a book of five rings by miyamoto musashi

‘Let the teacher be the needle, let the student be the thread.’ And of course, a samurai is up and at it at 04:00 A.M. How wonderfully ‘Japanese’ of Musashi to give us the precise moment when he ‘takes up his brush’. on the night of the tenth day of the tenth month, 1643’. ‘With Heaven and Kanmon for mirrors, I take up the brush and begin to write, at 4:00 A.M. Each scroll is devoted to a specific approach to martial strategy. The book is divided into five chapters or ‘scrolls’ (the ‘rings’ of the title, though the more literal ‘spheres’ would seem a better analogy as it allows for a conceptual overlapping of the various scrolls). Ostensibly it is a strategic guide to battle in 17 th century Japan. The former is straightforward enough, the latter almost endless. It is two books in one: what it is about, and what it all means. A strength of the Book of Five Rings is that Musashi wrote it as an old man, having attained all of that experience and meditating upon it before writing it down. ‘Musashi’, as he is popularly known, was a 17 th century samurai, undefeated in combat. The principles in this work are as true today as they were over 300 years ago, and are as valid for business negotiations as for hand-to-hand combat.īased on the principles of Zen and advocating a hands-on approach to mastering the skills needed for winning, A Book of Five Rings is very likely the most perceptive guide to strategy ever written.’I am Shinmen Musashi no Kami, Fujiwara no Genshin, a warrior born in the province of Harima, now sixty years old’ It instantly became a vital tool for assured success and has remained so ever since. It provided insight into the then-emerging Japanese influence and offered a new way to think about business. When A Book of Five Rings first appeared on North American bookshelves in 1974, its message took the business community by storm.

He wrote A Book of Five Rings not only as a thesis on doing battle, but also as a way to approach all aspects of life: 'any situation where plans and tactics are used'.

Today, his philosophy is still revered by the Japanese and used as a guide for daily decision-making and business strategy. Miyamoto Musashi was renowned in his own time as an invincible warrior, a master artisan, an author, and philosopher. Written over three centuries ago by a Samurai warrior, A Book of Five Rings has been hailed as a limitless source of psychological insight for businessmen or anyone who relies on strategy and tactics to outwit the competition.

A book of five rings by miyamoto musashi