Musashi's Dokkodo

By: Miyamoto Musashi

Narrated by: Kris Wilder

Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645) was arguably the greatest swordsman who ever lived, a legendary figure whose methods of thought and strategy have been studied and adopted across a wide spectrum of society, from martial artists to military leaders to captains of industry. The iconic sword saint of Japan was clearly a genius, yet he was also a functional psychopath - ruthless, fearless, hyper-focused, and utterly without conscience. Shortly before he died, Musashi wrote down his final thoughts about life for his favorite student Terao Magonojo to whom Go Rin No Sho, his famous Book of Five Rings, had also been dedicated. He called this treatise Dokkodo, which translates as, "The Way of Walking Alone".

This treatise contains Musashi's original 21 precepts of the Dokkodo along with five different interpretations of each passage written from the viewpoints of a monk (Wilder), a warrior (Burrese), a teacher (Smedley), an insurance executive (Christensen), and a businessman (Kane). Each contributor has taken a divergent path from the others, yet shares the commonality of being a lifelong martial practitioner and published author. In this fashion you are not just hearing a simple translation of Musashi's writing, you are scrutinizing his final words for deeper meaning. In them are enduring lessons for how to lead a successful and meaningful life.

©2015 Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder (P)2017 Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder

a misunderstood attempt at a good concept

the idea of getting perspectives of these precepts is a great one. the
execution is lacking. the voice is monotone and its reading of different perspectives makes the info seemed jumbled. (would have been better served by diffent voices, maybe finding people who represent the perspective being given like actual police officers or educators in thier own voices would have tide everything together.)

if you can get past that the premise holds water, and offers a good chance to juxtaposition different points of view on the material.

This is just bad...

First of all, the reading is by far the worst I've heard in years of using Audible. Mispronounced common words, long pauses in the middle of sentences, even entire sentences being repeated word-for-word. This quality should not be allowed on audible.

Second, the book itself... the description led me to believe this was a book by Miamoto Musashi. Not true. It is a handful of sentences he wrote with a bunch of random modern amateur martial artists expounding on their meaning. They are not historians or philosophers. People using examples of eating sushi and playing with their dog to explain the words of an ancient swordsman... no thank you.

Ambitious analysis, poor narration.

If one overlooks the obvious bias with which the authors make commentary on Musashi's precepts, this is an insightful analysis of his precepts colored by modern day beliefs. This should be the way to understand this book. It is not a historic analysis per se. All in all, nice to listen to these viewpoints.

However, the narrator stumbles so often on the words with mispronunciations of even common English words that one wonders if he even tried. Terribly distracting, but it shouldn't dissuade the enthusiastic martial artist from listening anyway.

Need to look more beyond the direct translation.

Overall, it was worth the time. It was cool to hear different takes and arguments on the 21 precepts. My largest criticism would be that none of the contributors understand the nuance and meaning behind the Japanese language that is used in Dokkodou beyond the direct translations. There were many instances of disagreement with Musashi where it felt weird for me since the criticism and the original document was not mutually exclusive in certain ideas.

Shocking editing and boomer philosophy

First off, the reader has a nice voice but a really weird cadence. It reminds me of how classmates in elementary school would read out loud. Sometimes he flubs a line, and re-reads the sentence (once even whistling while flubbing a line — to hilarious effect (about 3h and 32min to go in the book when this happens)).

The content takes the precepts out of context to apply to irrelevant areas. The book praises L Ron Hubbard early on (forgetting to mention that he founded Scientology) and often admonishes the youth of today and their wicked smartphones, instagrams and TikToks in true boomer fashion.

This has nothing to do with Musashi, and has little of value.