What are clouds, but an excuse for the sky? What is life, but an escape from death?

Isn't it only laughter we can stay human?

Isn't man but a blossom taken by wind, and only the mountains and the sea and the stars and this land of the gods everlasting?

How baffling it was that even the most cunning and clever people would frequently see only what they wanted to see, and would rarely look beyond the thinnest of facades. Or they would ignore reality, dismissing it as the facade. And then, when their whole world fell to pieces...they would tear their topknots or rend their clothes and bewail their karma, blaming gods or kami or luck or their lords or husbands or vassals-anything or anyone-but never themselves.

Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life - Shogun.

First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.

How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now.