Book of Five Rings BREAKDOWN | 4 Reasons Musashi matters TODAY

What’d we say? | Podcast Transcript

(00:00):

What’s good. Welcome back. Thanks for joining me. I’m Johann Francis CSCS. This is my show Ego Killer. It’s right here on this show where we talk about all the moves you need to make inside the gym to help you move and live better outside in life. If you can move and live better outside in life, chances are you’re winning and feeling good. So that’s what we want to do every time we talk here on the show and bring up another topic. All right, sometimes this has everything to do with the didactic. How many pushups, what type of form we can do other times. It has a lot to do with your mindset, how to set the mindset, how to break old habits. We talk about both and they oftentimes will commingle inside the gym. This is where we get a chance to see what works and what we should put into practice.

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Long term. Maybe we figured out that eating a certain way, waking up, feeling charged up and ready to go, right? Helps us. It helps us stay active. And the more energy that we can contribute to a workout is the stronger we get. So we employ that other times, maybe it’s taking our time to get started in the day. Maybe it’s not eating until, you know, a certain time of day that actually gets our mindset and positivity up, gives us more energy to work out. And that feels good. And what you should gather is that it’s all about setting yourself up with the most amount of energy to put out and put it down inside this place. What we call the gym or wherever your gym might be, could be on the side of a hill, right? Where you borrow and lease that space for your hikes for your road bike, right? Could be the city streets where you’re out here doing your road work. It could be inside the freaking iron, right around the iron and rubber of the time tested the battle, tested gym, wherever it might be, right? Any of those places can be your gym.

(01:58):

One guy. <Laugh> all right to tie this together. That thought about this all many years ago. And I’m talking a long, long time ago was a dude named me, MI me myo, hold on. I’ll get this Mia Moto Musashi. And from here on forward, I’m just gonna call him mu Sahi. Anyway, this guy was a samurai, so he’s not alive anymore. Anyway, he’s a samurai and 500 years ago, boy wrote a book, a book that is studied to this day by a lot of folks who are deep inside a martial arts. And you’ll hear this book being referenced. I believe it’s taught in various academic places just for hot little second. And there’s some, you know, lateral applicability about it being for business and things of that nature, right? It’s like people picking up the art of war and right, they now they’re dipped to learn about it in business school, or what’s his name there?

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They pick up like the Alchemist or Maia valley or whatever for business school. Like this is one of these books written by an old samurai and it still has application to this day. Have you guys heard of this book? This is the book of five rings. This is a book of five rings. So we’re gonna talk about it. I’m not gonna review it necessarily. But what I am gonna do is I’m gonna break down the parts of this book that actually have application to this day. Why people still find it so attractive because I’ve read it many years back myself. I wanted to get a little bit out of it. And so we’ll see what we can use. So what my goal for today is to figure out what about this book is so attractive. What about it is very useful and what I’m really wanna show you guys is that this book, you know, as repetitive and as highly didactic as it is, it is still reference to this day for reasons.

(03:48):

And I think it actually serves as a precursor reference when you’re talking about picking up like ancient, semi ancient texts to apply to like, you know how to move inside the boardroom. You know what I mean? How to put your best foot forward inside the gym or the dojo of life. I think this book is like the precursor to a lot of other later books now, whatever, you know, whatever later books we could talk about, you know, if you’re talking about G kudo or this one over here, I’m gonna be forthright with you. I haven’t read a bunch of those type books that doesn’t interest me at all, but this one does have lateral application. So when this man writes, this it’s 16 hundreds, it’s 17 centuries midway through man’s old, right? Which back then probably meant he’s like 58, but like he’s old at this point in his life, it’s rumored that he has committed.

