Soul Sword: The Way and Mind of a Zen Warrior

by Vernon Kitabu Turner

The power of the Warrior Mind is its ability to act from Mushin...a state of No Mind. As a mirror reflects objects without clinging to the images, the Warrior Mind is free to flow from one object to the next without impediment. From this state arises instinctive wisdom, the power that allows ordinary people to perform extraordinary feats.

This is the power that lives within each of us: the power which the author, a legendary black belt and Zen master, hopes to awaken in his readers. It functions within us daily but is counteracted by the false mind and its endless projections. The task is to still the mind to the point where "the action and the actor [are] a seamless thread."

Daily life is the battlefield for the Warrior Mind. The author shows us how to "flow into the affairs of the day. Meeting the rising and falling of circumstance, we learn how to . . trust our true selves once again."

Soul Sword is an active meditation for those who wish to be in the world but not of it.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good short insight into the martial aspects of Zen but as with almost all integrist texts, it fails miserably in trying to tie Buddhist thought into the Christian understanding of man's relationship with God.