Zen and Japanese Culture

I was cleaning out my closet for the first time in 4 years (yeah, I know) and came across the hardcover book ZEN AND JAPANESE CULTURE which, in my opinion, is one of the absolute best zen theory/martial arts books ever written. (Other top of the line books include ZEN THEORY, ZEN PRACTICE and Joe Hymans' ZEN AND THE MARTIAL ARTS) ZAJC is a pretty lengthy book that is loaded with brilliant insights into the original theoretically ideologies that helped shape classical Chinese and Japanese martial arts. The volume does specifically center on swordfighting, but a number of the concepts presented within the text are basic common sense approaches to any type of art or any type of learning making this a valuable read even for people who are not even studying martial arts.

Far too often we concern ourselves with the mere physical aspects of martial arts training (of course, it can be worse to become overly concerned with mysticism and metaphysics as well)so reading something along the lines of ZAJC is advised for those looking to add an additional dimension to their martial arts journey.