"The way of the samurai is death."

「武士道と云ふは死ぬ事と見付けたり。」

I often face a dilemma when someone asks me to define the essence of a true, historical samurai in a single concept. This question has haunted me ever since I began trying to wrestle with the myths and simplifications of popular culture. It is not about a simple symbol of that social class (the hairstyle, the katana, the kabuto), but about something that truly reflects their mentality and makes us realize just how distant and alien that world was. It will not be the dazzling duels familiar from films, nor the worn-out word bushidō, which, although once important, is now more likely to be found on sports shoe labels than in serious reflection. Not because those popular images are bad—on the contrary, they can be fascinating, amusing, sometimes even inspiring. But the truth turns out to be far stranger and far more unsettling. It is usually so, and any physicist or historian will confirm it—no matter how imaginative fiction may be, the truth proves to be more peculiar. The samurai saw himself, others, and the world in such a radically different way that understanding his perspective can leave us stunned. And if I had to choose one single concept that best captures the primal core of the samurai spirit, I would choose: 観念 – KAN’NEN – “a permanent readiness to receive a mortal blow.”

Kan’nen was not an abstract idea from a philosophical treatise. It was the filter through which the samurai viewed absolutely everything—daily gestures, thoughts, decisions, relationships. Samurai culture was radically anti-individualistic. A samurai did not belong to himself: his life was the property of his clan, his daimyo, his obligations. Freedom, in our sense of the word, did not exist. His “self” held no importance, and the deepest spiritual exercise was loyalty to emptiness. The true “sin” was to feel emotions—whether anger, love, compassion, or pride. Death was constantly present in art, literature, and ritual. The aestheticization of death—in farewell poems (jisei), in the rituals of seppuku, in epic tales such as Heike monogatari—gave the end of life a form and a beauty. Death not only terminated existence but gave it shape. When we say that samurai culture was a cult of death, we do not mean it to emphasize war and fighting. A cult of death meant that a man was taught—from a terrifyingly young age—to think of his own death every single day, and to live in such a way that in every single moment he was ready for it and would accept it.

For us, people of the modern West, this is almost inconceivable and certainly unacceptable. We are taught to “realize ourselves,” to “fulfill dreams,” and every crisis we measure by the individual yardstick of our own “I.” Meanwhile, kan’nen rejected individualism and emotional expression. Only fate, duty, and emptiness mattered—and the full acceptance of the inevitable, even if it meant the conscious renunciation of oneself. It is a paradigm that feels alien, even shocking. And yet today we will try to touch it, to understand, to grasp even a shadow of how the samurai once thought. We will not judge—for how can one judge something so foreign that it seems to come from another planet? But perhaps, somewhat paradoxically, we will ask whether in this radical, distant attitude there may not be something which—in an obviously gentler form—could enrich our own lives as well.

What does “Kan’nen” mean?

Introduction

The word kan’nen (観念) in Japanese usually means “idea,” “notion,” “concept.” Yet in a philosophical-historical context it takes on another, more existential meaning: acceptance, resignation, coming to terms with fate—particularly in the face of death and of what a person cannot change.

If a Japanese person says “kekkon no kan’nen ga nai” (結婚の観念がない), it means “I have no concept of marriage.” This is the everyday, neutral sense. But the same characters 観念 also have another, idiomatic meaning—precisely “resignation, acceptance of fate.”

This is also visible in spoken Japanese:

  -  shi o kan’nen suru (死を観念する) = “to resign oneself to death.”

  -  mō kan’nen shita (もう観念した) = “I’ve given up,” “I have no choice, I accept it.”

In Japanese-Japanese dictionaries you will find both layers:

  -  idea, notion (general concept),

  -  to accept, to resign oneself to something unavoidable.

It is this second meaning that developed within the samurai ethos, in Zen, and in Edo-period literature as a stance toward death and fate—and it is this meaning we will explore today.

This stance represents one of the dimensions of Japanese thought most alien to the modern person, especially in the West: radical anti-individualism, the subordination of life to forces greater than the individual, and also a cult of death, which in samurai culture was regarded as the highest expression of loyalty, discipline, and courage. Kan’nen is not escape, but a conscious entry into what is inevitable, with complete calm and acceptance.

