Ninja and Ninjutsu (5): What Can Shinobi Teachings Teach Us Today?
Updated: 3 hours ago
The series at a glance
What can shinobi teachings teach us today? (this part)
None of us needs to climb a castle wall. The interesting question is what remains when you strip away the methods and keep the principles. So as not to invent, I use here the structure of the Bansenshukai itself, which I described in the previous part. In each section I separate what is written in the source from my own interpretation.
Information before action
In the source: the Shochi part relies on chapter 13 of Sun Tzu. There it is said, in my free rendering of Lionel Giles's translation, that what enables a good commander to win is foreknowledge, and that this foreknowledge comes neither from spirits nor from inference but from people who know the enemy's situation.
My interpretation: most of the bad decisions we make come from assumptions we did not check. Before a work conversation, a deal or a confrontation, it is worth asking: what do I really know, what am I only assuming, and how can I check?
Protecting yourself from deception
In the source: part of the Shochi deals with signals, passwords and detecting enemy spies. The Yonin part teaches how to enter a place under a false identity that looks natural.
My interpretation: modern fraud uses the same principles: someone calling in the name of the bank, a message in the name of your manager, a person who walks into a building with enough self-confidence. Whoever understands how infiltration is built recognizes it faster. The shinobi's password is the ancient version of verification through a separate channel.
Reading the environment
In the source: the Tenji part deals with weather, moonlight, wind and timing. The Innin part mentions the moments when guards lose attention.
My interpretation: in today's language this is situational awareness. Noticing who is around you, where the exits are and when something does not fit the picture. In training we practice this in work against several opponents, and in everyday life it begins with lifting your eyes from the phone.
Improvising with what you have
In the source: the Ninki part describes tools, many of them simple and improvised: ladders, ropes and breaking-in tools. As we saw, it is not clear that all of them were actually used.
My interpretation: the principle matters more than the tool. In Budo Taijutsu we learn to work with a stick, a scarf or whatever is at hand, and not to fall in love with a particular tool. In life this is the ability to solve a problem with the resources you have, not to wait for perfect conditions.
The ethics of ability
In the source: the Bansenshukai opens with the Seishin part, "the correct mind", and states that shinobi skills are not meant for personal gain. I explained this at length in the article Ninpo and Ninjutsu: What Is the Difference? (in Hebrew).
My interpretation: the more ability you have – physical strength, knowledge, access to other people's information – the greater the responsibility for how you use it. The order in the treatise, ethics first and only then tools, is a good order for us too.
Patience
The character 忍, nin or shinobi, is built of a blade (刃) above a heart (心). It also means to endure and persevere, not only to steal in.
My interpretation: this may be the most useful principle of all. Holding on under pressure, waiting for the right moment and not reacting too fast. It is true in training, and it is true in an argument with a neighbor too.
What not to take
The shinobi operated in war, and some of their methods were deception, arson and harming people. There is no place for carrying these into civilian life. Whoever takes the cunning from Ninjutsu without the Seishin takes exactly the wrong part.
Sources
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Lionel Giles, 1910, chapter 13.
Antony Cummins and Yoshie Minami, The Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai, Watkins, 2013.
Inside Ninjutsu: Bansenshūkai at 350, 2026.
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