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Zen in the Art of Archery
Professor Eugen Herrigel recounts his time spent learning archery with Japanese Zen Masters.
98 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1948
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About the author
Eugen Herrigel
21 books72 followersEugen Herrigel was a German philosopher who taught philosophy at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan, from 1924 to 1929 and introduced Zen to large parts of Europe through his writings. He was a member of the Militant League for German Culture and was committed to Nazi beliefs until he died.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,006 reviews
December 31, 2017
Are we all such helpless and inexperienced beginners with not the slightest clue on how to correct our aims or on how to draw our bowstrings right?
This supposedly uplifting book has depressed me amidst its poetry and beauty into a realization that I will probably never 'correct my own stance' or 'let the arrow fall at the moment of highest tension', effortlessly hit any goal or even realize what the real goal is...
Why is there no art in life anymore? Isn't it all that should exist? Can we please ban money and all its accouterments and live by the High Arts; that might then bring some insipid meaning back to our lives?
This supposedly uplifting book has depressed me amidst its poetry and beauty into a realization that I will probably never 'correct my own stance' or 'let the arrow fall at the moment of highest tension', effortlessly hit any goal or even realize what the real goal is...
Why is there no art in life anymore? Isn't it all that should exist? Can we please ban money and all its accouterments and live by the High Arts; that might then bring some insipid meaning back to our lives?
January 9, 2018
۱.
اویگن هریگل، استاد دانشگاه فلسفه، یک آلمانی با تمام معانی ای که این دو کلمه، فلسفه و آلمانی، در کنار هم می توانند داشته باشند، به دعوت دانشگاهی ژاپنی سر از توکیو در می آورد، و به خاطر آوازه ای که از ذن شنیده و علاقه ای که از قدیم به عرفان و اشراق داشته، در به در دنبال جایی می گردد که او را به شاگردی بپذیرند، و از میان تمام معابد ذن، یک استاد کمانگیری را بر می گزیند. ده سال، ده سال تمام پیش این استاد تیراندازی تمرین می کند، بدون این که کلمه ای از ذن به میان بیاید، به جز اشاراتی بسیار محدود برای ده سال آموزش. و در نهایت، از طریق کمانگیری و تیراندازی، به اشراق می رسد. کتاب سرگذشت کوتاهی است از این تمرینات طولانی، و گاه گاه در میان نقل خاطرات آموزه های ذن را هم با زبانی شاعرانه ولی روان توضیح می دهد.
۲.
در کتاب "ذهن ذن، ذهن نوآموز" سوزوکی بارها و بارها تأکید می کرد که هرچند "ذاذن" (مراقبۀ ذن) بسیار مهم است و نوآموز باید از ذاذن مراقبه را شروع کند، اما مراقبه منحصر به ذاذن نیست. هر کس که به گوهر ذن برسد، در می یابد که هر چیز مراقبه است، آب خوردن، چای درست کردن، خوابیدن، هر فعالیتی ذاذن است.
ذن نمی خواهد سالک را به حقیقتی ملکوتی و آن جهانی برساند. نهایت مقصود ذن رسیدن فرد به حالت بی ذهنی است. به زیستن به شکل طبیعی. به همین دلیل باکی ندارد که از فعالیت های روزمره، مثل کمانگیری، عکاسی، نویسندگی و گل آرایی به عنوان مراقبه استفاده کند. مراقبه از دیدگاه ذن یک شکل خاص نشستن و نفس کشیدن نیست، هر نوع فعالیتی که با ذهنیت ذن انجام گیرد، می تواند تبدیل به مراقبه شود برای رساندن سالک به بی ذهنی مدّنظر ذن.
۳.
ذن قبل از آن که یک مکتب فلسفی باشد، یک مکتب عملی است. منظور این نیست که روشی است برای رسیدن به بازدهی بیشتر در عمل. ذن به شدت مخالف اندیشه های سودگرایانه است. بلکه منظور این است که رستگاری حقیقی و اشراق حقیقی را در بازی کردن با مفاهیم پیچیده و غرق شدن در استدلال ها نمی داند، و حتی این فلسفه ورزی ها را سدّ راه رهایی از رنج می داند. ذن معتقد است که رستگاری را باید زیست، آن هم به زیست شناسانه ترین معنای کلمه. بدون هیچ اندیشه ای، بدون هیچ مقصودی. و گاه حتی برای این که ذهن را هر چه بیشتر از دنبال کردن مفاهیم و مقاصد باز دارد، آیین های زائدی برای هر کار ساده وضع می کند، تا ذهن در لحظه تنها در جریان این آیین های عملی غرق شود و در همین لحظۀ حاضر بماند.
چند وقت پیش با خودم فکر می کردم: کارهایی مثل پیچ سفت کردن در کارخانه، مشابه آن چه چارلی چاپلین در عصر مدرن انجام می داد، به خاطر تکراری بودن و ساده بودن، ذهن را آزاد می گذارند که هر کجا می خواهد بپلکد، هر چند نمی تواند مسیر دوری برود، اما با از این شاخه به آن شاخه پریدن، می تواند از حضور کامل در لحظۀ حاضر اجتناب کند.
در مقابل کارهایی که کمی از پیچ سفت کردن پیچیده ترند اما به همان اندازه بی معنا هستند، می توانند مانع شوند ذهن به هر کجا که خواست برود. چون به خاطر پیچیده بودن مجبور می شود هر لحظه به کاری که دارد انجام می دهد توجه کند و نتواند به طور خودکار آن را سرهم بندی کند.
