The Samurai's Tale: A Historical Adventure for Kids (Ages 10-12) About a Boy's Journey to Warrior and a Redeemed Legacy

Nearly all samurai practice Zen - it is the Way of Enlightenment." "Possibly the light of Zen is so strong that it has blinded me to its virtue." Yoshitoki smiled. "It is very good discipline for the mind, as the martial arts are for the body." Kenmotsu looked very smug as he said this. "I do Zazen twice a week." "I think it will do no-one any harm, though personally I find it more pleasant to think than to empty my mind of thought.

Those soldiers belonging to the victorious side whose blood has oozed into the ground and whose hearts have ceased beating, have they partaken in the triumph as well as those who are unscarred and busy draining cups of sake to each other's glorious deeds? I rather think they belong instead to the defeated." ... "You mean that those who are killed all belong to the defeated, regardless of which side they were on?

I shall not quarrel with another man's road to salvation if he will allow me to wander along mine.

I am sure that there is many a young man who would think it a great honor to exchange his name for yours.

No-one can own our Lord Buddha. That would be a foolish claim, but the roads that lead to him, the Way... That is a different matter. They are all filled with toll-gates, like the roads of Japan, and the monks collect the fees.

there are those who are cursed to live in times when death seems to come out of season, when the winter of a man's life may leap upon him in the midst of summer greenness.