The Spirit of Budo

This book comprises eighteen essays which appeared in the monthly Budo magazine. They are written with simplicity and humour, but with an underlying discipline and authority derived from a lifetime of spiritual and martial arts training in Adhyatma Yoga, Judo and Zen. 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 Pryce Leggett (1914-2000) studied Ved?nta and the traditional Yoga of the Self for over sixty years and for eighteen years was a pupil of Hari Prasad Shastri. He lived for a number of years in Japan where he learnt Japanese and studied Judo and Zen. He was the first foreigner to hold the sixth Dan in Judo from the Kodokan, Tokyo, and he was fourth Dan in Shogi (Japanese chess). He was one of the leading teachers of Judo in the United Kingdom. From 1946 until his retirement in 1970 he was Head of the Japanese Service of the BBC. Trevor Leggett was the author and translator of marvellous books on Yoga, Zen, Judo and Shogi. In 1987 the All-Japan Buddhist Association gave him a literary award for his translations and in 1990 he was invited to speak on his ?a?kara translations to the three day International Seminar on ?a?kara held in New Delhi. His books of teaching and training stories include stories used by teachers in the Eastern spiritual schools to assist students in their training and those drawn from his own personal training experiences. Their aim is to find realisation and inspiration in daily life. Trevor Leggett provided in his will for a charity to be established to promote the study of Yoga, Ved?nta, Buddhism, Zen, Judo and Shogi and the Trevor Leggett Adhyatma Yoga Trust ('TLAYT') was registered with the Charity Commission (number 1086172) in 2001. TLAYT holds the copyright to all of Trevor Leggett's books and it has worked steadily to bring them all back into print, which following the republication of 'Kata Judo,' is now the case. To this end we have been greatly assisted by our friends at the Buddhist Society Trust, M-Y Books Ltd and a number of Trevor's old Judo friends and pupils.