آن زمان فکر می کردم این کارها غیرانسانی ترند، چون حتی ذهن را از کارگر می گیرند.
اما آیا از دیدگاه ذن، این کارها به مراقبۀ مدّنظر نزدیک تر نیستند؟ تنها ذهنیت درست لازم است تا کارگر بتواند از کار بی معنای خود، مراقبه ای برای رسیدن به بی معنایی حیات بسازد.
۴.
خواندن این کتاب بسیار لذت بخش بود، چون مثل کتاب های دیگر کمتر حالت تحلیلی یا موعظه گونه داشت. در عوض نویسنده خاطرات شخصی خود را تعریف می کرد. هر چند کتاب از صحنه های زیبا پر بود، ولی دو سه صحنه به صورت خاص مرا جذب کردند. یکی وقتی که اویگن هریگل در مسافرت چند روزه اش، به تکنیکی در کمانگیری می رسد که به وسیلۀ آن می تواند بهتر تیراندازی کند. از بس ذهنش به "بهتر تیراندازی کردن" مشغول شده که فراموش کرده او از اول به دنبال ذن بود، نه تیراندازی. و وقتی این تکنیک جدید را در مقابل استاد اجرا می کند، استاد کمان را از او می گیرد و به حالت قهر پشتش را به او می کند. بعداً از طریق یک واسطه به او می گوید که دیگر نمی خواهد به او درس بدهد، چون او خواسته به استاد خود گول بزند.
یکی دیگر وقتی بود که هریگل باورش نمی شد مقصود اصلی از تمرینات تیراندازی رسیدن به اشراق درونی است، و با رسیدن به اشراق درونی، تیراندازی بیرونی هم ارتقا می یابد. و استاد برای این که یک بار برای همیشه این را به او ثابت کند، نیمه شب و تنها با یک شمع، به میدان تیراندازی رفت و در تاریکی محض دو تیر انداخت که اولی در قلب هدف نشست و دومی اولی را شکافت و باز در قلب هدف فرو رفت.
صحنۀ دیگر وقتی بود که استاد وقتی دید نمی تواند بر ناتوانی ها و ضعف ها و اعتماد به نفس پایین هریگل غلبه کند، ناچار رفت کتاب مقدماتی ای از فلسفه خواند تا بتواند طرز فکر هریگل را بفهمد و از همان طریق به او آموزش دهد، اما با نگرانی و نارضایتی کتاب را نیمه کاره کنار گذاشت و گفت: معلوم است که نمی تواند ذن را درک کند، وقتی ذهنش را با این چیزها پر کرده.
اویگن هریگل، استاد دانشگاه فلسفه، یک آلمانی با تمام معانی ای که این دو کلمه، فلسفه و آلمانی، در کنار هم می توانند داشته باشند، به دعوت دانشگاهی ژاپنی سر از توکیو در می آورد، و به خاطر آوازه ای که از ذن شنیده و علاقه ای که از قدیم به عرفان و اشراق داشته، در به در دنبال جایی می گردد که او را به شاگردی بپذیرند، و از میان تمام معابد ذن، یک استاد کمانگیری را بر می گزیند. ده سال، ده سال تمام پیش این استاد تیراندازی تمرین می کند، بدون این که کلمه ای از ذن به میان بیاید، به جز اشاراتی بسیار محدود برای ده سال آموزش. و در نهایت، از طریق کمانگیری و تیراندازی، به اشراق می رسد. کتاب سرگذشت کوتاهی است از این تمرینات طولانی، و گاه گاه در میان نقل خاطرات آموزه های ذن را هم با زبانی شاعرانه ولی روان توضیح می دهد.
۲.
در کتاب "ذهن ذن، ذهن نوآموز" سوزوکی بارها و بارها تأکید می کرد که هرچند "ذاذن" (مراقبۀ ذن) بسیار مهم است و نوآموز باید از ذاذن مراقبه را شروع کند، اما مراقبه منحصر به ذاذن نیست. هر کس که به گوهر ذن برسد، در می یابد که هر چیز مراقبه است، آب خوردن، چای درست کردن، خوابیدن، هر فعالیتی ذاذن است.
ذن نمی خواهد سالک را به حقیقتی ملکوتی و آن جهانی برساند. نهایت مقصود ذن رسیدن فرد به حالت بی ذهنی است. به زیستن به شکل طبیعی. به همین دلیل باکی ندارد که از فعالیت های روزمره، مثل کمانگیری، عکاسی، نویسندگی و گل آرایی به عنوان مراقبه استفاده کند. مراقبه از دیدگاه ذن یک شکل خاص نشستن و نفس کشیدن نیست، هر نوع فعالیتی که با ذهنیت ذن انجام گیرد، می تواند تبدیل به مراقبه شود برای رساندن سالک به بی ذهنی مدّنظر ذن.
۳.
