Every morning, the samurai of fifty or sixty years ago would bathe, shave their foreheads, put lotion in their hair, cut their fingernails and toenails rubbing them with pumice and then with wood sorrel, and without fail pay attention to their personal appearance . It goes without saying that their armor in general was kept free from rust, that it was dusted, shined, and arranged.
Although it seems that taking special care of one's appearance is similar to showiness, it is nothing akin to elegance. Even if you are aware that you may be struck down today and are firmly resolved to an inevitable death, if you are slain with an unseemly appearance, you will show your lack of previous resolve, will be despised by your enemy, and will appear unclean. For this reason it is said that both old and young should take care of their appearance.
Although you say that this is troublesome and time-consuming, a samurai's work is in such things. It is neither busy- work nor time-consuming. In constantly hardening one's resolution to die in battle, deliberately becoming as one already dead, and working at one's job and dealing with military affairs, there should be no shame. But when the time comes, a person will be shamed if he is not conscious of these things even in his dreams, and rather passes his days in self- interest and self-indulgence. And if he thinks that this is not shameful, and feels that nothing else matters as long as he is comfortable, then his dissipate and discourteous actions will be repeatedly regrettable.
The person without previous resolution to inevitable death makes certain that his death will be in bad form. But if one is resolved to death beforehand, in what way can he be despicable? One should be especially diligent in this con- cern.
Furthermore, during the last thirty years customs have changed; now when young samurai jeer together, if there is not just talk about money matters, loss and gain, secrets, clothing styles or matters of sex, there is no reason to gather together at all. Customs are going to pieces. One can say that formerly when a man reached the age of twenty or thirty, he did not carry despicable things in his heart, and thus neither did such words appear. If an elder unwittingly said something of that sort, he thought of it as a sort of injury. This new custom probably appears because people attach importance to being beautiful before society and to household finances. What things a person should be able to accomplish if he had no haughtiness concerning his place in society!
It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material possessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.

In the Kamigata area they have a sort of tiered lunch box they use for a single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot. As might be expected, this is one of my recollections of the capital [Kyoto]. The end is important in all things.

While walking along the road together, Tsunetomo said, "Is not man like a well-operated puppet? It is a piece of dexterous workmanship that he can run, jump, leap, and even talk though there are no strings attached. Will we not be guests at next year's bon  Festival? [festival to honour those who are dead] This world is vanity indeed. People always forget this."

It was once said to one of the young lords that "right now'' is ''at that time, '' and ''at that time'' is ''right now.'' One will miss the occasion if he thinks that these two are different. For example, if one were called before the master to explain something right away, he would most likely be perplexed. This is proof that he understands the two to be different. If, however, a person makes "right now" and "at that time" one, though he will never be an advisor to the master, still he is a retainer, and in order to be able to say something clearly, whether it be in front of the master, the elders or even the shogun at Edo Castle, it should be practiced beforehand in the corner of one's bedroom.
All things are like this. Accordingly, one should inquire into things carefully. It is the same for martial training as for official business. When one attempts to concentrate things in this manner, won't daily negligence and today's lack of resolve be understood?

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.

People with intelligence will use it to fashion things both true and false and will try to push through whatever they want with their clever reasoning. This is injury from intelligence . Nothing you do will have effect if you do not use truth

Whether people be of high or low birth, rich or poor, old or young, enlightened or confused, they are all alike in that they will one day die. It is not that we don't know that we are going to die, but we grasp at straws. While knowing that we will die someday, we think that all the others will die before us and that we will be the last to go. Death seems a long way oft .
Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream. It will not do to think in such a way and be negligent. insofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly."

Turn your eyes upon JESUS, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His gloury and Grace. So, in closing I should just like to say that life is shourt but it is also bigger than the little bit of stuff right in front of our nose. As negligense is an extreme thing (think 'follish virgins') it will not do to pass your days in earthly vanity. These thought came to me because as I heard tha wallflowers song,  http://www.tsrocks.com/w/wallflowers_texts/god_says_nothing_back.html It struck me in accourd with my usual thoughts on such thing around fall and my birthedays how life is truly shourt and i will dies befoure long as will you. If GOD is real and eternity is true than isn't it stupid to avoid the subject of death and live as though you will nevre die, consuming every liquid drop of tyme with thoughltess gluttony and excess? As men and women we are hapless creature suspended between heaven and hell and sandwiched between the eternities. All my life I have known my Grandma, closer than my mom, but soon she will die as well, being olde and full of age. Looking back on my years of owning cats, so many of my furry little buddies I used to have as a part of my life are dead. I was bourne and raised in Pennsylvania, now my life there is a distant memoury. When i was young my sole dream was to make a living with  my art, that dream was a long tyme ago. I am young yet I have been observant and studious or life and people enough to feel exactly how some said they felt aftre living through America's great Civil War: "I do not feel as though I were living in the country in which I was bourne."

As the leaves turn orange and fall from the trees (Hagakure, uncoincidentally means "Hidden undre the leaves") I am more and more aware of what a fleeting affair life is and that it will pass us all by sooner or latre. Since we are likely near a great depression, a national upheaval, or the tribulation of the end of the world, how much more should we take heed to our selves to: "give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. " and "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. "

1 Corinthians 7:29 But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; 30 And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; 31 And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.

In concluding the booke of Ecclesiastes, a booke frivolous people seldom like but wisened people love Solomon, King of Israel says Fearing GOD and keeping His commandments is the only impourtant thing in life. As i dwelt on these things I strongly felt, so strongly it was like a ton of bricks hitting me, that only JESUS mattres and only knowing GOD is wourth seeking in this shourt life. I must know GOD bettre ere I die and must help othres ere tis too late and deaths inky shadows and hells hills of flame roll ovre the souls of those foolish about me who know not the love of GOD and who "mind earthly things" like waves of the sea of damnation. I only wish more and more to have JESUS and if anything else, IN JESUS all in JESUS. Take the world but give me JESUS! He is so precious and only by getting deep into the prayer closet and the WORD will our lives not be lost in ruin and wastefulness! About you I know not, but I do not with to stand befoure JESUS CHRIST on That Day and be the slothful and wicked servant who did not value knowing him but only amusement and self gratification.

  "  It is a strange and wonderful and embarassing feeling to hold someone in your arms who is trying to detach you from the earth and you aren't good enough to follow her. ...
On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached from across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms. The shadows continued up the bank, until they included us. 
     "... but you can love completely without complete understanding." 
     Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.
     Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. 
     Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
     I am haunted by waters. "-Norman Maclain

Here is a poem Leonard ravenhill used to like to quote. He was alive when quoting it but now he is dead and already gone to be with The LORD. How long til we follow into eternity's gate? Do not be decieved, the main proclivity of life is the evidence of salvation or damnation. A life spent in self satisfaction, seeking yourself only whethre or not in blatant sins of commission or just in lazy negligense even as a moral churchgoing person espousing the doctrines and experience of Christianity is going to fulfil the parables of the buried talents and the virgins and John Baptists statement about the axe being laid to the root of every tree that beareth not good fruits which are without exception hewn down and cast into the fyre. But do not merely be roused to activities if you find yourself convicted by this but rathre seek GOD til he gives you the new heart or grows it out of which Knowing GOD and being effectively used by Him so glourify His Name and save souls flow as naturally as watre from a rivre.

Only One Life

Only one life,'twill soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last.