In the following sections of this article, we will first examine the sources of this idea—in Buddhism, Daoism, literature, and the ethos of bushidō—and then reflect on whether and in what way certain elements of this ancient stance might serve as inspiration for our own modern lives.

Etymology

To grasp the essence of kan’nen, it is worth breaking the word down into its two characters: 観 (kan) and 念 (nen). As is often the case in Japanese, their combination is not a simple addition of meanings but the creation of a new quality, tied both to philosophy and to the practice of life.

観 (kan)

This character originally depicted a human figure standing high and observing, as well as an eye—the organ of perception. Its basic meaning is “to look,” “to watch,” “to contemplate.” In a spiritual context it signifies not ordinary looking but deeper observation and attentive reflection—seeing things as they truly are, unclouded by desires and fears. In Buddhism, this character appears for example in the name of the bodhisattva Kannon (観音, “The One Who Contemplates the Sounds of the World”), where kan denotes insight, a compassionate act of seeing.

念 (nen)

The second character consists of two parts: above, “now” (今, ima), and below, “heart/mind” (心, kokoro). Together they form the meaning “attentive thought,” “recollection,” “awareness of the present moment.” The character contains within it the essence of Japanese mindfulness practice: being wholeheartedly in what is happening now, without having one’s attention pulled away by illusions of the past or projections of the future. Nen is thus thought immersed in the present—a consciousness without distraction.

観念 – “Kan’nen”

Brought together, these two characters form the concept kan’nen—“contemplative awareness,” “observation of thought.” In everyday speech this means “idea” or “notion,” but in Japanese philosophy and culture it acquired an additional, existential sense. Kan’nen is the state in which, through deep insight (kan) and present-moment awareness (nen), a person recognizes the inevitability of fate and accepts it as part of the natural course of things. It is often translated as “readiness to receive a blow.”

In this light, kan’nen is not passive submission, but rather a conscious acknowledgment of the limits of one’s own “self” in the face of a reality greater than itself. It is an act of acceptance that requires courage and spiritual discipline—hence it found a special place in the samurai, Buddhist, and literary traditions of Japan.

What does literature say?

When we try to grasp the essence of kan’nen as resignation to fate, we encounter an interweaving of many intellectual and cultural traditions of Japan. It is not a single idea grown in a vacuum, but rather the outcome of Buddhist meditations on impermanence, Daoist acceptance of the cycles of life and death, as well as literary and aesthetic visions of transience that for centuries shaped the Japanese imagination.

Zen Buddhism and the idea of impermanence (無常, mujō)

In Buddhism, especially in its Zen form, the doctrine of impermanence (mujō) occupies a central place. Everything that exists is subject to birth, change, and decay. A person who clings tightly to the idea of a permanent “self” lives in illusion and suffering, as Buddhist teachings tell us. That is why Zen practice does not consist of elaborate systems of concepts but of the direct experience of transience and the transcendence of the ego.

One of the radical tools of this practice was meditation on the decomposition of the body—kuso (九相観). Monks would gaze at images or visualize the nine stages of the corpse’s decay: from fresh death, through swelling, discoloration, and disintegration, to bare bones and ashes. The point was not macabre fascination but a deep realization that the body is not something enduring, and death is not an enemy but a natural transition. It is here that kan’nen takes on meaning—an act of mental “acceptance” of the inevitable process that cannot be stopped.

Zen master Morinaga Sōkō Rōshi described his experience of zazen practice as a moment of “switching consciousness” (転心 – tenshin, literally “turning of the mind”). After years of pain, exhaustion, and effort, the sense of “I” suddenly vanished; only pure observation remained, along with a joy that required no justification. This is precisely the essence of kan’nen in the Zen dimension: acceptance of life and death through direct immersion in emptiness, without clinging to the ego.

