Ghost Dog

Ghost Dog is a cool film. It reminds me of the 'cool' in Leon and The Matrix - stylish but not serious, enjoying visual effects for their own sake. As when Leon disappears into darkness after putting a knife to someon'e throat from behind, and Forest Whittaker's stylised martial artistry and the shooosh sounds when he ducks, or draws his gun.

I read Musashi's Book of Five Rings many years ago, and ocassionally return to it. It's a classic - as the saying goes - apparently used by business men as a manual for strategic practice. Strategy is the same thing, whether it's a sword-to-sword altercation or a company take-over. That's the kind of philosophy I like; the Chinese and Japanese texts are full of it and compared to Western philosophy it's always practical and phenomenological. That is, it can inform the way you conduct yourself and the decisions you make, and refers to and extrapolates from normal daily circumstances. When I did philosophy formally at university, I felt it was ridiculous mental gymnastics performed for their own sake. Now I can see the value of that kind of activity, because it sharpens your perception and capacity for critical enquiry. Thus, I've recently been reading Gilles Deleuze and Henri Bergson. But I am aware that the Western outlook is cerebral rather than phenomenological, and ultimately is a kind of castle in the air. That's OK if you remember it, but some people don't. They attach a kind of metaphysical or ontological certainty to words that are ultimately no more than aesthetic.

I was interested in Yukio Mishima but after watching the film realised he was a bit of a nutter. His passion for ancient samurai values was mixed up and corrupted with a fascist, militaristic and homo-erotic perspective, packaged into a personal aesthetic. I used to be interested in the samurai bible Hagakure, but it's mostly strange, dense stuff that is both difficult and unrewarding. You can find it on the 'net quite easily. I downloaded it for leisurely perusal, but deleted it after a quick survey.

It does, however, have some perceptive sections; Ghost Dog shows you Hagakure at it's best. The title means cherry blossom, and refers to the transitory beauty of the blossom which, like human life, is a transitory experience.

It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this.


Matters of great concern should be treated lightly. Master Ittei wrote: Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.

When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about going at it in a long roundabout way. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong.

There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue.

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. By doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to all things.

The Way of the Samurai is found in death. Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day when one's body and mind are at peace, we should meditate upon being ripped apart by arrows, rifles, spears and swords, carried away by surging waves, being thrown into the midst of a great fire, being struck by lightening, being shaken to death by a great earthquake, falling from thousand foot cliffs, dying of disease, or committing sepuku at the death of one's master. And every day without fail, one should consider himself as dead. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai.

It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. It is the same for anything else that is called a Way. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all Ways and be more and more in accord with his own.

According to what one of the elders said, taking an enemy on the battlefield is like a hawk taking a bird. Even though it enters into the midst of a thousand of them, it gives no attention to any bird other than the one that it has first marked.

It is good to carry some powdered rouge in one's sleeve. It may happen that when one is sobering up or waking from sleep, a samurai's complexion may be poor. At such a time it is good to take out and apply some powdered rouge.

Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness. Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase, "Form is emptiness." That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the phrase, "Emptiness is form." One should not think that these are two separate things.

It is said that what is called 'the spirit of an age' is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation.

Hagakure: brought to you by courtesy of Recumbent Gaze enterprises

 

 

© James Lomax