The Spirit of Budo: Old Traditions for Every Day Life
About this book
This book comprises eighteen essays written with simplicity and humour, but with an underlying discipline and authority derived from a lifetime of spiritual and martial arts training both in Adhyatma Yoga and Judo.Trevor Leggett addresses matters including sportsmanship, achieving freedom of mind, training the inner self, developing an inner calm, and the four keys to learning – instruction, observation, inference and personal experience. He looks at the cultivation of these Budo qualities and suggests ways in which the lessons learned can be applied to daily life as well as to the practice of the martial arts.Trevor Leggett lived for a number of years in Japan where he learnt the Japanese language and studied Judo and Zen. He was the first foreigner to hold the 6th Dan in Judo from the Kodokan. A senior instructor at the Budokwai and founder of the Renshuden in London, he was one of the leading teachers of Judo in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Championship Judo (with Kisaburo Watanabe) and Kata Judo (with Dr Jigoro Kano).Trevor Leggett studied Vedānta and Adhyatma Yoga for over sixty years and for eighteen years was a pupil of Hari Prasad Shastri until his death in 1956. In addition to books on Judo he is the author of Samurai Zen, Zen and the Ways, Three Ages of Zen, The Complete Commentary by Śaṅkara on the Yoga Sutras, Realisation of the Supreme Self, The Chapter of the Self, Fingers and Moons, The Old Zen Master, Samurai Zen, A First Zen Reader, A Second Zen Reader, and Japanese Chess, The Game of Shogi, He died on 2nd August 2000 at the age of 85.