The Book of The Five Rings

>>9753996
I read it when I was an edgy middle schooler. It's not long and from what I remember it is what you said, mostly a romantic bushido book. I can be practical applying the notions of forms, liquidity, and honor to your daily life and don't internalize the values presented at surface value but on a more holistic level.

>>9754015
Pretty much this. You already said it well, I don't have anything else to contribute

>>9753996
The Book of The Five Rings is definitely essential. If even just to read the philosophy of perhaps the greatest swordsman to ever live. It's also not really about Bushido at all.

>The important thing is to polish wisdom and the mind in great detail. If you sharpen wisdom, you will understand what is just and unjust in society and also the good and the evil of this world; then you will come to know all kinds of arts and you will tread different ways. In this manner, no one in this world will succeed in deceiving you. It is after this stage that you will arrive at the wisdom of strategy. The wisdom of strategy is entirely distinct. Even right in the middle of a battle where everything is in rapid movement, it is necessary to attain the most profound principle of strategy, which assures you an immovable mind. You must examine this well.

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>>9754015
>>9754020
>>9754027
Hm. I think i'll buy the box anyway, it's really cheap, in the price and the material, but it's problably better then how you'll see those books here, that is, they're mostly cheap pocket editions.

It'll probably be more constructive reading a different perspective then reading The Prince again by a different author in other words. Most of my knowledge from Musashi comes from the manga Vagabond(I know it's not accurate)

If anyone would like to recomend a similar book, please do

>>9754081
Even though it's Eastern like Sun Tzu it's less maxim driven and more philosophical. It also balances well with The Prince since it's more introspective and not a "how-to" book.

>>9754081
Would recommend reading machiavelli's "discourses" rather than or at least in addition to the prince.

>>9754115
let him get started first.
>also read the Hagakure

doesn't it have some societal perfect order with farmer / builder / warrior / king, kind of thing at the beginning? like plato's republic but for plebs?

i think i enjoyed it, but probably won't take much that you can apply on your life. but you won't probably take much from the art of war or the prince either, unless you are the kind of person who already has some power.

>>9754081
>Most of my knowledge from Musashi comes from the manga Vagabond(I know it's not accurate)
if you want to read something related to that The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Sōhō who also appears in the manga is nice. it's a bit plebish, and it writes about zen in the kind of degenerate japanese zen that is not real zen, but it's curious to read a monk's take on martial arts, he was writing to educate nobility warriors i think, or at least it reads like that

>>9753996
The book of five rings is actually relatively high-level, as in abstract, as compared with other Japanese texts in the same genre, meaning its contents can be applied widely.

In the 80's and early 90's, when Japan was booming, the book of five rings was seen as a sort of guide to the Japanese business psyche, and was read widely in business schools, which is kind of hilarious in hindsight. That's just to say there is value to the text outside the narrow confines of weeaboo discourse.