ذن قبل از آن که یک مکتب فلسفی باشد، یک مکتب عملی است. منظور این نیست که روشی است برای رسیدن به بازدهی بیشتر در عمل. ذن به شدت مخالف اندیشه های سودگرایانه است. بلکه منظور این است که رستگاری حقیقی و اشراق حقیقی را در بازی کردن با مفاهیم پیچیده و غرق شدن در استدلال ها نمی داند، و حتی این فلسفه ورزی ها را سدّ راه رهایی از رنج می داند. ذن معتقد است که رستگاری را باید زیست، آن هم به زیست شناسانه ترین معنای کلمه. بدون هیچ اندیشه ای، بدون هیچ مقصودی. و گاه حتی برای این که ذهن را هر چه بیشتر از دنبال کردن مفاهیم و مقاصد باز دارد، آیین های زائدی برای هر کار ساده وضع می کند، تا ذهن در لحظه تنها در جریان این آیین های عملی غرق شود و در همین لحظۀ حاضر بماند.
چند وقت پیش با خودم فکر می کردم: کارهایی مثل پیچ سفت کردن در کارخانه، مشابه آن چه چارلی چاپلین در عصر مدرن انجام می داد، به خاطر تکراری بودن و ساده بودن، ذهن را آزاد می گذارند که هر کجا می خواهد بپلکد، هر چند نمی تواند مسیر دوری برود، اما با از این شاخه به آن شاخه پریدن، می تواند از حضور کامل در لحظۀ حاضر اجتناب کند.
در مقابل کارهایی که کمی از پیچ سفت کردن پیچیده ترند اما به همان اندازه بی معنا هستند، می توانند مانع شوند ذهن به هر کجا که خواست برود. چون به خاطر پیچیده بودن مجبور می شود هر لحظه به کاری که دارد انجام می دهد توجه کند و نتواند به طور خودکار آن را سرهم بندی کند.
آن زمان فکر می کردم این کارها غیرانسانی ترند، چون حتی ذهن را از کارگر می گیرند.
اما آیا از دیدگاه ذن، این کارها به مراقبۀ مدّنظر نزدیک تر نیستند؟ تنها ذهنیت درست لازم است تا کارگر بتواند از کار بی معنای خود، مراقبه ای برای رسیدن به بی معنایی حیات بسازد.
۴.
خواندن این کتاب بسیار لذت بخش بود، چون مثل کتاب های دیگر کمتر حالت تحلیلی یا موعظه گونه داشت. در عوض نویسنده خاطرات شخصی خود را تعریف می کرد. هر چند کتاب از صحنه های زیبا پر بود، ولی دو سه صحنه به صورت خاص مرا جذب کردند. یکی وقتی که اویگن هریگل در مسافرت چند روزه اش، به تکنیکی در کمانگیری می رسد که به وسیلۀ آن می تواند بهتر تیراندازی کند. از بس ذهنش به "بهتر تیراندازی کردن" مشغول شده که فراموش کرده او از اول به دنبال ذن بود، نه تیراندازی. و وقتی این تکنیک جدید را در مقابل استاد اجرا می کند، استاد کمان را از او می گیرد و به حالت قهر پشتش را به او می کند. بعداً از طریق یک واسطه به او می گوید که دیگر نمی خواهد به او درس بدهد، چون او خواسته به استاد خود گول بزند.
یکی دیگر وقتی بود که هریگل باورش نمی شد مقصود اصلی از تمرینات تیراندازی رسیدن به اشراق درونی است، و با رسیدن به اشراق درونی، تیراندازی بیرونی هم ارتقا می یابد. و استاد برای این که یک بار برای همیشه این را به او ثابت کند، نیمه شب و تنها با یک شمع، به میدان تیراندازی رفت و در تاریکی محض دو تیر انداخت که اولی در قلب هدف نشست و دومی اولی را شکافت و باز در قلب هدف فرو رفت.
صحنۀ دیگر وقتی بود که استاد وقتی دید نمی تواند بر ناتوانی ها و ضعف ها و اعتماد به نفس پایین هریگل غلبه کند، ناچار رفت کتاب مقدماتی ای از فلسفه خواند تا بتواند طرز فکر هریگل را بفهمد و از همان طریق به او آموزش دهد، اما با نگرانی و نارضایتی کتاب را نیمه کاره کنار گذاشت و گفت: معلوم است که نمی تواند ذن را درک کند، وقتی ذهنش را با این چیزها پر کرده.
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August 17, 2020Second review
Oh, wow. In Britain Spring may well be here and with spring come the lambs new born, which means that Mothering Sunday is upon us and naturally due to my bibilophila what better way of making the solemn day than by giving a book. Ah, you are thinking you gave your Mother Zen in the Art of Archery...how...singular - but of course not - quite how crazy do you think I am? No, I bought her a blood-thirsty murder tale set in the Swedish Arctic full of moss, body parts, snow and police procedure, departing the bookshop well satisfied the feeling arose and condensed in the nether regions of my brain where I don't normally go, that the things we do for entertainment can be a bit strange. I reflected on this to a dear friend and mentioned by way of clarification that what I was reading was perfectly normal the memoir of a Nazi-ish middle aged German professor of his struggle to learn Japanese style archery as a means of understanding Zen in Japan in the 1920s. As I was saying, perfectly normal reading.
Since Herrigal was over forty when he started his archery studies, we can see this a mid-life crisis book - you've heard of buying the motorbike, the sport's car or if you can afford it - a divorce and a disgracefully younger wife, but let us add Archery to the list as an attempt to recapture the illusion of lost youth etc, etc.
About Zen, despite Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind I don't know enough, or maybe actually too much already, to say anything.
