Been contemplative and have been creating space to dig into old thoughts to see how they have steeped with time. I was recently drawn back to Gorin no sho, commonly known as The Book of the Five Rings, and started thumbing through some of the pages I annotated and stumbled on this gem. Known as one of the greatest swordsmen of all time, Miyamoto Musashi’s writings give us insight into practicing a discipline through the zen frame of mind. He labels the fourth section of these writings Scroll of the Wind where he talks about other schools of thought. While he largely talks about swordsmanship, The Way is not fettered to one discipline. Let the ideas be a mirror into your own mind.
You cannot know with certainty the way of your own school without knowing the way of others.
In questions of strategy, what is meant by surface and what is meant by depth? In the different arts, there is a manner of distinguishing the depth from the entry that refers to the ultimate teaching or the secret transmission. But as to the principle that comes into play at the time of combat with an adversary, you cannot say that you fight him with techniques of the surface and cut him down with those of the depth.
In my school’s teaching of strategy, you teach techniques that are easy to assimilate for those who are beginning in the study of the way, giving them an explanation that they can understand right away. Observing the degree of their advancement, you progressively give them explanations that direct them toward more and more profound principles. However, in general you teach them things that correspond to situations they are really in; there is no need to distinguish between depth and entry in the teaching. This can be connected with the adage according to which if you continue to go deeper and deeper into the mountains, you will come out by a different entry.
In all the ways, it might turn out that the depth technique is effective or that the entry technique is.
With this principal of combat, why should you hide one thing in order to show another? That is why, in the transmission of my school. I do not have written oaths, accompanied by penalties.
Observing the student’s level of intelligence, you teach him the correct way and help him to free himself of the five or six bad ways of strategy. You cause him to enter naturally into the true way that conforms to the principles of the warriors, so that his mind will be free from doubt. Such is the way of teaching strategy in my school.
You should train well in this.
-Miyamoto Musashi