The Ninja
(from: On the Warrior's Path: Philosophy, Fighting and Martial Arts Mythology by Daniele Bolelli - 2003 Frog Press)

Three hundred and sixty degrees away from the samurai lives the ninja. Both his powers and his weaknesses are opposite to those of the samurai. The ninja is the outlaw, the anarchist, the iconoclast. The philosophical conflict between samurai and ninja is a universal thme, in feudal Japan just as among Homeric heroes. Aiax is a samurai, Ulysses is a ninja. Aiax an unshakeable mountain, full of pride and of his boundless strength, ready to fight face to face against an entire army. Ulysses, a shadow warrior, strikes when the night is dark and disappears before sunrise. He doesn't need to fight where the battle is fiercest to demonstrate his courage. Silent and unseen, he achieves what ten thousand warriors charging straightforward cannot accomplish.

The ninja doesn't acknowledge any authority to laws alien to his heart. "I didn't create them -- he declares -- I don't subscribe to them. So I don't have to live by them". The samurai looks at the ninja with contempt, considering him nothing more than a nocturnal predator without honor or morals. But the samurai is wrong. It isn't that the ninja has no morals. Simply, he is not bound my rules written in stone. His morals have their sources in the paradoxical waters of Taoism. He doesn't dogmatically apply a series of preset rules and, like Tom Robbins' outlaws, doesn't need to consult a manual of good behaviour to decide what to do.

The ninja chooses to choose. Always. Every situation is unique and should be faced as such. Neither human nor divine laws can choose for him. Faced with the events of life, he stays open, flexible. The legend tells that the ninjas were born from family clans that lived in the mountains far away from the headquarters of the central government, in small communities that had abandonded the social order in order to dedicate themselves to the creation of an autonomous culture. Ninja philosophy -- myths say -- has its origin in the meeting of some exiled Chinese warrior-shaman and groups of Japanese families who had no intention to remain within the dominant feudal society. From the syncretism of certain aspects of Tibetan Tantrism, Taoist texts on the art of war, and some yogic techniques belonging to secret sects of Buddhism, they created a vision of life radically different from the ideals of medieval Japan. When society decided to crack down on the lifestyles of these mystics of the mountains, the ninjas used their skills to defend themslves and turned into indomitable warriors.

Ninjas didn't fight for glory ahnd didn't have a reputation to defend, so they also didn't have any scruples about using every possible mean to protect their families and their lifestyles. If the ninjas had fought in the open against an enemy who enjoyed a vast numerical superiority, they would have been blown away. So, in order to come out on top, the ninjas had no qualms about rewriting the rules of the game. No unnecessary risks. No foolish bravado. Accomplish what you need to accomplish and disappear before being discovered. Physical and psychological guerilla warfare was the ninja way to give battle.

The myth speaks of the ninjas as cultural heroes, mystic outlaws, tribal Robin Hoods. But there is also a second historical reality to the ninjas. Because of the great effectiveness of the ninjas, the warlaords hired anyone whose moral reservations were weaker than their loyalty as mercenaries, special agents to be used for those tasks going beyond the ethical limits of the samurai. However, the line between outlaw and criminal shouldn't be crossed lightly. One breaks society's laws but remains faithful to his code of honour. The other has little honor to speak of and is willing to do anything for material advantage. The ninjas of the myth -- freedom-fighting outlaws animated by a deep philosophical vision of the universe -- didn't always find embodiment is the actual historical ninjas, who were often little other than killers without principle for whom success justified any means. The delicate Taoist relativism of the former was absolute relativism for the latter. The border between the flexibility of the mystic and the cynicism of the criminal is what stands between the dark and the light side of the ninja.

The ninja and the samurai are the opposite poles of a perfect antithesis, but they both draw water from deep sources of power and they both can turn into horrible mutations with no resemblance to their potential splendor. Hidden in a philosophical forest, somewhere halfway between the ideal of a samurai and that of the ninja is a warrior who knows how to escape the slavery of moral imperatives without turning into a mercenary without any dignity.