But the other thing that I mull upon is that one of the things that is interesting about sport is that beyond the achievement of pure technical capacity, is that it is all psychological. Whatever weird gear they wear one can assume that the sportsperson is technically capable of striking a ball with a peculiarly shaped stick or kicking it or jumping or running or whatever else they do in a consistent and proficient manner, however frequently they don't, which is what gives it such interest as it has, one can't know what it is that takes them out of the zone or the flow, only that it happens.
Eugene Herrigel's mid-life crisis memoir with its flavourings of fascism is about the other side of the performance - not the viewer watching the sport but how a person cultivates a specific form of self unawareness in order to become simply a component part of a whole process in this case the flight of the arrow to the target.
The main point is that it is an exhaustive process, he spends years practising drawing the bow until he holds the tension of the bow not in the muscles but in the breath, after this he is allowed to graduate to releasing the arrow, not shooting properly, but releasing it into a target that is a couple of meters away only when the bow is at maximum tension at which point the arrow must slip free like snow slipping off a banana leaf, until then the fingers grip the arrow as a small child grips an adult's finger until it sees something more attractive to grab. This one can hardly learn in Herrigel's account, one must become convinced of it, but through the experience of the body not the conscious work of the brain. Anyhow years pass, occasionally Herrigel allows a glimmer of frustration to shine through and occasionally his teacher says something like "Der Weg zum Ziel, ist nicht auszumessen, was bedeuten da Wochen, Monate, Jahre?" (p.63), plainly that's true and nobody but Herrigel himself made the commitment to Archery, but he gets to progress to firing at a proper target which is a good distance away, now he has to learn not to be disappointed when he misses, nor to be triumphant when he hits the bull's eye since he is not letting loose the arrow - the arrow fires itself and if that sounds crazy I can only advise you to try it yourself, read the book, or in extremis think about walking and notice how you walk over an uneven surface and how you adapt to it apparently automatically without conscious effort. Anyhow the teacher then says "Sie Koennen ein Bogenmeister werden, auch wenn nicht jeder Schuss trifft" (p.70), which I also find interesting evoking as it does the picture of the great bow master who couldn't hit the proverbial barn door at a dozen paces, presumably though a certain average technical competency is required to be regarded as a master of the bow without others quivering with laughter. The master makes a present of his allegedly best bow to the student when it is time for him after six or so years to return to Germany
One can see in this an episode of the meeting or miscommunication between East and West, specifically that Japan became entranced with it's own medieval marital heritage as a result of exposure to the European Gothic revival - the Japanese liked all the castles and the knights and armour, but felt that the whole Romantic side with long-haired pre-Raphaelite ladies was all a bit soppy and not martial enough -their taste was for fewer Ladies in Lakes and more decapitations.
In which case this book is a German response to a Japanese response to a European fantasy of a mythic past. But that's the nature of cultural history I guess, the dream of having been a butterfly dreaming that one was human more important than what may not have been.
first review
In the 1920s Eugene Herrigel, a university professor of philosophy, took up archery in Japan as a way to get closer to an understanding of Zen. Zen in the Art of Archery, published in 1948, is his entertaining account of the process of learning archery.
The relationship between archery and Zen that Herrigel presents can be criticised on at least three grounds: his archery teachers relationship to Zen, the problem of translation - Herrigel's Japanese was very limited, his translator struggled with the explanations while the teacher did not speak German and Herrigel's own desire for a mystical experience (in particular to achieve a personal understanding of Meister Eckhart's spiritual experiences).
Allowing such doubts then truly this volume is the direct ancestor of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and numerous martial arts films.
Stripped away of archery and Zen we still have a memoir of a forty-year old ex-patriot attempting to learn something intuitive that is being taught to him by an indirect method. It is a story in which years pass before Herrigel is allowed to move on from firing at a target only two meters away, and my phrase completely misses the point. Herrigel spent several years learning what he needed to learn before his teacher considered it was time for him to shot over the normal thirty meter distance. The target in the beginning was not the target, the centre of the target was Herrigel himself. His breathing, stance, relaxation and grip. Once that was in place and he could be a natural counterpart to the long Japanese bow and arrow then the training could be expanded to include the interrelationship with a target thirty meters distant.
As to whether any of this is of interest in understanding Zen, I don't know. However the effort of learning and explaining to the reader the attempt to come to an intuitive feeling for a physical activity is fascinating. The relationship between the teacher and the taught involving; and if as Yamada Shoji argues (The Myth of Zen and the Art of Archery)the archery teacher had no formal insight, background in or knowledge of Zen many of their conversations become inadvertently humorous.
Further there was deep cultural misunderstanding on at least one occasion. Herrigel saw his teacher shoot twice at a target in the dark and was deeply impressed that both hit the centre and even more that the second arrow split the first. This we know from Robin Hood is very good and Herrigel's feel for the event is mystical. In the Japanese archery tradition apparently, at least as it is taught, splitting your arrow is very bad simply because you've ruined your own arrow.
For me from my sadly limited experience of archery the incident is a demonstration of a thoroughly practical nature. If you have a thorough understanding of yourself, your bow and how to shoot, developed over years, standing in an enclosed space opposite the target then why wouldn't you hit the target? At a certain point of self-knowledge your eyes are irrelevant rather as a blind person can negotiate a familiar space without banging in their furniture or bumping into walls.
In another moment that I thought particularly fine when Herrigel shoots well his teacher breaks off the lesson and sends him home - he didn't want Herrigel to be distracted by reversion to the mean.
