Unlike other samurai of his time, Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714) was concerned less with swordsmanship than with how to maintain and nurture the healthy mind and body upon which martial techniques and philosophy depended. While serving as the chief medical doctor and healer to the Kuroda clan, he came t[...]

The seminal treatise on the code of the samurai--now available as a Shambhala Pocket Classic.
"Hagakure" is a treatise on the samurai code written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, an eighteenth-century samurai. It's a guide, organized as a loose collection of thoughts, on how samurai should conduct thems[...]