is no reason to be jealous of someone else’s life and accomplishments. Each person has his own journey to travel in life. Most negative feelings can be traced back to the same root, desire. Only you can live your life and achieve your goals and dreams. It’s only worth if done this way, anyway. Also, seeking achievements for the sake of showing off is only ego, achieve more by making yourself a better person instead. Follow your own path. A heart full of jealousy and envy will never be able to feel contentment and gratitude, for there will always be greater people whose lives seem to be better than yours at the surface level.

8. Never let yourself be saddened by a separation.

People follow different paths in life. Sometimes your path gets to join somebody else’s path for a while and you get to know them, share experiences, befriend or even marry them to go on and live a joint life for many years. But, that does not mean that now you have a single path, it just means that, on this particular journey together, your paths go side by side, sharing whatever good or bad times you encounter on the way. And, sometimes, it’ll go on just like that for the rest of your lives. Other times, though, somewhere down the road of life, your expectations and interests may differ, and what is a smooth and paved road for one might become a rocky climb for the other, then it’ll make sense to part ways and seek meaning somewhere else. That is the nature of life, keep the good memories and lessons close to your heart and move on, always grateful.

9. Resentment and complaint are appropriate neither for oneself nor others.

Resentment is a poison which hurts the most the one who feels it. What is done or said cannot be undone or unsaid, it can only be forgiven. Life will go on and your time here is very much limited to be wasted in such things. A similar understanding can be applied to complaints, if it’s something that you can act upon and solve, then act and solve it instead of complaining. If it’s not, then the problem is already solved.

10. Do not let yourself be guided by the feeling of lust or love.

Desire is the biggest obstacle in the path to a good life. Lust is one of the strongest and most common manifestations of desire. It makes you distance yourself from a clear mind and from a rational thinking, rendering you vulnerable to all sorts of manipulations. And what greater strengthener to lust than love? Such a dangerous feeling, in an instant is able to fill you heart with inspiration and joy just to, in the next, rob you of all strength and will to live. You should be open to love, but never guided by it, always guided by reason. Everything that can distance you from a clear mind can potentially drive you insane.

11. In all things have no preferences.

You should not be picky, you should live humbly. Having preferences, wishing that things were one way instead of the other, creates in you a dependence, specially if these preferences rely on events outside of what little control you have. This ends up giving to external events the power to disturb your mood and cloud your mind with disappointment. You should, instead, knowing that you cannot always have what you like, learn to enjoy or at least accept whatever you get. This way, you make sure that, even in the worst case scenario, you’ll remain indifferent, ideally.

12. Be indifferent to where you live.

Life is unpredictable. It may seem like you are all set and all is stable at times, but that only shows how accommodated and unprepared you are to face the setbacks of life. Hard times are always just around the corner, a single wrong decision can change everything. When you place value and attach yourself to material goods, like where you live, you are once again placing your well-being under the control of external events. Fortune allowed you to get to the point where you are and achieve everything that you have, it can take them all away in the same manner, everything. So, do enjoy the good things of life, but avoid attaching yourself to them and making your well-being entirely dependent on them.

13. Do not pursue the taste of good food.

Tasty food is great, don’t get me wrong, but do not forget that the primary goal of food is to provide the necessary nutrients to sustain your body and keep you healthy. To be tasty is a bonus, appreciate it whenever you have it, but do not grow dependent on it. Desire can manifest itself under many disguises.

14. Do not hold on to possessions you no longer need.

Try to live a light and simple life, don’t clutter it with your possessions. Most material goods hold no meaning unless they serve a purpose. If your possessions are only for showing off and hoarding, you do not own them, they own you. And just like that, once again, you are placing to much value on things that can be taken away from you at any turn of life’s pages. You may think this way, if you have enough possessions to make it difficult to move/relocate, then you probably have too much stuff that you most likely don’t need.

15. Do not act following customary beliefs.

A brilliant dude called Montaigne once said,

“He who sheep-like follows another, follows nothing. He discovers nothing because he seeks nothing.”

Think for yourself, question everything, and if you believe something to be true, question yourself. The ability to think, to reason and ponder different points of view is one of your most precious assets as a human being, it is what, in fact, makes you so. Keep an open mind, consider many possible scenarios and opinions, even if you believe the exact opposite.

16. Do not collect weapons or practice with weapons beyond what is useful.

Since you live in the modern age, consider your weapons to be the knowledge and skills that you acquire through life. You should seek the ones that you believe will be useful to you on your journey and get you closer to your goals. You should not learn for the sake of feeling superior to others or showing off, that’s your ego feeding itself off your vanity, and they hold neither meaning nor value.

17. Do not fear death.

Going back to the events that are outside of your control, death could very well be the definition on inevitability. It comes for everybody, making no distinction of race, age or wealth. What is left to you is to make the most of the interval between your birth and the day that death decides to pay you its single and unavoidable visit.

18. Do not seek to possess either goods or fiefs for your old age.

Enjoy your life, build good friendships and try to help those struggling. Sometimes, it is by helping others that you’ll find out ways to help yourself the most. Don’t spend your whole life trying to hoard as much wealth as possible, you won’t take any with you, and no matter how much money and other material possessions you have, your most precious asset, your time, is a resource that you cannot buy back.

19. Respect Buddha and the gods without counting on their help.

There is nothing wrong in being a believer, in finding solace and relief from the adversities of life in religion. However, nothing will ever change in your life if you don’t look out for yourself, if you don’t work hard on your craft and do your best to make the most of your life. God’s help is always welcomed, but try to not let it be your only hope.

20. You may abandon your own body but you must preserve your honor.

You don’t know when death will come knocking, if you’ll be able to enjoy a long existence in this plane or if you’ll depart in an unexpected way. But you know that, as life advances, you body will get weaker and you may even lose some of your physical capabilities. However, no matter how frail and beaten up you body gets, there’s no excuse from straying from an honorable path. Take care of your mind and don’t get yourself mixed up in things that could put your honor in jeopardy. Life will definitely get very difficult at times, learn to endure it.

21. Never stray from the way.

Choose an honorable path in life, work hard and achieve your goals honestly. Be patient with others, there a million different paths to walk through life and you never know how rocky and steep are theirs, many will have it way worse than you. Never give up on your efforts to be a better person and try not to complain too much. Avoid the delusions of desire and do not fall for ego’s traps, you’ll always need less than what you want. Live humbly, be kind, cherish your time and spend it wisely. People may come and they may also go, so learn from them, but set them free and let them go if so they wish. Learn to enjoy the simple things in life, if you are able to sustain yourself, you probably have enough. Finally, live a righteous life so that you may never feel uncomfortable in the solitude of your own thoughts.

Well, that is it from me on the Dokkōdō for now. Some will probably think of these as very shallow or even misguided interpretations, but that is really not the point. It’s about where it takes your mind when you read it, and whatever you feel or wherever you are in life may influence where your mind goes when reading things. Those were the places my mind went when I read these 21 principles for the first time and, who knows, where it’ll go when I read them again a year from now.

Bye.