I am not sure how far Herrigel's accommodation to the NS regime went, he was made Rector of the university of Erlangen during the 30s which suggests he was at the very least regarded as a safe pair of hands. His politics to my mind is a warning that right practise of any kind does not immunize or of itself allow a person to transcend their circumstances. Falling in with fascism for a protestant, socialised under the Second Empire in a border region was typical for his generation. One can suspect that his desire for the mystical left him particularly open to infection.
Anyhow reading this put me in mind of Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno in which he explained his role in the development of the Toyota car manufacturing business. The two for me are linked in an interest in the deeply practical. A feeling for practical issues, perhaps on a very small-scale that have wide implications. Then again both are about teaching something that is alien to the learner, there doesn't seem to be any need to go as far as Herrigel and to repeat D.T. Suzuki's claim that Japanese culture and Zen are deeply interconnected, that the Japanese lifestyle, art, morals and aesthetics sit on a Zen foundation (p.15).
Oh, wow. In Britain Spring may well be here and with spring come the lambs new born, which means that Mothering Sunday is upon us and naturally due to my bibilophila what better way of making the solemn day than by giving a book. Ah, you are thinking you gave your Mother Zen in the Art of Archery...how...singular - but of course not - quite how crazy do you think I am? No, I bought her a blood-thirsty murder tale set in the Swedish Arctic full of moss, body parts, snow and police procedure, departing the bookshop well satisfied the feeling arose and condensed in the nether regions of my brain where I don't normally go, that the things we do for entertainment can be a bit strange. I reflected on this to a dear friend and mentioned by way of clarification that what I was reading was perfectly normal the memoir of a Nazi-ish middle aged German professor of his struggle to learn Japanese style archery as a means of understanding Zen in Japan in the 1920s. As I was saying, perfectly normal reading.
Since Herrigal was over forty when he started his archery studies, we can see this a mid-life crisis book - you've heard of buying the motorbike, the sport's car or if you can afford it - a divorce and a disgracefully younger wife, but let us add Archery to the list as an attempt to recapture the illusion of lost youth etc, etc.
About Zen, despite Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind I don't know enough, or maybe actually too much already, to say anything.
But the other thing that I mull upon is that one of the things that is interesting about sport is that beyond the achievement of pure technical capacity, is that it is all psychological. Whatever weird gear they wear one can assume that the sportsperson is technically capable of striking a ball with a peculiarly shaped stick or kicking it or jumping or running or whatever else they do in a consistent and proficient manner, however frequently they don't, which is what gives it such interest as it has, one can't know what it is that takes them out of the zone or the flow, only that it happens.
Eugene Herrigel's mid-life crisis memoir with its flavourings of fascism is about the other side of the performance - not the viewer watching the sport but how a person cultivates a specific form of self unawareness in order to become simply a component part of a whole process in this case the flight of the arrow to the target.
The main point is that it is an exhaustive process, he spends years practising drawing the bow until he holds the tension of the bow not in the muscles but in the breath, after this he is allowed to graduate to releasing the arrow, not shooting properly, but releasing it into a target that is a couple of meters away only when the bow is at maximum tension at which point the arrow must slip free like snow slipping off a banana leaf, until then the fingers grip the arrow as a small child grips an adult's finger until it sees something more attractive to grab. This one can hardly learn in Herrigel's account, one must become convinced of it, but through the experience of the body not the conscious work of the brain. Anyhow years pass, occasionally Herrigel allows a glimmer of frustration to shine through and occasionally his teacher says something like "Der Weg zum Ziel, ist nicht auszumessen, was bedeuten da Wochen, Monate, Jahre?" (p.63), plainly that's true and nobody but Herrigel himself made the commitment to Archery, but he gets to progress to firing at a proper target which is a good distance away, now he has to learn not to be disappointed when he misses, nor to be triumphant when he hits the bull's eye since he is not letting loose the arrow - the arrow fires itself and if that sounds crazy I can only advise you to try it yourself, read the book, or in extremis think about walking and notice how you walk over an uneven surface and how you adapt to it apparently automatically without conscious effort. Anyhow the teacher then says "Sie Koennen ein Bogenmeister werden, auch wenn nicht jeder Schuss trifft" (p.70), which I also find interesting evoking as it does the picture of the great bow master who couldn't hit the proverbial barn door at a dozen paces, presumably though a certain average technical competency is required to be regarded as a master of the bow without others quivering with laughter. The master makes a present of his allegedly best bow to the student when it is time for him after six or so years to return to Germany
One can see in this an episode of the meeting or miscommunication between East and West, specifically that Japan became entranced with it's own medieval marital heritage as a result of exposure to the European Gothic revival - the Japanese liked all the castles and the knights and armour, but felt that the whole Romantic side with long-haired pre-Raphaelite ladies was all a bit soppy and not martial enough -their taste was for fewer Ladies in Lakes and more decapitations.
In which case this book is a German response to a Japanese response to a European fantasy of a mythic past. But that's the nature of cultural history I guess, the dream of having been a butterfly dreaming that one was human more important than what may not have been.
first review
In the 1920s Eugene Herrigel, a university professor of philosophy, took up archery in Japan as a way to get closer to an understanding of Zen. Zen in the Art of Archery, published in 1948, is his entertaining account of the process of learning archery.
