Bushido is realised in the presence of death. In the case of having to choose between life and death you should choose death. There is no other reasoning.

Go ahead and gamble a lie. A person who will not tell you seven lies within a hundred yards is useless as a man.

By bringing shame to a person, how could one expect to make him a better man?

It is a principle of the art of war that one should simply lay down his life and strike. If one's opponent also does the same, it is a even match. Defeating one's opponent is then a matter of faith and destiny.

If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. The saying that “All abilities come from one mind” sounds as though it has to do with sentient matters, but it is in fact a matter of being unattached to life and death. With such non-attachment one can accomplish any feat.

It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this.

By inconsistency and frivolity we stray from the Way and show ourselves to be beginners. In this we do much harm.