To practice Zen or the martial arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserves, as if you might die in the next instant.
Better yet for the samurai was the fact that Zen offered a specific daily practice: through zazen, an unadorned form of sitting meditation, the samurai could effectively still the restless mind, perceive the ultimate harmony beneath seeming discord, and achieve the oneness of intuition and action so necessary for kenjutsu (swordfighting).
Modern martial arts such as kendo, karate, judo, and aikido go back directly to the marriage of Zen and Bushido, the medieval chivalry code of the samurai.

--this is my path, the way of samurai