The Book Of Five Rings
Gorin No Sho The Accurate, Unabridged Translation The Greatest Samurai Musashi Speaks
Ratings44
Average rating3.6
Few works of literature speak almost equally to the businessman, the philosopher, and the practitioner of the martial arts. Musashi's great classic, until now unknown in the West except by reputation, is one which speaks to all three. Famous for over 300 years, A Book of Five Rings is likely the most perceptive guide to strategy ever written.
Musashi is known to the Japanese as Kensie or "sword-saint." Though the facts of his life might suggest to American readers that he was a cruel and merciless man, in fact, Musashi relentlessly pursued an honest ideal, and its truth emerges from A Book of Five Rings. It is not a thesis on battle strategy; it is, in Musashi's words, "a guide for men who want to learn strategy" and, as a guide always leads, so its contents seem always just beyond the student's immediate understanding.
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This book is beneficial for two types of people:
1. A man learning war or ancient Japanese fighting techniques.
2. A business man in the corporate world or a politician who is looking to rise up the ranks.
The book can be taken literally as a way to master ancient samurai techniques, or it can be taken metaphorically on how to manage business or political deals. In summary, the weapon's (words, or literal weapons) effeciveness all depends on the scenario, the location, the opponent's numbers, the opponents skills. If you bring a bow an arrow to a swordfight you will lose. Likewise, if you're very aggressive in a more conservative setting, you will once again lose. You must know your situation, your opponent, and make the best choices to succeed.
The lack of substance in this work is staggering. It took me almost 7 weeks to work through this tiny, tedious, tome.
It is tempting to compare this work to The Art of War by Sun Tzu, but these books are worlds apart: the present work provides very little useful guidance while Sun Tzu's work is densely populated with actionable advice, at least for military strategists.
I read this book after watching “Samurai – Miyamoto Musashi” on Discovery channel. The introduction to this book telling the history of Miyamoto Musashi is quite different to the doco, but I found both pretty interesting.
Lots of interesting strategy ideas and ancient thinking that can be applied to the modern world.
The way to learn this is to train with two long swords, one in each hand, It will seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first.