The relationship between archery and Zen that Herrigel presents can be criticised on at least three grounds: his archery teachers relationship to Zen, the problem of translation - Herrigel's Japanese was very limited, his translator struggled with the explanations while the teacher did not speak German and Herrigel's own desire for a mystical experience (in particular to achieve a personal understanding of Meister Eckhart's spiritual experiences).
Allowing such doubts then truly this volume is the direct ancestor of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and numerous martial arts films.
Stripped away of archery and Zen we still have a memoir of a forty-year old ex-patriot attempting to learn something intuitive that is being taught to him by an indirect method. It is a story in which years pass before Herrigel is allowed to move on from firing at a target only two meters away, and my phrase completely misses the point. Herrigel spent several years learning what he needed to learn before his teacher considered it was time for him to shot over the normal thirty meter distance. The target in the beginning was not the target, the centre of the target was Herrigel himself. His breathing, stance, relaxation and grip. Once that was in place and he could be a natural counterpart to the long Japanese bow and arrow then the training could be expanded to include the interrelationship with a target thirty meters distant.
As to whether any of this is of interest in understanding Zen, I don't know. However the effort of learning and explaining to the reader the attempt to come to an intuitive feeling for a physical activity is fascinating. The relationship between the teacher and the taught involving; and if as Yamada Shoji argues (The Myth of Zen and the Art of Archery)the archery teacher had no formal insight, background in or knowledge of Zen many of their conversations become inadvertently humorous.
Further there was deep cultural misunderstanding on at least one occasion. Herrigel saw his teacher shoot twice at a target in the dark and was deeply impressed that both hit the centre and even more that the second arrow split the first. This we know from Robin Hood is very good and Herrigel's feel for the event is mystical. In the Japanese archery tradition apparently, at least as it is taught, splitting your arrow is very bad simply because you've ruined your own arrow.
For me from my sadly limited experience of archery the incident is a demonstration of a thoroughly practical nature. If you have a thorough understanding of yourself, your bow and how to shoot, developed over years, standing in an enclosed space opposite the target then why wouldn't you hit the target? At a certain point of self-knowledge your eyes are irrelevant rather as a blind person can negotiate a familiar space without banging in their furniture or bumping into walls.
In another moment that I thought particularly fine when Herrigel shoots well his teacher breaks off the lesson and sends him home - he didn't want Herrigel to be distracted by reversion to the mean.
I am not sure how far Herrigel's accommodation to the NS regime went, he was made Rector of the university of Erlangen during the 30s which suggests he was at the very least regarded as a safe pair of hands. His politics to my mind is a warning that right practise of any kind does not immunize or of itself allow a person to transcend their circumstances. Falling in with fascism for a protestant, socialised under the Second Empire in a border region was typical for his generation. One can suspect that his desire for the mystical left him particularly open to infection.
Anyhow reading this put me in mind of Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno in which he explained his role in the development of the Toyota car manufacturing business. The two for me are linked in an interest in the deeply practical. A feeling for practical issues, perhaps on a very small-scale that have wide implications. Then again both are about teaching something that is alien to the learner, there doesn't seem to be any need to go as far as Herrigel and to repeat D.T. Suzuki's claim that Japanese culture and Zen are deeply interconnected, that the Japanese lifestyle, art, morals and aesthetics sit on a Zen foundation (p.15).
March 23, 2009
A painless book to read. I'm just not into the Zen thing. Reading this book made me realize that I never will be this type of person, I couldn't go through with the ssssssslllllllooooooooowwwwwwwww process of learning each step of something to perfection. I'm sure I'd be a better person if I could just be in this way, but I never will, just like I will never be an Astronaut or a Fireman, and that's okey dokey because the world needs anxiously high-strung neurotic people just as much as they need tranquil calm folks.
July 5, 2024
One of the best martial-arts books I have ever read. Eugen Herrigel is a German professor teaching in Japan during the period between WWI and WWII. When he decides to learn Kyudo (Japanese archery) he finds that he must abandon all the analytical skills he has utilized to solve problems; his teacher (Awa Kenzo) tells him the more he tries to hit the target the more he will fail! What follows is a deeply personalized journey of self discovery that is also very relatable. If you know someone starting on their own martial-arts journey this is a gift they will treasure. Highest recommendation.
April 6, 2018
Il pub e i tiri con le freccette
Dopo quattro -sottolineo QUATTRO- anni di esercizio quotidiano a tendere la corda, l’allievo tedesco si rivolge al Sensei nipponico
Questo mi spinse a chiedere al Maestro perché non ci avesse ancora spiegato come si mira. Ci deve pure essere, supponevo, un rapporto tra bersaglio e punta della freccia, e così un modo di mirare che renda possibile far centro. «Naturalmente c'è,» rispose il Maestro «e lei potrà trovare facilmente da sé l'impostatura adatta. Ma se anche poi ogni suo tiro colpisce il bersaglio lei non sarebbe che un virtuoso dell'arco, che può esibirsi. Per l'ambizioso, che conta quante volte fa centro, il bersaglio non è che un povero pezzo di carta che egli fa a pezzi.
