Takuan: Master Tropes in the Buddhist Metaphorization of Violence

In the early twentieth century, militarists eager to dignify violence in service to the modern Japanese state promoted the writings of the Zen priest Takuan Sōhō (1573–1645). To reassess the relationship between Buddhism and violence, as well as Takuan’s role in theorizing that relationship, this paper develops a systematic analysis of the metaphors Takuan used to conceptualize violence. Focusing on Takuan’s works addressing a warrior audience, “The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom” (Fudōchi shimyōroku) and “The Annals of [the Sword] Taia” (Taiaki), I will show that Takuan employed metaphor in three important ways: (1) to explain the ‘non-stopping mind’—his neologism for non-attaching immovable wisdom; (2) to analogize swordsmanship to Buddhist practice; and (3) to liken warriors to bodhisattvas. Based on theories of metaphorical conceptualization and master tropes, I will show that Takuan endorsed swordsmanship practiced with the non-stopping mind as a warrior’s entry into the path towards enlightenment.