THE SWORD AS ZEN AND ITS CONTEXT After centuries of intense warfare interspersed by short-lived periods of peace, Japan abruptly entered into a new period of order from about 1600. The new era would bear its founder's name, being known as the Tokugawa period, as most existing values and institutions at all levels of society would come to be affected by this founder's mark of totalitarian efficiency. At no level of society would this new order signify change more dramatically than it would to the Japanese warrior or bushi. What had previously been his most valuable asset, his fighting skill and courage in battle, now increasingly became his greatest liability. His dedication to his master became the moral pivot on which his service would now be transformed from that of warrior to that of administrator and bureaucrat. This change, embracing an entire way of life, involved profound spiritual needs and adjustments-both for those who would rule and for those who would be ruled. One Buddhist master who attempted to respond to such needs was the poet-abbot of the major Kyoto monastery Daitokuji and famed master of the School of the Buddha-mind, the Rinzai Zen master Takuan Siihd (1573-1645) .l A