Lessons from the Gorin no Sho (the Book of Five Rings)

 A glance at the rack of new bestsellers in any book store will reveal a rash of “self-help” books, all of which profess to offer the reader a practical guide to everyday life. These books advocate every conceivable behavioral pattern, but they share the common factor of having been written, for the most part, by persons who have no more than an academic claim to any special way of life. In contrast, consider the following: 400 years ago, a guide to kenjutsu, strategy, and life was written by an old hermit who lived his last years in a cave. He based his observations on experiences gained over a lifetime spent surviving one of the most violent eras of human history, the years leading to the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. Musashi’s Gorin no Sho is unique, in that it treats fighting, strategy, and life as one, condensing the underlying principles that are common to each.

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