Bushido 武士道

Bushido　武士道

The philosophy and ethical code of the samurai was known as bushido . Although bushi has the same meaning as samurai, the literal meaning of samurai is " One who serves" a lord or high-ranking commander, whereas bushi in general means " warrior".

The most important issue in bushido is knowing how to face death. In fact, in those times the samurai often faced death in battle. Sometimes they had to choose death over life to come to the rescue of their lord or even to save face. To prove how he had overcome the fear of death ,sometimes he would take his life according to the ceremony known as Seppuku, which meant cutting open the belly with a sword.

This was done when the samurai had to protect his load or when he had to uphold his honor.When his lord or the shogun accused a samurai of wrongdoing ,he would choose to die in accordance with this ritual as a matter of honor.

From this it is easy to see how overcoming the fear of death was of utmost importance to samurai , and how strong spiritual control would make their mind powerful enough to face any challenge-most importantly, the challenge of preserving their pride.

This, of course, is old history, though fragments of such a mentality are still present among modern Japanese. One example of this is how some Japanese act in the business world. If a corporation is accused of wrongdoing,oftentimes the president of the company will announce his resignation, taking full responsibility even if he or she was not directly involved. In that way, everyone feels that the company can be forgiven for what it did. In this case, the company itself is the lord while the president is the samurai serving his company.

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