fail fail fail again...

''If one has not been a ronin at least seven times, he will not be a true retainer. Seven times down, eight times up."

from the Hagakure...

When I was young, I kept a "Dairy of Regret" and tried to record my mistakes day by day, but there was never a day when I didn't have twenty or thirty entries. As there was no end to it, I gave up. Even today, when I think about the day's affairs after going to bed, there is never a day when I do not make some blunder in speaking or in some activity. Living without mistakes is truly impossible. But this is something that people who live by cleverness have no inclination to think about.

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. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.

Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else. No one seems to have noticed this fact. But grasping this firmly, one must pile experience upon experience. And once one has come to this understanding he will be a different person from that point on, though he may not always bear it in mind.

grasping at straws...

Whether people be of high or low birth, rich or poor, old or young, enlightened or confused, they are all alike in that they will one day die. It is not that we don't know that we are going to die, but we grasp at straws. While knowing that we will die someday, we think that all the others will die before us and that we will be the last to go. Death seems a long way oft.

Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream. It will not do to think in such a way and be negligent. insofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.

life is short...

Human life is truly a short affair. It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like. But it is important never to tell this to young people as it is something that would be harmful if incorrectly understood.
Personally, I like to sleep. And I intend to appropriately confine myself more and more to my living quarters and pass my life away sleeping.

word to the wise...

...in the old native tongue of the sarges...



i was truly surprised and amazed and ecstatic to hold and fondle and smell the inaugural unbound press. fantastic stuff! charlie and amy have really outdone themselves with this. charlie insists it was all amy's effort and hat off to amy for the fantastic work. look forward to more, 's all. be sure to check it out!

there is no monster under your bed child...

there is no such thing as an al qaida.

there is no axis of evil.

there never were any "weapons-r-mass-distrukshyun".

there is no iranian nuclear threat.

there is no north korean nuclear threat.

there is no such thing as global warming.

















there is no such thing as anarchy.

words

The most important way of expressing one self is to say nothing. If we wish to go on without speaking it is easy to do so. When we must by all means say something, we should speak reasonably using few words. We are abandoned by others and disgrace ourselves putting our words carelessly.

learn well

There are many men who give lessons in the world, but few who are glad to take them. There are even fewer that take heed of them. No one over the age of thirty takes to lessons kindly. Therefor such men will become selfish, allowing themselves to be fooled by errors and end their life in vain. You should accept lessons. Being on intimate terms with a person who is well versed in reason.

change of heart

Feeling deeply the difference between oneself and others, bearing ill will and falling out with people--these things come from a heart that lacks compassion. If one wraps up everything with a heart of compassion, there will be no coming into conflict with people.

severed goat testicle stew

Don't be making jokes along these lines with the local tribesmen under any circumstances, and most definitely not in the appropriate combination of clacks and grunts and spits. You just might be accidentally understood and some poor beast somewhere will have to surrender its manlihood for the pretense of salvaging international relations, or some such shit.

whenever

During the Shimabara Rebellion, his armor being still at the encampment, Shugyo Echizen no kami Tanenao participated in the fight dressed only in hakama and haori. It is said that he died in battle in this attire.