I first heard this story from Nyogen
Senzaki in his noisy little duplex on
the east side of Los Angeles where
incense and tiny bells mingled with
fried onions and the shouts of neig-
hbor children. After he’d gone, I
found it again among his hundred
and one ancient stories in Zen Flesh,
Zen Bones. Because it seems to be one
of those legends containing everything
that it is necessary to know, I
have played at expanding it a little
but, of course, have added nothing.
When Heaven is about to confer
A great office upon a man,
It first exercises his mind with suffering,
And his sinews and bones with toil;
It exposes him to poverty
And confounds all his undertakings.
Then it is seen if he is ready.
—Mōshi
A great rustling behind him….
The muscles of his naked calves bulged below his worn and dirty kimono. The dark cloth flapped behind him as he strode with chest out and sword over one shoulder. The top-knot stood high on the back of his head as a badge and a warning. Everything about him declared: I have earned this.
Approaching the village, his stride slowed to caution. There was something different here. Delapidated like most villages in the time of the Gempei, it lacked the terrible melancholy of the thousand others he’d passed through. Here, there was a certain waiting. Something momentous was going to happen in this village.
The young Ronin took the sword from his shoulder and slid it under the obi bound low around his waist. The street had been fairly busy for a village this small. At his gesture, the drab little peasants began to fade away like ink in stirred water.
In a moment they’d be closing the amado and barring their doors from the inside. He went quickly into the rice shop and sat straight at the table for several moments. Then he ruined the facsimile of dignity by hitting the boards with his palm and shouting, “ Gohan! ”
The rice that the old shopkeeper put before him was steaming—and peculiarly delicious. He gorged the first bowl and savored the second. The shop-keeper’s kindly smile spoiled the whole meal for him, though. In view of what must happen when it was over, he would have much preferred the usual sullenness.
At last the hulking young warrior finished, put the hashi across the empty bowl and sat sucking bits of rice from his teeth. That done, he laid a big hand on either side of the bowl, took a deep breath and said to the empty room, “No money.” His voice was very deep. The answer came from behind him wearily, “I know, I know.” He looked over his shoulder: “Go on. Cry. Complain. Call me names. I won’t hurt you. The rice was good.”
There was a time of silence in the little shop, then the voice behind him said simply, “Coward.”
The table went over. The bowl and hashi flew. The big man was standing with long sword drawn and rage in his eyes. There was no change in the shopkeeper. He seemed to have resigned himself to this moment long, long ago. He asked, “To eat without first asking, is the coward’s way, isn’t it?” He smiled: “Were you afraid I’d refuse you?”
The sword blurred. Two of the man’s fingers pattered on the floor. As if without sensation, he said, “We thought you might be different. Our scout way down the road was sure you were. But it is difficult to see this close what he saw at a distance. We wanted to buy protection. . . .” The
blood had begun dripping swiftly, but he continued to smile: “Yes, protection from such as you.” He looked wistfully down at the sad little things on the floor: “But two fingers out of ten are a small cost for not making so grand a mistake.”
The barbaric young man grunted, “Then let’s raise the price.” When the blur had ceased, the shopkeeper’s hand thudded softly to the floor. He looked at it then sat down slowly in his own blood to wait for death.
The Ronin said, “Yes, you sit there for a while and figure out who’s afraid now.” The fading figure on the floor looked at the big man from foot to head and said, “To fear is not to be a coward. I’ve been told that the samurai who has never died is apt to run and hide in decisive moments.”
The Ronin didn’t really hear him until much later. Right now faces were staring in at the window. He shouted at them angrily, “Oh, don’t look so pious and appalled! All of you wish you were man enough to make your own laws as I do. You’re only honest because you have to be!” Then he wiped his sword clean with a white square of paper.
The young Ronin strode grandly out into the middle of the road. Completely alone, he stood with legs spread and parted his kimono below the obi knot. He slid a big hand into the front of his pouch, pulled out a surprise of size and held the kimono open with both hands as a great golden arc glittered in the sun and splattered his bare ankles.
He looked around him like an angry eagle. The fact that he saw no one was satisfactory proof that he was the center of all attention. His anger lessened with the arc and he again felt the difference of the village. It wasn’t sad and it should have been. He felt the uneasiness of one sensing ambush.
The door of the rice shop slid open, an old monk came out and walked directly toward him. He was small as a boy and amazingly wrinkled. He stopped before the towering young man and said, “You’re under arrest. Give me your sword.”
The Ronin could only laugh; he continued laughing as he shook off the last drops. He grinned down at the little old man: “Pretty damned big, huh?” The monk looked at it a little sadly: “Perhaps, but a samurai is not his sword.”
For the second time that day, deep anger took him. This was far more than a personal insult. The very core of Bushido declared that a swordsman is his sword. He growled by rote, “It is my living soul.” The tiny man held out his hand, “Give it to me. I’ll take your soul.” The young warrior’s eyes were midnight: “Go away quickly, little man. What is a swordsman without his sword?”
The answer came promptly and simply: “A man.”
With one great circular gesture, the Ronin drew his sword and halved the old man. With blade frozen at the end of the arc, he stood for the sublime moment that a man waits for his enemy to fall. In it he was shocked to hear that voice say, “ You are still under arrest.” Then the little figure toppled and seemed to explode in blood.
The young warrior was still shaking with anger as he wiped his blade clean with another square of white paper. He tossed it upon the yet moving body that lay in a lazy cloud of dust, slid the sword into its scabbard, cutting edge up, and