Destiny: Antony Cummins, Zen and the Samurai Sword

Earth Ancients

Cliff Dunning

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Antony Cummins, Zen and the Samurai Sword

This unique book combines Japanese warrior techniques with ancient Zen practices for mental clarity and physical agility, giving listeners a Samurai edge that will carry them through life.Blending Japanese Samurai wisdom with ancient Zen practices, this book will take you on a metaphysical journey to becoming a swordsman. Sharpen the mind, hone the senses and control the body to achieve clarity, drive and peace.Structured according to ancient lessons, this guide will explore the principles of Zen and its effects on the mind, as well as the philosophy of the Samurai, their weapons and their principles, with stories from history's swordsmen woven throughout.Wisdom from historical texts is remastered and applied to our modern-day lives, giving listeners philosophical meditation practices and physical exercises.Discover concepts such as:

Mu: act like a float in stressful situations, unperturbed by the waves.
Shuhari: the three stages of "practice", "develop" and "disconnect" from the rules to create.
The art of receiving: how to flow with your opponent to avoid conflict.
Polishing the mirror: clean your mind daily to calm its waters.

By following these ancient lessons, listeners will gain the wisdom of the Samurai and achieve a Zen-like state that will give them a unique edge to thrive in the modern world.

Antony Cummins is the founder of the Historical Ninjutsu Research Team, which has previously published The Book of Ninja and The Book of Samurai (Watkins). Antony also works as a consultant and co-presenter on high-end documentaries on Japan that are distributed by National Geographic, and is the Official Tourism Ambassador for Wakayama. He has been recognised by peers as a leading expert in the discovery of military arts of medieval Japan. His most recent book was How to be a Modern Samurai (Watkins).

For more information, see www.natori.co.uk.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Destiny.
0:15.8	Now here's your host, Cliff Dunning.
0:19.5	Well, we're into a little bit of a late delivery this week.
0:22.6	We had this, this Mars program, the Face on Mars program that we launched yesterday,
0:30.1	and it ain't up our time for releasing this week's destiny.
0:34.6	And it's a special program.
0:36.3	I got to tell you, the material this week is Zen Buddhism,
0:41.6	but not just the religion. It's what came out of it in Japan in the 1500s, which is this is the
0:50.8	Japanese medieval period. And it's all about samurai.
0:56.6	And the agility, clarity, and the calm and the,
1:01.5	the whole mental state that these men and women,
1:07.2	because there were women that not necessarily were samurai, but there were the wives
1:12.0	of the samurai.
1:13.6	There were the various rulers consort.
1:20.9	And it's a whole society based on a level of consciousness that we'll be discussing today.
1:30.4	And my guest, Anthony Cummins, has written just, he's written 10 books on the samurai.
1:38.2	And when we are asking him questions regarding the mindset.
1:44.8	It's fascinating.
1:46.4	He's a historian of ancient Japanese culture.
1:52.4	And I would think the most well-versed Caucasian,
1:58.6	non-Japanese historian that I've ever run into.
2:04.9	So that's our program today.
	...

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