La mia condizione di occidentale etilico mal si coniuga con la pazienza orientale. La filosofia Zen mi infastidisce, ma da sempre mi attrae. L’alcool è la sostanza più incompatibile con questo tipo di filosofia, è una scorciatoia dannosa ed inutile che ad Oriente disprezzano. Ammiro l’applicazione ferrea del Maestro e la fedeltà canina dell’allievo, ma allo stesso tempo mi chiedo: se tiri la corda per quattro anni, non è che alla fine la corda si strappa? Se occorrono quattro anni per passare alla fase successiva in cui finalmente si prende la mira, quanti ne occorrono per arrivare all’ultimo grado della maestria, alla meta, al budda, alla pace dei sensi? Talvolta mi verrebbe da pensare che gli orientali si sentano immortali, oppure che passino tutta la vita a combattere la paura di morire e nei casi più favorevoli, una volta che ci sono riusciti, muoiano. Se chiedessi ad uno dei maestri che senso abbia passare la vita a cercare di colpire il proprio bersaglio interno mentre se ne mira uno di carta, potrebbe ribattere e invece il senso di 2 pinte di birra (+2 +2 +2.. con il passar di settimane, mesi, anni)?. Io sto sul confine fra serio e faceto, ma Eugen Herrigel era un professore di filosofia, uno seriamente interessato ad avvicinarsi allo Zen non speculativo, che prese lezioni d’arco quando venne a sapere che i maestri di questa disciplina avrebbero potuto introdurlo allo Zen “applicato”.
Soltanto quando gli assicurai solennemente che un maestro che prendeva tanto sul serio il suo compito avrebbe potuto trattarmi come il suo più giovane allievo, perché volevo apprendere quell'arte non per divertimento ma per amore della 'Grande Dottrina', mi accettò come allievo…
Tanto distante da noi, quanto affascinante in alcuni passaggi. E’ un libro breve che si legge in poche ore, si percepisce che abbia un senso ma ci si sente pigri ed impazienti per scoprirlo. Scusate mi suona il telefono…
-Ohilà Dragone! Al pub stasera..? Certo che sì!
-Ok..! Freccette alcoliche dopo il secondo giro, chi perde paga il terzo..
Dopo quattro -sottolineo QUATTRO- anni di esercizio quotidiano a tendere la corda, l’allievo tedesco si rivolge al Sensei nipponico
Questo mi spinse a chiedere al Maestro perché non ci avesse ancora spiegato come si mira. Ci deve pure essere, supponevo, un rapporto tra bersaglio e punta della freccia, e così un modo di mirare che renda possibile far centro. «Naturalmente c'è,» rispose il Maestro «e lei potrà trovare facilmente da sé l'impostatura adatta. Ma se anche poi ogni suo tiro colpisce il bersaglio lei non sarebbe che un virtuoso dell'arco, che può esibirsi. Per l'ambizioso, che conta quante volte fa centro, il bersaglio non è che un povero pezzo di carta che egli fa a pezzi.
La mia condizione di occidentale etilico mal si coniuga con la pazienza orientale. La filosofia Zen mi infastidisce, ma da sempre mi attrae. L’alcool è la sostanza più incompatibile con questo tipo di filosofia, è una scorciatoia dannosa ed inutile che ad Oriente disprezzano. Ammiro l’applicazione ferrea del Maestro e la fedeltà canina dell’allievo, ma allo stesso tempo mi chiedo: se tiri la corda per quattro anni, non è che alla fine la corda si strappa? Se occorrono quattro anni per passare alla fase successiva in cui finalmente si prende la mira, quanti ne occorrono per arrivare all’ultimo grado della maestria, alla meta, al budda, alla pace dei sensi? Talvolta mi verrebbe da pensare che gli orientali si sentano immortali, oppure che passino tutta la vita a combattere la paura di morire e nei casi più favorevoli, una volta che ci sono riusciti, muoiano. Se chiedessi ad uno dei maestri che senso abbia passare la vita a cercare di colpire il proprio bersaglio interno mentre se ne mira uno di carta, potrebbe ribattere e invece il senso di 2 pinte di birra (+2 +2 +2.. con il passar di settimane, mesi, anni)?. Io sto sul confine fra serio e faceto, ma Eugen Herrigel era un professore di filosofia, uno seriamente interessato ad avvicinarsi allo Zen non speculativo, che prese lezioni d’arco quando venne a sapere che i maestri di questa disciplina avrebbero potuto introdurlo allo Zen “applicato”.
Soltanto quando gli assicurai solennemente che un maestro che prendeva tanto sul serio il suo compito avrebbe potuto trattarmi come il suo più giovane allievo, perché volevo apprendere quell'arte non per divertimento ma per amore della 'Grande Dottrina', mi accettò come allievo…
Tanto distante da noi, quanto affascinante in alcuni passaggi. E’ un libro breve che si legge in poche ore, si percepisce che abbia un senso ma ci si sente pigri ed impazienti per scoprirlo. Scusate mi suona il telefono…
-Ohilà Dragone! Al pub stasera..? Certo che sì!
-Ok..! Freccette alcoliche dopo il secondo giro, chi perde paga il terzo..
February 4, 2014
Many persons had recommended this little book over the years of high school and college, it being one of the canon of the counterculture like the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, the meditations of Alan Watts or the more scholarly essays of D.T. Suzuki. I resisted, partly because it was so popular, another herd-phenomenon, and partly because it was about archery of all things. But, seeing the thing and how short it was, I finally sat down and read the thing.
I'd read quite a bit about Zen Buddhism by this time, including the apparently much-contested representations of it by the aforementioned Watts and Suzuki, so the general idea was clear enough. Although archery is the instance, the point is to focus the mind/body on the matter at hand and not to be distracted by extraneous concerns. Since I spent (and spend) altogether too much time gnawing over the past or imagined futures, the attitude represented was therapeutic.
