Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone)

Insurance Executive:
Many problems are to be had when one allows lust to guide their
actions. Actually, the same can be said for love, but I’m guessing
that lust—so often wrongly based and fleeting—causes people and
kingdoms the most grief. Ask Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby. Let’s look at
love and lust as it relates to relationships.

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One problem with lust is the more one is filled with it and consumed
by it, the less the chance of them finding true and romantic love.
There is a young man where I work who is hot on the trail of Paris
Hilton. It’s Paris Hilton this and Paris Hilton that, 24/7. He owns
every book and magazine about her, and every poster that depicts
her image. He is a nice looking young man but I’m convinced it will
be a long while before he finds real love, as everyone he meets
cannot possibly compare to Paris and the distorted vision of what he
thinks she is.
Lust is usually based on a physical attribute: beautiful eyes, a
fantastic figure, and a walk that makes wild horses stampede. But
these things are short lived and are often only surface deep. Another
man in my office just went through a divorce. “She was a beauty,” he
said. “But underneath that attractive thin veneer was a terribly ugly
and awful person.”
It is said that lust can make a person crazy, while love can give them
sanity. Was Musashi ever in love? I’ve never seen it mentioned in all
the stories about his exploits. One reference says he was a complex
man who never married and never settled down. Other sources
mention sons. All the tales of the swordsman say he was unwashed,
dirty and smelly. So maybe this was one of the reasons he never
found lasting love... Or might it have been his intense drive to be the
warrior he became?
In his early years he was intent on perfecting his martial arts and in
his later years he focused intensely on his writing, painting, and
Buddhism. As someone turned so intently inward, maybe there
wasn’t time left for love. Or perhaps he was so driven by these things
that he truly felt love would only distract him from his pursuits and
lead him away from what he felt was his destiny.
Perhaps he was a practical man and as such, love in all its mystery,
distraction, mind bending, foolishness producing, and intense focus
on someone other than oneself, didn’t fit into his internal world and
his pursuits therein. Regardless, if he had never experienced it,
perhaps he didn’t understand that love, in time, wasn’t about looking

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deeply into one another’s eyes forever, but rather looking outward
together in the same direction. For all his accomplishments, that’s
something important that he missed.