I recently went through a translation of Musashi's Book of Five Rings

rramadass

An offbeat but quite interesting submission. The key idea to take away from Musashi's Gorin no Sho ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings ) is that of Heiho (aka Hyoho) which is rather hard to understand. It means "developing an overall way of looking at and approaching things strategically, which allows one to understand and act almost intuitively and effortlessly, under all circumstances and scales." With the above approach, when you gain expertise in any one art with deliberate practice (body and mind), something changes and becomes part of your body/psyche/mind (i.e the holistic you) which if you internalize and consciously redirect to other arts will help you master them too effortlessly and intuitively. Musashi embodied the above by also becoming a self-taught exceptional painter/calligrapher/sculptor. If one reads the book with the above in mind then there is much to gain and apply in one's own life. There are lots of translations of which a couple by Kenji Tokitsu ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenji_Tokitsu ) are highly recommended; 1) Miyamoto Musashi: His Life and Writings . 2) The Complete Book of Five Rings.