Kodo: Ancient Ways, av Kensho Furuya

he book: "Kodo - Ancient Ways: Lessons in the Spiritual Life of the Warrior/Martial Artist" by Kensho Furuya is one of several books that is about "the other side" of the martial arts or budo. That is the side which don't deal with self-defense, punches, kicks and throws - the side which is in no way connected with championships or game-victories. This other side deals in short about what the arts has to offer us as human beings and how we can use them to become better human beings.

Furuya is a well-known aikido teacher and writer in the US. For a number of years he wrote the column: "Ancient Ways" in the budo magazine "MA Training". This book is comprised by articles written for that magazine between 1988 and 1995.

Furuya's articles reflects upon how we can understand and use the long-term perspectives of the martial arts as well as the "spiritual" or non-technical sides to budo. He writes about what signifies a real master, talks about why many people end up quitting the arts all together, how we are often times slaved to our TV-minds, he reflects on the connections between student and teacher, and how our craving to become "good" often times blocks our experiences and our progres. This and much more is great food for thought!

Anyone about to develop a TV-mind should really force themselves to find the time and space to read this book! If you have caught the disease then I'm afraid reading any book would pose too big a challenge - it takes time, and would probably be considered boring... Shame, because this book of articles is full of wisdom, great thoughts, eternal questions and profound truths. You won't lose anything if you switch the TV-set of. You will lose a lot by not reading great books! This one here is one I recommend to you.

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