Miyamoto Musashi | A Life of Ultimate Focus

Miyamoto Musashi is one of the most legendary samurai and famed as Japan’s greatest swordsman - undefeated in more than sixty duels. After he escaped death during the Battle of Sekigahara, Musashi became a ronin. Aside from being a swordsman, he was also a philosopher, artist, and well-learned Buddhist. Before he died, Musashi left us with twenty-one principles named Dokkōdō. These are timeless rules that can inspire us today to live well. The majority, if not all, of these rules, help us to establish one thing: ‘focus’. Focus is the quality of having a concentrated interest or activity on something. Needless to say, ‘focus’ was a crucial component in Musashi’s life, or, what he called ‘the way’, which is a life of ongoing practice. His writings reveal that his lifestyle revolved around restraint, sacrifice, discipline, and not being swayed by pleasure. These virtues were all established by or in support of being able to ‘focus’. Especially when he spent time apart from society, Musashi was o