84-Year Old Samurai Scholar
There was a samurai around 1700 who started to write various useful books when he became 70 years old till he died at the age of 84.
Kaibara Ekken (1630 - 1714) or Ekiken, also known as Atsunobu was a Japanese Neo-Confucianist philosopher and botanist...The samurai scholar Kaiabara Ekiken wrote about health. In this book called Yojo-Kun (Instructions for Keeping Healthy), he pointed the following three types of enjoyment of life:
Kaibara's science was confined to Botany and Materia medica and focused on the "natural law". Kaibara became as famous in Japan as people such as Charles Darwin when it came to science. He advanced the study of botany in Japan when he wrote Yamato honzō, (Medicinal herbs of Japan) which was a seminal study of Japanese plants. The 19th century German Japanologist Philipp Franz von Siebold called him the "Aristotle of Japan."[1]
Kaibara was known for his manuals of behavior, such as changing his Confucian ethical system based on the teachings of Zhu Xi (also known as Chu Hsi) into an easy "self-help" manuals. As an educator and philosopher, it appears that Kaibara's main goal in life was to further the process of weaving Neo-Confucianism into Japanese culture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaibara_Ekken
1) Enjoy practicing the way of righteous life and accumulating record of performing good conduct.
2) Enjoy healthy life without falling into illness.
3) Enjoy longevity.
In order to enjoy longevity, he recommended the following:
i) Suppress the desire to eat various delicious foods.
ii) Suppress lust
iii) Suppress the desire to sleep loosely.
iv) Suppress the desire to talk loosely.
It should be noted that Ekiken did not include enjoyment of wealth and higher status in the three types of enjoyment of life.
In addition, in the samurai era, Japanese scholars usually wrote a book in the Chinese style using only Kanji letters. But Ekiken wrote his book in plain Japanese using also Kana letters which were easier for ordinary people, including farmers, to read and understand.
He forbade smoking and excessive eating. Ekiken also stressed that as good and bad is a result of daily life, everyday suppression of various desires would result in easy promotion of health.
Kaibara Ekiken said, "If you eat to 80% of your satisfaction, you will later feel full, so that you should not eat with a full belly." He also wrote that stomach and intestines could be regulated well if you take meals in a normal way; you don't need special medicines.
Put simply the samurai scholar around 1700 meant that life is finite but desires are infinite so that if we do not control desires, desires would destroy our life.
Other interesting thing is that Ekiken claimed that a Japanese white radish was the king of vegetables.
http://fuku-chan.de-blog.jp/fukuyaku/2012/02/post_0cef.html
As for his study on Japanese plants, Kaiabara Ekiken applied his own unique method of classification to record 1,362 types or species of plants in Japan. For this subject he wrote a book in 21 volumes which is called Yamato-Honzo (Japanese Plants) .
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Act 5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
Act 5:2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
Act 5:3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Act 5:4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
Act 5:5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.