One should every day think over and make an effort to implant in his mind the saying, “At that time is right now.” It is said that it is strange indeed that anyone is able to pass through life by one means or another in negligence. Thus, the Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one’s mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.
The Matheson Trust; Yamamoto, Tsunetomo, Hagakure: In the Shade of the Leaves, Section 118 (p. 32) http://themathesontrust.org/library/hagakure-book-of-the-samurai
Different deaths have different emotional content. Can the Samurai's resolute acceptance be consistent with giving up out of anger?
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| A Buddhist monk commits suicide by burning at the Central Market in Saigon, October 5, 1963 |
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