Musashi Miyamoto was a swordsman who lived in Japan from 1584 to 1645. Throughout his life, he fought 61 sword fights and never lost. He wrote his principles of swordsmanship down in a well-known book, The Book of Five Rings. While written over 370 years ago, many of the book’s principles can be applied to business today. This article is the first in a special five-part series on the Book of Five Rings. It takes five principles from the first scroll of the book, the Earth Scroll, and demonstrates how they can be used in business.

The Book of Five Rings

The Book of Five Rings was written by Musashi Miyamoto in 1645. The book comprehensively discusses of Musashi’s view of the Way of the Warrior. In the text, he discusses his style of swordsmanship, principles of battle, other schools of swordsmanship, and the concept of nothingness.

Several principles in the book are repeated over and over again:

• concentrating on essence rather than form
• being practical and eliminating the superfluous
• practicing continuously; and
• not swerving from the Way.

Lessons from the Earth Scroll

The first scroll in the Book of Five Rings is the Earth Scroll. In this scroll, he sets forth the critical components of his style of swordsmanship and the rules for putting it into practice. These are:

• Do not think of evil things
• Practice the Warrior’s Way
• Touch widely upon the arts
• Know the Ways of many occupations
• Know the advantages and disadvantages of everything
• Develop the power of discernment
• Understand what cannot be seen by the eye
• Pay attention to even small things
• Do not become involved with impractical things

With these principles established, we will now discuss ten lessons from the Earth Scroll and the Water Scroll.

Lesson One. Be Self-Reliant

Musashi said: “Entrusting myself to the principles of my martial art, I have never had a teacher while studying the Ways of the various arts and accomplishments, or in anything at all. Now, even in writing this book, I am neither borrowing the ancient words of Buddhism or Confucionism, nor using old examples from the military chronicles or military practices.”

In addition to swordsmanship, Musashi was accomplished in many areas, including calligraphy, sculpture, and ink painting. He was self-taught and maintained a fiercely independent perspective throughout his entire life. He lived his life and practiced the sword on his own terms.

We live in a confusing world with many contradictory perspectives and are often told that we are on the wrong path or should do things differently. Even if this advice is well-intentioned, seems logical, or comes from a respected source, every decision must be made considering facts, objectives, and resources likely not fully known by third parties. While it is useful to consider other ideas and approaches and be open to questioning one’s views and actions, ultimately, every person must make their own decisions and walk their own path. The wrong path for one company may be the right path for another.

Moreover, regardless of their profession or background, every person has a deep store of experience and wisdom inside of them. While we may not put this wisdom into practice, life has imprinted on every person more facts and knowledge than is contained in thousands of books. We should not disregard this knowledge because it does not have the weight of external authority but instead access it to create solutions.

Lesson Two. Broaden Your Outlook

Musashi highlights that the ideal warrior has knowledge of culture and the sword. At first, this is surprising, as reading non-militaristic books in libraries seems very unconnected with life-and-death conflict on the battlefield. Yet Musashi highlights that a martial artist is not only technically proficient with weapons; he must have a broad, flexible outlook and the ability to see things from multiple perspectives to navigate wartime uncertainties. Reading and study of new disciplines, including philosophy, science, history, and art, nurture these perspectives.

A warrior must have a broad outlook and see things from multiple perspectives.

In the increasingly specialized business world, it is quite easy to only see things from a narrow organizational perspective and get so caught up in daily work requirements that it is difficult to reflect more broadly on whether one’s approach is the best way.

Taking the time to study areas outside of our daily work and considering other ways to do things allows us to move beyond technical proficiency and see our work within a broader organizational and human framework. This broader perspective can help us see additional opportunities and risks, develop more creative solutions to novel challenges, and execute ideas faster.

Lesson Three. Separate Form from Essence

Musashi distinguishes form from essence and separates people proficient in sword techniques from true martial artists. He notes that the fascination with form “divides the flower and fruit into two, makes much less of the fruit than the flower. In this Way of the martial arts especially, form is made into ornament, the flower is forced into bloom, and technique is made into display.”

Form can easily take precedence over essence in business. This can manifest itself by focusing on:

• sales numbers rather than whether or not the practices that led to those numbers are sound and can support growth in the future
• working a certain number of hours rather than what is really produced during those hours
• descriptions of products rather than product quality
• the existence of systems and technology rather than process outcomes
• focusing on business metrics and not considering the realities those metrics represent.

In business, form is important, and packaging often sells. Musashi’s lesson, however, is not to reject form but rather to not let it distract from the essence. To remain competitive and continue to grow, every business must get to the core of what they do, how they do it, and what they should concentrate on to improve.

Lesson Four. Become a Master Carpenter

Musashi uses a discussion of a master carpenter to illustrate the characteristics of a swordsman. He says, “If the master carpenter understands the men well and uses them accordingly, the work will progress and the performance will be well done. The progression of the work and a good performance, a never-slackening attention, knowing the utility of things, knowing the relative spirits of the men, and giving encouragement – all such things are within the master carpenter’s frame of mind.”

This lesson has great applicability in business because, whether or not we think of it this way, we are all carpenters and must understand our resources and use them effectively to create something of quality.

In business, we are all carpenters, tasked with building something of value every day.

One of our most important resources is the people we work with. By striving to understand these people, their strengths and weaknesses, and their goals and challenges, we can work with them in a way that makes the achievement of mutually beneficial business goals more likely.

Beyond people, computers give us access to limitless wisdom that could not even have been imagined in Musashi’s time. We can use this information to improve every aspect of our work.

Lesson Five. Understand and Apply Rhythm

Musashi said, “Concerning the position of a warrior, there is a rhythm to rising in the service of his lord, and rhythm for retreating from it; there is a rhythm to being in harmony with others, and a rhythm to not being in harmony with them. In the Way of Commerce, there is a rhythm for becoming a wealthy man, and a rhythm for ruining oneself with wealth. The rhythm is different according to each and every Way. You should discriminate thoroughly between the rhythm of success and the rhythm of failure.”

There is certainly a lesson that is far easier to see than it is to explain and far easier to explain than it is to master. Yet, in business, we certainly can see good and bad patterns that gain momentum and help or hurt businesses. If we look carefully at businesses that are successful over the long term, we can see that positive rhythm spreads across the entire organization. This includes not only the skills used to make products and services but also operational processes and how people work together. All of these factors combine to create a visible and invisible force that has a powerful impact on work results. The strength of this rhythm also helps businesses recover more quickly when impacted by negative internal or external events.

All business successes and failures are shaped by rhythm.

Rhythm is often comprised of smaller rhythms. For example, in a company, it is often the case that small patterns, such as people coming to work on time, leads to more coordinated work, and more coordinated work leads to progress. Each act sets the groundwork for the other, increases its probability, and makes its continuance and expansion more likely.

The business takeaway is that firms should look at business circumstances, good or bad, as the result of factors that are moving in one direction or another. By breaking these factors into component parts, companies can redirect them in a way that makes increasingly positive outcomes more likely.

Conclusion

This article set forth five principles from The Book of Five Rings and illustrated how to apply them in business. The following articles will show how to apply principles from the remaining scrolls of the book.

The version of the Book of Five Rings referenced in this article was translated by Matsumoto Michihiro and William Scott Wilson. I have made some changes to the English translation based on my own interpretation of the Japanese text.

The image for this article depicts the famous battle between Musashi Miyamoto and Kojiro Sasaki on Ganryu Island in 1612. This image was taken from here.