ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors begin with separate accounts of mushin and the Western concepts of peak experiences and skilful performances. There are plenty of scholarly publications on the topic of flow and peak experiences. But in the case of mushin, while the term is commonly found in martial arts texts and used by martial artists, scholarly philosophical analysis of it is difficult to find. To delineate what the purportedly unobservable mushin is about, the authors undertake a brief synopsis of how it has historically been viewed in Japanese swordsmanship. This overview, in providing us with a sense for how it evolved and its relationship to Zen, will help us better understand how the concept has developed in the martial arts context in general, and how it compares to concepts in the Western realm of sports.
