The Samurai and Zen     This is part of a series of articles on the arc of Zen thought, practice, and history, as presented in The Circle of the Way: A Concise History of Zen from the Buddha to the Modern World.  You can start at the beginning of this series or simply explore [...]

Essential Teachings An Excerpt from Budōshoshinshu Budōshoshinshu and Hagakure are the most influential treatises on samurai philosophy from the Edo period. The two books were written at about the same time and both address the warrior’s role in times of peace. While Hagakure was mostly a secret book of the Nabeshima clan until the twentieth [...]