Modern Samurai Code:
Samurai Code and Daily Life

Modern samurai code... It sounds funny.

I believe that samurai code (bushido) or philosophies should not be changed.

But since samurai code and daily life should not be separated, we should adjust our attitude towards it a little bit.

Why? It is because we don't live in the samurai era. Don't you agree?

Kendo has a lot of samurai code, philosophies and wisdoms in it.

These philosophies and wisdoms were acquired from the dead or alive experiences of ancient samurai.

Everyday samurai must have fought for his life or love ones. Tomorrow they might die. There was no guarantee that they would keep their lives the next day.

We are lucky to learn these philosophies and wisdoms without risking our lives. However, we must know there is a huge difference between knowing and fully understanding.

We can learn these philosophies and wisdoms at a desk but if we really want to understand what they exactly mean, we have to go through what ancient samurai went through.

So do we have to use a real sword?

No. We have to practice kendo. And here the concept of kendo comes in. Remember the concept of kendo? Here it is: The Concept of kendo is:

"to discipline the human character through the application of the principles of the Katana (sword)".

Even though we use shinai to practice, we must see a shinai as a real sword. Without that sense, we are just mindless whacking with a stick and thus it is not called kendo.

It must be used for our daily life, right?

Now we know why kendo emphasises on the katana. And these philosophies and wisdoms are well-understood if we practice kendo. Why is it useful for our daily life where we do not use a sword?

You might see some people who are really serious in their dojo but do not behave as kendo teaches outside of their dojo. Is it because they do not use a sword outside of their dojo?

Simply it is hard to apply these philosophies and wisdoms in daily life. That is because as we all know we do not use a sword and we do not kill each other because a stranger bumps into us (that was very common in ancient Japan).

There are a lot of teachings in kendo can be applied in our daily lives but unfortunately these teachings sound so traditional and ancient for our lives.

Even Japanese people have a hard time to understand these teachings.

Hopefully I can connect these teaching and our daily lives.

Read also How Do I Apply Kendo Teachings to My Daily Life?

• Let's take a look at one of the kendo teachings to apply it to our daily life. It may help us to grasp a way to apply the teachings to our daily life.

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