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He’s one, let’s just say this he’s one about 60, some odd duals. Some say it’s in the hundreds. But the point is, he’s been through a lot of battles as a general being recruited as a mercenary. And dude’s old, what’s called old back then and he’s still alive. So he is been in all these life and death situations and he’s still alive. He’s like your favorite, you know, story book, flag waving super Marine. That’s still alive after all these years telling his tale, all right. He’s like seal team six or something like that. Well, aside from the nationalism, this guy has really attracted a lot of Westerners because even though he’s writing in a time that is far gone and is totally anachronistic today. And I don’t think he meant to apply this to like graduates of Wharton business school. You know what I mean?

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Like six centuries later, I think he was writing about in a time that is closely linked to a wisdom tradition and that’s Buddhism and Zen. And because he’s in a life and death situation, and that was a job, a samurai, this man had some actually unique insights that still apply today. You can at least respect on some part that samurai, while it was an elevated class, by the time this guy’s writing it, it’s more becoming more elevated. It’s the six 17th century in Japan. This, this class of samurai, this class of warrior is becoming more and more like noble around this time, but it is still kind of working class. It can also be super elevated and elite. So some of these guys were just traveling men of honor, mostly men, almost universally, they’re traveling, they’re workmen. Like you carry, you know what I’m saying?

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In today’s age, you have your hard hat, your pale back. Then you have your boy, your Katana and your, you know, kimono for example. And this guy is, you know, I’m gonna say he’s like working class warrior. All right. So let’s get into the book. He’s broken into five parts earth, the book of earth, the books of earth, water, fire, wind, and nothing or nothing. And what we want to do is look at what this old retired battle, hard and samurai, right? Why is it? That’s your boo <laugh> is still quoting all of his, all of his quotes. Why is he so quotable many, many centuries later? Why is your boyfriend a girlfriend, mostly boyfriend problems. Be honest. Why <laugh>, why are your homies reading? This man’s work and really still applying it forward. Okay. Because it app, it describes the mindset of precision practice forbearance, even though you are facing life and death situations.

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All right. For a lot of folks, those two things are contrary to each other. They’re completing Nama. Like when I’m under Dures and I’m feeling super pressed. I’m not about at BI here doing the O and relaxing and chilling out. But that’s exactly what you need to be doing. We need to have command of our bodies. We talked about it on the self-defense episode. He talks about how to do that again, because he’s in many life and death situations. Now look on a daily. We’re not really in life or death situations. Again, this is sort of istic to what’s going on today, right? If you take this book and his mindset, it might be a little istic to what the move is today. The move today is just getting home, getting into bed, having some good dinner, relaxing with your loved ones and trying to meet those daily weekly challenges for some long longitudinal end goal, right?

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Retiring with that fat 401k being thick, right? <Laugh> we want to get the nice whatever the life goal is for us. And hopefully it involves giving back. That’s what we’re here to do. Life and death. Not really, not really, but so many of us can draw parallels to not life and death, but to making those decisions that can oftentimes be seen as left or right. And here’s the mindset it’s patience. It’s practice. Okay. So what we’re gonna talk about are four themes inside this little book, right? This little book that you could finish going to the bathroom twice, this little book, we’re gonna go through it. Talk about the four themes that maybe apply to this day still because the book of wind does not. Most of it does not right. Fighting with two swords. I there’s no corollary today. So let we’re gonna bounce right over that one. Okay. But how the teaching, the current teachings and the practice still exist. This is a book of taking down the ego ego killing is a centralized theme inside this tiny read, repetitive as it might be didacted, as it can be like reading a swords man’s textbook. The book of five rings is like a modern day Allen car, trying to change your mind and your attitude through repetitive process and tapping into the deep recesses of your mind to do some kind of cognitive rearrangement. That’s what this one’s about right here. And you gotta appreciate it.

(10:28):

Muhi repeating mantras for positive outcomes or something that we could actually relate to. Some of you practice yoga. I mean, at the beginning and the end, you’re chanting O right. You’re trying to be in the center of all the, the K HHO of noise around you. That’s what that all means. Right? And I’m rushing it. It’s actually a syllable more so than a word, but that’s what that means. It’s a repeating mantra. And you’ll see that the old samurai tries to do that inside of his book of five rings before we get into it, who do I recommend this for? Well, I recommend it for you. If you really have an ambitious mindset, you’re not a big, big reader. You want to kind of read something. That’s easy to read something that you could just, if you wanna, if you’ve been reading the same, like best sellers, you know, you walk by like target or being Barnes and noble.

