True beauty is something that attacks, overpowers, robs, and finally destroys.

We tend to suffer from the illusion that we are capable of dying for a belief or theory. What Hagakure is insisting is that even in merciless death, a futile death that knows neither flower nor fruit has dignity as the death of a human being. If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death? No death may be called futile.

According to Eshin's Essentials of Salvation, the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land.

If we value so highly the dignity of life, how can we not also value the dignity of death No death may be called futile.

At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it. After that, there remains only the journey itself, which is nothing but the process through which we lose our ownership of it.

When silence is prolonged over a certain period of time, it takes on new meaning.

I had no taste for defeat - much less victory - without a fight.