4 ideas
Hagakure holds that when a choice is between life and death, the retainer should choose death quickly, without calculating whether the death achieves its aim. Calculating gain is what makes a person cling to life and rationalize cowardice. A death that fails its purpose may look like a 'dog's death', but it is not shameful, while survival bought through hesitation is.
Each morning the retainer should imagine dying in detail: cut by swords, pierced by arrows, swept away by waves, burned, struck by lightning. Settling death in advance, every day, frees him to act without fear. By living as one already dead, he removes the self-preservation that distorts judgment and gains freedom in the Way.
Tsunetomo tells the retainer to make decisions within seven breaths, with a vigorous, undivided mind. Long deliberation lets the spirit slacken and brings in self-interested reasons to delay. He holds that resolve formed quickly and wholeheartedly beats a better plan reached through wavering, because wavering itself is the failure.
Tsunetomo prizes secret love (shinobu koi), a devotion never declared, and treats it as the model for a retainer's service to his lord. Loyalty that is announced or displayed seeks recognition and becomes partly for the self. Seen this way, the deepest commitment is the one kept silent, and a person's worth is measured by what they carry unseen.