E-Shun, a pupil and sister of Ryo-an,[FN#231] a famous Japanese master, burned herself calmly sitting cross-legged on a pile of firewood which consumed her.  She attained to the complete mastery of her body.  Socrates’ self was never poisoned, even if his person was destroyed by the venom he took.  Abraham Lincoln himself stood unharmed, even if his body was laid low by the assassin.  Masa-shige was quite safe, even if his body was hewed by the traitors’ swords.  Those martyrs that sang at the stake to the praise of God could never be burned, even if their bodies were reduced to ashes, nor those seekers after truth who were killed by ignorance and superstition.  Is it not a great pity to see a man endowed with divine spirit and power easily upset by a bit of headache, or crying as a child under a surgeon’s knife, or apt to give up the ghost at the coming of little danger, or trembling through a little cold, or easily laid low by a bit of indisposition, or yielding to trivial temptation?

[FN#231] Ryo an (E-myo, died 1411), the founder of the monastery of Sai-jo-ji, near the city of Odawara.  See To-jo-ren-to-roku.

It is no easy matter to be the dictator of body.  It is not a matter of theory, but of practice.  You must train your body that you may enable it to bear any sort of suffering, and to stand unflinched in the face of hardship.  It is for this that So-rai[FN#232] (Ogiu) laid himself on a sheet of straw-mat spread on the ground in the coldest nights of winter, or was used to go up and down the roof of his house, having himself clad in heavy armour.  It is for this that ancient Japanese soldiers led extremely simple lives, and that they often held the meeting-of-perseverance,[FN#233] in which they exposed themselves to the coldest weather in winter or to the hottest weather in summer.  It is for this that Katsu Awa practised fencing in the middle of night in a deep forest.[FN#234]

[FN#232] One of the greatest scholars of the Tokugawa period, who died in 1728.  See Etsu-wa-bun-ko.

[FN#233] The soldiers of the Tokugawa period were used to hold such a meeting.

[FN#234] Kai-shu-gen-ko-roku.

Ki-saburo, although he was a mere outlaw, having his left arm half cut at the elbow in a quarrel, ordered his servant to cut it off with a saw, and during the operation he could calmly sit talking and laughing with his friends.  Hiko-kuro (Takayama),[FN#235] a Japanese loyalist of note, one evening happened to come to a bridge where two robbers were lying in wait for him.  They lay fully stretching themselves, each with his head in the middle of the bridge, that he might not pass across it without touching them.  Hiko-kuro was not excited nor disheartened, but calmly approached the vagabonds and passed the bridge, treading upon their heads, which act so frightened them that they took to their heels without doing any harm to him.[FN#236]

[FN#235] A well-known loyalist in the Tokugawa period, who died in 1793.