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Title: The Unfettered Mind: Writings of the Zen Master to the Sword Master by Takuan Soho, William Scott Wilson, Takuan ISBN: 0-87011-851-X Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: March, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Essential reading for any martial artist or business person
Comment: This is not an entertaining book. This is not a story and is not engaging. What it is is illuminating! This very short (and frequently hard to find) collection of three letters/essays from Takuan Soho to masters of the sword arts contains some incredible gems. It is the kind of book that should be read a page or even just a paragraph at a time followed by a period of thought. The ideas of the interval between striking flint and steel to the production of the spark, or the visual and mental image of the glint of light on the blade of a sword become captivating and even revelatory.

If you are a martial artist, you MUST read this book. If you are in business, this is as essential as Musashi's Book of Five Rings.

Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent book!
Comment: I've been reading The Unfettered Mind for the past week and I'm amazed by the depth of Takuan's writing. I thoroughly enjoy the anecdotes and the references to Kendo masters such as the Yagyu clan for advice on matters of lord and retainer. Takuan Soho must be placed in the pantheon of other highly influential writers such as Sun Tzu, Confucius, Musashi and others.
Takuan is at or near the top of my must read list.

Rating: 2
Summary: Neither zen nor sword
Comment: I got interested in the book because of its references to swordsmanship and Buddhism, two seemingly incompatible subjects. I knew for a fact that the Japanese used Buddhism as a vehicle for training the warrior class, and learning that the book consisted of letters from a Zen monk to a swordsman, expected the book to contain reasons why Buddhism and swordsmanship were compatible.

I found no satisfactory answers. Instead (within the first and second letters) was Soho's (the Zen monk) teaching to swordsmen to fulfill the master/servant contract. "...Therefore it is better not to inquire who this lord or that might be, but to simply think 'the lord,' and consider right-mindedness towards him without mentioning his name." I found Soho's such Confucianism-oriented(!) teachings puzzling.

For those of you whom are approaching this from the spiritual (Buddhism) side like myself, there are parts of the book that touches the five skandhas (things of temporal existence), how consciousness arises, and the importance of not fixating one's mind in any one thing (this became the Sino-Japanese title of the book), but there are much elaborate and better Buddhism references available. For those of you want to approaching from the business side, I suppose you may gain some insight about the Japanese way of viewing the world, but there are too few maxims in this book that you could ponder over. This is no Sun Tzu.

There might be misunderstandings on my part, but to me the importance of the book seems historical.

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