Reigandou is the place where Musashi Miyamoto spent his last days living in a cave up in the hills outside of Kumamoto City. I should probably give a very very brief synopsis of Musashi's life so that you can have some idea of what this is all about.
Very very very briefly:
Musashi was 6 feet tall (a giant in Japan, especially back then) and was unique in fighting with a sword in each hand which made him unbeatable, especially when fighting multiple foes. I picked up a replica of a sword Musashi used at a museum once and it is heaaaavy. The strength it would take to effectively wield one in each hand boggles my mind.
-From his early teens Musashi craved glory as a samurai. After leaving his home, he sought the pure Way of the Sword, seeking out duels with progressively better and more accomplished samurai - never losing once. On the way, he single-handedly destroyed the famous and prestigious House of Yoshioka, killed countless other formidable samurai and made himself revered and feared along the way.
- He struggled with his brutal, almost savage nature and pursued, through harsh self-discipline, the harmony between the killing nature of the Way of the Sword and the spiritual side that treasures life. Met a wise monk, read a lot. Becomes semi-enlightened but still struggles with his strength-as-weakness.
- Eventually, his journey leads him to a duel with Sasaki Kojiro Ganryu, a brash, young, brilliantly talented swordsman with a ridiculously long sword called the Drying Pole. The two are considered the best in the land. The final showdown takes place on a tiny island off the coast of Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi-ken (the prefecture I live in).
Musashi, on the morning of this great duel, while everyone around him is freaking out and super-anxious, takes two hours to paint a picture, as a gift to the man who hosted him the previous night. Then, showing up two hours late for the duel, promptly kills Kojiro with a wooden sword he had carved out of a broken oar that he found on the boat on the way to the island.
Musashi killed for the last time when he was 29 year old and lived out the last years of his life in his sixties, living in the cave near Kumamoto, writing his now-famous book "The Book Of Five Rings", a kind of instructional guide on his particular method of swordfighting, but also on how to live a true life according to the Way of the Sword.
Here are some pictures of Reigando.
Very beautiful. Very quiet.
Acorns crunching underfoot.
Lots of little statues. Some very happy.
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