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If they still have those and you kind of pick up what’s right there on the rack, this is gonna be a good switch for you. Because again, it’s repetitive and old boy is talking about how to fight people with two very long blades, just not useful in that respect. So it’s a good change in direction for you. Pick that one up. If you’ll read it in like three days a week, maybe two weeks max, and you’ll get a lot out of it because what there is, they’re like little truffles, right? You don’t know they’re there. And then all of a sudden, you know, the rains and they grow not, I don’t know if you could see truffles, but they’re kind of like little treasures. So that’s who should pick this up. Anyone that has decision making in their daily process, someone that is very ambitious, you’ll pick this up, right?

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Men and women doesn’t matter. Pick this one up. If you’re trying to change your habits, you’re in the middle of swinging your habits, pick this one up and read right through it. So I’m not gonna talk about the five books, earth, water, fire, and wind, and nothing. And talk about which one relates to what here are the four themes. All right. Sohi goes through four big themes inside this book that he does repeat quite a bit in some form. Number one early on in the book of five rings with Misashi. He talks about using the right weapons for situations, oh, by the way, hates guns. Of course, guns on the battlefield are very new. At this point, nonetheless, he actually says, it’s important that you choose the right weapons. He says, mastering your weapons for perfect situations. It’s the only way to apply them.

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Now, the only way that I’ve heard that particular phrase being mentioned with any type of like relative, you know like that makes sense in today’s world is inside the Mo Thai room. They’ll literally call each attack a weapon. And that’s because your punch is named one in Thailand. And in Thai, apparently your left kick and your right kick have different names. It’s not right. And left kick. You know, it’s like te and NEB, but the point is, each move you make is literally called a weapon. Why there’s so many situational shifts inside of defending yourself that you need different applications and you could still hate them guns. I’m not saying you have to, but this guy does not appreciate them at all. So when we’re talking weapons, we’re talking about using what’s at your disposal, physically, maybe that’s using good decision making, right under Dures choosing the right situa right.

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Type of physicality for your situation, especially inside of self-defense also is a theme that we can talk about and use to this day. It’s like this. If someone were to accost you with words, it’s important that we learn that escalation is not the key. It never is using your ego to get yourself into an out of a situation. Maybe if it’s within authority figure, that’s not the biz. It just isn’t, you don’t escalate, but you defend yourself right? Physically. That means you match whatever heat has been brought, your way, whatever level that is on someone, it to you in eight, you don’t go to nine. You respond with eight because when this happens, we understand that that eight was intentional. So your eight has to be corollary. We Brian, ain’t ready for nine. Now, if you’re ready for nine. Okay. You bully <laugh>. But like, we, we don’t escalate. Instead, what we do is we choose the right tone of voice to respond in, right? We choose not to insult someone that makes us feel silly, right? These things can become highly weaponized.

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We choose not to respond to sling shots with grenades. This is not the move of keeping your ego in check. So responding with the right weapons and choosing the right I’m gonna say means is super important. So thanks. Misashi number two, right? <Laugh> is mastering your surroundings. So inside of the book of five rings, the old aging retired samurai on his last few years of life, right? In some cave, in a part of Japan, writes about being particularly attentive to the surroundings. So maybe you wanna make sure that the sun, what, whether it’s gonna be, what, what the it’s gonna rain, setting yourself up behind certain buildings and trees in order to bring the battle, which in his case is life or death, literal physical battle to bring it into your advantage. And so what he says is be a master of your surroundings, and don’t ever forget that that has direct correlation into how you move and how you respond.

