There is an old famous story about an intent samurai looking for revenge. A samurai and his wife were deeply in love until one day she was walking through the forest and was eaten by a tiger. After her husband heard this, he vowed to stay in the forest until he killed it. He sat in the forest for a month until one day he saw a sleeping tiger and fired. He approached the tiger to confirm the kill but it ended up being a colored stone. The people of his village heard about this impressive feat and asked him to do it again but every time the arrows would bounce off the rock. When this happened he realized he needed to change his resolve or how he thought about accomplishing tasks, because now that he knows it's a stone, he won’t be able to pierce it, and that is the moral of the story.

There is another famous story of samurai code about one of the guards of Tokugawa Iemitsu, the grandson of Ieyasu, and one of the shoguns during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Seeking teaching, the guard went to a sword master, Yagyu Tajima, to improve his fighting skills. When he walked in, Yagyu said "as I observe, you seem to already be a master of swordsmanship", and wondered what school he came from. (Enkamp). The guard firmly denied it, and said he has never tried to learn the technique. The master thought he was being tricked, and said that he must be a master of something else that he is not aware of. The guard replied saying that he has grappled death, and is not afraid to die in battle. Yagyu then said how he knew he was right, and reassured the guard that the ultimate swordsmanship lies in death. He then sent him off saying he needs no technical training for he already has it mastered.