Member-only story
Real Samurai’s 9 Rules to Succeed in Life
At 60 years old, the most famous samurai in history — Miyamoto Mushashi — shared the secrets of self-mastery in the book of the Five Rings.
In the Mount Iwate in the Higo district in Japan Musashi was 60 years old when he finally decided to write down the wisdom he accumulated along his journey of self-mastery.
Musashi was a samurai who dedicated his life to understanding the science of winning in both martial arts and life. He dueled his first opponent when he was fourteen years old and from there he traveled all around Japan challenging students of diverse martial schools and philosophies in an attempt to test his own set of beliefs.
Sixty victorious duels later at the age of twenty-nine, Miyamoto Musashi looked back at his achievements and realized that all the victories he accumulated were not a result of his understanding of the principles of martial arts, but from the shortcomings of the martial arts of other schools or maybe even just luck.
From ages thirty to fifty, Musashi practiced day and night envisioning an even deeper objective to develop his own spontaneous philosophy of navigating the world and mastering all arts, a general rule he could live by without ever having to consult on other schools or mentors.
Musashi started to see himself as one without a master who could find the proper way to navigate reality without having to consult any science or philosophy. He developed his own belief system based on his own spontaneous understanding of the science of winning.
Without any other thinker in mind, just his own life experience and judgment, at 4:00 A.M. on the tenth day of the tenth month, of the year 1643, Musashi wrote the 9 rules for those who want to learn his way to succeed in life.
