Warrior Miyamoto Musashi lived to cultivate knowledge of the fundamental principles of martial arts and life. In 1643, at age 60, the undefeated Musashi retired to a secluded mountaintop to contemplate and record his insights.
Each teaching culminates with Musashi’s repeated commandment:
“You should investigate this thoroughly”
This precept is crucial to effective knowledge-seeking and self improvement. The idea is simple yet often neglected.
Deep inquiry is necessary for any and all claims, the acceptance of which would lead to important consequences for the conduct of one’s life. Thus, anything pertaining to the fundamental questions of the human condition warrants close study. Thorough investigation entails the combined activities of academic study, worldly observation and praxis. This process unveils knowledge.
Knowledge (the basic definition: justified true belief) arises from the interplay of thought and experience. Musashi differentiates between academic familiarity (book smarts) and true knowledge. The latter comes from the comprehension of truth by way of direct experience. Musashi relentlessly advocates sustained investigation as the path to wisdom.
Along this path, reading is useful to the extent that it prepares ones mind to recognize truth when it reveals itself in experience. Similarly, the study of wise commentary puts words to previously ineffable realities, long understood via experience yet difficult to formulate. The well-rounded seeker of wisdom both studies and interacts with the world. He or she meshes contemplation with active observation and participation.
One potential obstacle to deep inquiry is the power of opinion, especially when fortified by emotion. Opinions are not knowledge because they do not meet the criteria of justified true belief. Yet, many hold as strongly to their opinions as they would truth. This leads to mental inflexibility that impedes thorough investigation.
Musashi’s key lesson is that the initiative and responsibility for one’s own development is completely internal. Teachers are useful guides and mentors but only to the extent that the student verifies their teachings. Musashi does not want his readers to take his word for anything. He provides signposts in the form of nine rules for deep inquiry:¹
1. Think without any dishonesty.
2. Forge yourself in the Way.
3. Touch upon all of the arts.
4. Know the ways of all occupations.
5. Know the advantages and disadvantages of everything.
6. Develop a discerning eye in all matters.
7. Understand what cannot be seen by the eye.
8. Pay attention to even small things.
9. Do not involve yourself with the impractical.
The practice of these guidelines minimizes the danger of adopting misleading opinion. Musashi’s rules are exercises to strengthen one’s critical mind and self-awareness to better recognize truth. The difficult part, as always, is putting words into practice so that we may come to know their validity.
1. Miyamoto, Musashi, and William Scott Wilson. “The Earth Chapter.” The Book of Five Rings. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 2002. 23-24. Print.