Daoist influences

A second source of kan’nen lay in the ideas of Chinese Daoism, which had permeated Japanese thought and religious practice since ancient times. In the classical text Liezi we read: “Life is the companion of death, death is the beginning of life. If this is so, what have we to lose?” Daoism taught acceptance of change as the natural rhythm of the world. There was no “stopping of time,” no possibility of breaking away from the flow of things—there remained only to let life and death run their own course.

In the stories of Liezi, Master Yangzi said: “When you live, give yourself to life. When you die, give yourself to death.” This is the echo of an attitude that samurai would adopt many centuries later: kan’nen meant abandoning the struggle against the inevitable, while at the same time concentrating fully on what is now.

Literature and art

The idea of kan’nen was not merely an abstract philosophical discourse—it permeated the literature and art of Japan, giving them a unique coloration. In Heike monogatari, the thirteenth-century chronicle of the fall of the Taira clan, the very first lines read:

祇園精舎の鐘の声、諸行無常の響きあり。
沙羅双樹の花の色、盛者必衰の理をあらはす。

Gion shōja no kane no koe, shogyō mujō no hibiki ari.
Sharasōju no hana no iro, jōsha hissui no kotowari o arawasu.

“The sound of the Gion shōja bells carries the echo of the impermanence of all things.
The color of the sal tree blossoms reveals the truth that those at their peak must inevitably fall.”

This is not only a poetic image but the very quintessence of mujō and at the same time kan’nen: acceptance of the fact that even the greatest political or military power must collapse, just as a flower withers. The heroes of the epic perish, lose fortunes and honors, and the narrator constantly reminds us that this is the natural order of the world.

Similarly, in the farewell poetry jisei no ku, composed before death or suicide (more about samurai death poetry here: Samurai Death Poetry Jisei: A Glimpse into the Soul in Its Final Moments), the spirit of kan’nen finds expression in aesthetic conciseness. The monk Ryōkan wrote:

“Death comes—
who would trouble themselves with it?
The autumn wind.”

This poem is not drama or despair, but a calm, almost light sigh. The aesthetics of death in Edo poetry show that kan’nen was not only a moral act but also an artistic form of beauty—beauty fleeting and reconciled with fate.

Kan’nen in the samurai ethos

When we speak of kan’nen in the samurai context, we must remember that in Japan of the Kamakura era, or even of Edo, the notion of the individual, of their rights, emotions, and aspirations, did not exist in the form we know today in the West. A samurai did not belong to himself. He belonged to his clan, to his lord (daimyō), and ultimately—to death. Resignation to this fact, accepting it with full awareness and without resentment, was the embodiment of kan’nen. It was not about an individual gesture or freedom in the Western sense, but about the purest expression of loyalty and acceptance of fate.

Bushidō and the “cult of death”

The most famous testimony to this way of thinking is Hagakure (葉隠) by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, written at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Its very first lines read like a manifesto:

「武士道と云ふは死ぬ事と見付けたり。」

(Bushidō to iu wa, shinu koto to mitsuketari.)

“The way of the samurai is death.”

This was not a poetic image or a metaphor, but a hard principle through whose lens the samurai viewed themselves and others. Tsunetomo emphasized that a samurai should at all times be ready for immediate death—if he must choose between life and honor, the choice should be obvious. This mentality is the very embodiment of kan’nen: the acceptance that death is always present and that it is death which gives meaning to loyalty.

Bushidō was in essence an anti-individualistic code. The individual did not matter in the face of the clan, the lord, and duty. Decisions did not belong to the “I,” but to the hierarchical structure of which the samurai was a part. Loyalty and obedience held greater value than life itself, and kan’nen lay in the mental readiness to surrender oneself—without rebellion and without resentment.

Seppuku

The most vivid form of this acceptance of fate was seppuku, the ritual suicide of the samurai. In Western interpretations it is often mistakenly seen as an individual gesture of honor, when in reality it was the highest act of loyalty to one’s lord or community. A samurai “departed” from life as the situation required—not because he wished it himself, but because it was demanded of him.