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This is also key if you’re defending yourself, okay, it’s when to call for help. It’s who do you turn to? It’s knowing what to say to surrounding folks. If you’re in a position where you’re real vulnerable, it’s knowing your surroundings when you’re at, you know, when you have a team of people that you’re working with, and you want to make sure that you say something that doesn’t offend, if you have a work situation, right? There’s no time and a place to mention certain opinions that won’t offend. So this is highly important inside the boardroom and in everyday life, there’s a time and a place for certain things. We remember this, thanks. Misashi number three, right? This one is actually a linchpin of all kinds of wisdom traditions. So inside of his book, I believe he calls the last one, the book of no thing or the book of nothing.

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And I think he’s trying to be a little like cheeky with the word, with that word play and what it is. If you can look at that and say the book of nothing, well, that’s good. It’s should be blank pages, but he says, it’s not nothing. It’s like no thing. It’s a poor mano of two words. It’s no thing what he’s saying and what a lot of wisdom traditions allude to. And when I say wisdom traditions, I’m talking about kind of very ancient religions or practices, right? Linchpins of yoga, all this meditation of any description, right. We know that when we’re in a space of silence and there is no thought whether good, bad, neither, you’re actually closest to knowing yourself and how you really think. And this is kind of the true of all meditative practices. Doesn’t matter how you meditate. If it’s guided, if it’s on YouTube, if you’re, you know, looking up someone that you see on Insta, and they’re like, yo, just say, or you’re on the app.

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They have apps. You guys, if you’re on the app and you know, you do like the, the apps where they have you just kind of chilling there. Maybe you go to a temple, whatever it might be. The crux of a lot of meditation is sitting and kind of being in that silence and being okay with it. It not being a punishment, quite the contrary to the bay area that I live in, that many of you live in where it’s real busy and you gotta go all the time. The opposite is kind of closer to what our body naturally attunes to, which is being okay with silence. Because according to a lots of wisdom traditions and all modern meditations, this is the closest form of self knowing. And he kind of alludes to this. Misashi by saying, you have to be apprised of what you don’t know and isn’t that like, that’s pretty ego killing.

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Isn’t it to just be apprised of stuff that you might not know about. You know, that there’s a beautiful kind of quote. I’m gonna paraphrase it. The more you know about yourself, the more you know that you don’t know. And I think kind of understanding that about ourselves is high level. You know, I can speak for me as a man being okay with that as a man that makes us feel more like adults, more like men, more like fallible folks that can make better corrections. So kind of ego killing is along those lines too. So that’s okay to be apprised of that. Thanks again. Number four is gonna be being involved with one thing that you want to master. You gotta know all about it. So you’re into computers. You don’t just wanna learn about computers. You wanna learn how to build the computer. You wanna learn how to buy the motherboard, right? You wanna learn what type of monitors to get you wanna learn? What refresh rate is you wanna learn what USB three versus two and wifi six is gonna give you as an advantage. You want to be good at catching bluegill. When you wanna learn a little bit about how to fly fish, how to set your own reel, you wanna learn what a cinch not is. You wanna learn what type of hooks to use, right? How to read the depth of a lake.

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The point is it doesn’t matter. The point is just whatever you want to get good at. And there’s a, just a million things. Massage suggests that you learn everything about it and a little bit more about something adjacent to it. And I think that that’s something we can all relate to, right? There’s a matter what your job description is going above and beyond which in this day and age we’re really getting away from. I feel like, but going above and beyond and learning a little bit more about how to serve yourself and folks better makes you better at the thing. It makes you better at the program that you’re trying to run. So being really skilled at your love, your passion. That’s cool, but now get really good at learning everything about it. The ins, the outs and adjacent practices. And that’s one thing that he really doubles down on, on the book of five rings.

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And I think then this does have a lot of outro applications to this day. So thanks. Misashi and maybe that’s one you wanna pick up? Let me know if you guys went ahead and picked this one up on Eagle killer show.com. So we’re gonna wrap it up right there. All right. Pick this one up. Tell me what you thought about it. You can go to the website, otherwise you guys, if you like the episode apple podcast, where you could rate this five stars, you’ll get a free gift after that. I promise. And until the next time, appreciate you.