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Loading... Hagakureby Tsunetomo Yamamoto
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I am deeply impressed with the philosophy it expounds and the discipline, loyalty, and honor it promotes. (  ) mrellis64 | Jun 30, 2009 |  This book was scribed by a younger samurai who sat basically at the deathbed of the samurai Yamamoto Tsunetomo. For seven years, the scribe sat and had conversations with Tsunetomo. Tsunetomo had become a monk after the death of his 'Master' in 1700. By 1716 the conversations ended, the result was a large manuscript. Hagakure is a compilation or thread of the most meaningful and 'best' of the manuscript. The book is a mix of advice, stories, Buddhist teachings and koans, and direction on how to be the best samurai possible. As is more realistic and pure samurai teachings, this focuses less on swordplay than do most of the contemporary 20th and 21st century movies. The book is very much about loyalty--so much so that it is bound to conflict with modern and especially American views of independence, bootstrapping, etc. Because it is written in small chunks without a specific plot or flow, I found the book to be great as a 'daily reader'. The author seems very calm, sane and without anger, and while I suspect no one would call him Enlightened, it reads without malice. From a Buddhist perspective, I had good luck replacing the word 'master' with 'compassion' and it worked almost seamlessly as a Buddhist reading meditation. (  ) shawnd | Jan 9, 2008 | Fans of chanbara (samurai cinema) and students of Asian philosophy may find this work worth pursuing, but the casual reader will find little of value in this study of Bushidō. (  ) BGP | Dec 17, 2007 | got this with Ghost Dog, very interesting wandruska | Dec 13, 2007 | This book was a disappointment, perhaps because I expected something along the lines of the Art of War or The Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho) that would have relevance to today's urban warrior. Instead, this would be a good book to give to a dog (if that dog could read). It is mostly about how to be a single-mindedly subservient retainer. I found very little to take away from it that would improve my martial arts, my daily life, or for that matter, my self esteem. It's all about being someone whose life is worthless, except as an unquestioning, willing martyr for one's boss. This book was quoted several times in Ghost Dog, and I had to check to see that the quotes were really in there. I think those few references contain all of the quotable insight in the whole book. (  )1  HoraceSPatoot | Oct 5, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400)
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