The aesthetics of seppuku were as important as death itself. Dressing in white, carefully composing a farewell poem (jisei no ku), the presence of witnesses and of a second (kaishakunin)—all of this was meant to give death a ritual order, transforming biological ending into a gesture of perfect form. Here kan’nen reveals itself fully: in the calm acceptance of pain and in the aestheticization of one’s own end, which becomes the final work of one’s life (more about seppuku here: Samurai Seppuku: Ritual Suicide in the Name of Honor, or Bloody Belly Cutting and Hours of Agony?).

Kan’nen as a foreign paradigm

Everything we have said about kan’nen strikes us with its otherness when compared to the European tradition. In the West, for centuries the ars moriendi—the “art of dying well”—was developed, whose aim was to prepare the individual for death in the perspective of salvation. It was an intimate, personal art, focused on the soul of the individual and its fate in eternal life. Even in modern philosophy, in Heidegger’s Sein zum Tode—“being toward death”—death remains an individual, “most authentic” experience, something that defines the solitary existence of man.

In Japan, however, kan’nen meant reconciliation with death not for the sake of salvation, nor for the meaning of the self, but in the name of loyalty to one’s lord, one’s clan, and ultimately—to emptiness. There was no centrality of the “I”—the very “I” which in the West, from St. Augustine through Descartes, was the point of reference for all reflection. In Japan the samurai was not “himself” in the Western sense, but part of a network of obligations and relations. He did not live to fulfill himself, but to die at the right moment and in the right way.

Death was not a taboo there, not something pushed to the margins of life. On the contrary—it was present in art, literature, ritual. The aestheticization of death—in jisei poems, in the rituals of seppuku, in tales such as Heike monogatari—gave the end of life form and beauty. Death was not only inevitable, but also necessary in order to give shape to existence. In the modern world, where death is often hidden away in hospitals and nursing homes, where dying is spoken of in whispers and half-words, such an attitude seems positively shocking.

For us, for the contemporary Western reader, kan’nen appears as a radically foreign paradigm: there is no place for individual desires, no right to choose, no emancipation of the “I.” There is only fate, duty, and emptiness, to which one must relate with complete acceptance. Psychologically, it is almost unimaginable—in a world where we are taught to “realize ourselves” and “fulfill our dreams,” here we find an attitude in which the highest value is the serene acceptance of inevitability, even if it means renouncing one’s own life.

It is precisely for this reason that kan’nen not only fascinates but also disturbs. It is not an exotic curiosity that can be easily domesticated. It is an illustration showing us how distant human mentality can be—and how different the ways of experiencing the same reality that we all share: transience and death, the self and emptiness.

Bridges to the present

Although in its original form kan’nen—as radical anti-individualism and a “cult of death”—is entirely unacceptable and impossible to implement in contemporary life, certain elements of this stance may prove surprisingly helpful. What in the old samurai ethos led to heroic but drastic acts, in today’s world can serve as inspiration for a calmer, more mindful life.

In existential psychology there appears a thought close to kan’nen: the acceptance of death as a condition of full life. Irvin Yalom wrote that awareness of the end is what allows us to truly appreciate the present. It is not an obsession with death, but reconciliation with it that makes each day valuable. In this sense, kan’nen becomes not resignation but liberation—an acknowledgment that we need not fight against what we cannot change.

Similar ideas can be found in modern currents of practical psychology, such as ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Their foundation is the acceptance of impermanence and inevitability of fate, as well as focusing on what can actually be done here and now. Instead of fleeing from suffering or trying to control the uncontrollable, we learn to open ourselves to experience—exactly as in the spirit of Zen: to let things be as they are.

It is not about returning today to the samurai “cult of death.” What we can take for ourselves is the strength that flows from the acceptance of transience. To perceive the beauty of the moment—the fact that the blooming flower will wither, and the sunset lasts only a few minutes—allows us to experience life more fully. In Japanese aesthetics this is called mono no aware—a subtle poignancy before impermanence. It is not resignation, but a source of sensitivity and gratitude.

In this way, the old kan’nen may speak to us as well: not as a command to die in the name of loyalty, but as a call to live in truth—with eyes open to the fragility of existence and with serenity toward what is inevitable.

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"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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