All cultures present aspects that cannot but baffle the foreign observer. For example: nothing in the native tradition equips a Japanese to grasp the concept of the blood of the crucified son of the one God washing believers clean of sin.

The foreign observer of Japan may be no less baffled by the Japanese "way of the sword."

Sword masters, like Zen masters — most swordsmen were Zen men, seeking, sometimes attaining, Zen enlightenment through swordsmanship — speak of "transcending life and death"; of "the sword of life" as opposed to the sword of death; of the sword killing not people but egoism, duality, illusion. The true swordsman, says Zen master Daisetsu T. Suzuki, "has no desire to do harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim. It is as though the sword performs automatically its function of justice, which is the function of mercy."