I'd read quite a bit about Zen Buddhism by this time, including the apparently much-contested representations of it by the aforementioned Watts and Suzuki, so the general idea was clear enough. Although archery is the instance, the point is to focus the mind/body on the matter at hand and not to be distracted by extraneous concerns. Since I spent (and spend) altogether too much time gnawing over the past or imagined futures, the attitude represented was therapeutic.
March 10, 2011
Whenever I take on a new task or start studying something new, I find that this is my "go to" book. More than Zen, it is a book about how being slow and disciplined allows one to master technique. It was assigned to me first as a textbook for art class. The idea is not to just pick up paints/charcoal/pencil and draw, but to become the the art so that it grows out of one's Unconscious.
You dont have to be a student of kyudo to get this book. It's applications as many as there are things in one's life that they wish to master.
Note: I cant imagine that this book would bode well for Westerners who have issues regarding instant gratification.
You dont have to be a student of kyudo to get this book. It's applications as many as there are things in one's life that they wish to master.
Note: I cant imagine that this book would bode well for Westerners who have issues regarding instant gratification.
November 10, 2025
Uit de serie: westerling vertelt uit eigen ervaring hoe hij zich in Japan heeft bekwaamd in de Weg (道) en zodoende begrip heeft verworven van het zen-boeddhisme. Maar als zodanig is het een van de vroegste en toegankelijkste voorbeelden. Het is mooi beschreven hoe de auteur aanvankelijk belemmerd wordt door zijn rationaliteit tot hij uit verveling en frustratie stopt met nadenken, hetgeen precies het doel was. De auteur is in opspraak geraakt door zijn nazisympathieën, maar daarvan vertoont dit kleine boekje gelukkig geen enkel spoor.
May 2, 2025
About halfway through Zen in the Art of Archery, I became confused. Herrigel's conception of Zen as a practice where one loses oneself and gains mastery of a specific art through surrender seemed at odds with the other Zen works I had studied, most of which emphasized mindfulness as opposed to the habituation that Herrigel endorsed. I did some additional investigation (which in the 2013 means consulting Wikipedia) and found a fine article by Yamada Shoji that contextualized Herrigel's experience in writing the book. In brief, Shoji maintains that Herrigel's concept of Zen was not in line with how most adherents would have understood that body of thought, that the teachers Herrigel and his wife sought out were very atypical for their time and place, and as such, many of the concepts in Zen in the Art of Archery are not representative of Zen practice. In finishing the book, I came to agree with Shoji. Though Herrigel does draw on traditional Zen in emphasizing the breath control typical of Zen meditation, as well as aspects of Zen unattachment, this is ultimately not a satisfying book for Zen seekers, and is useful more as an artifact of interwar German Orientalism than a book of actual Zen practice.
If you are looking for comparable texts that may be more relevant, I would recommend Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thích Nhất Hạnh.
If you are looking for comparable texts that may be more relevant, I would recommend Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thích Nhất Hạnh.
May 18, 2019
سادهخوان بود و روان، خصوصا نسبت به کتاب «روش ذن» هریگل که در همون شروعش به مشکل خوردم.
*
حالا که یک سالی از خوندنش گذشته و مقداری مطالعهٔ دیگه هم داشتم، فکر میکنم باید ارزیابیم رو مقداری عوض کنم. به نظرم ضعف اساسی کتاب در نشان ندادن نقطهٔ تمایز این شیوهٔ تمرین با تفکر شاخههای اصلیتر و مورد وثوقتر ذن باشه.
اینکه هنر آگاهی و مراقبه در هر فعالیتی خودش رو میتونه نشون بده، صحبت بسیاری مکاتب دیگه هم هست (و من هم با تجربهٔ کمی که پیدا کردم، میتونم بگم تا حدی درک میکنم این گزاره رو)، ولی برداشت شخصی هریگل و حتی استادش تا حدی برام جای سوال داره
بابت همین، فکر میکنم نویسنده، باید در طی این کتاب، مرز بین اون چیزی که خودش ذن و تمرین ذن نامیده، و مکاتب دیگر ذن رو تا حدی ترسیم میکرد.
من اگر نظریهٔ جدیدی داشته باشم، مثلا در فیزیکِ مکانیک، نباید صرفا بیام نظریهٔ خودم رو شرح بدم و اون رو به اسم فیزیک به مخاطبم بقبولانم، بدون اینکه حداقل آدرسی بدم، اشارهای کنم که دیگرانی هم هستند که به این مجموعهٔ دلایل، حرف دیگری هم دارند
این روزها، فکر میکنم اگر چنین کاری نکنیم، ۲ حالت داره:
یا اونقدر خودمون رو دانش مطلق دانستهایم که اساسا نیازی نمیبینیم به حاشیههای فرعی اشارهای کنیم (خودمون رو مرجع اون حوزه دانستهایم) یا بنا به دلایلی دیگه اون کار رو نکردیم. بین اون دلیل دیگه، مطالعه و بررسی ضعیف، خوشبینانهترین دلیله
*
حالا که یک سالی از خوندنش گذشته و مقداری مطالعهٔ دیگه هم داشتم، فکر میکنم باید ارزیابیم رو مقداری عوض کنم. به نظرم ضعف اساسی کتاب در نشان ندادن نقطهٔ تمایز این شیوهٔ تمرین با تفکر شاخههای اصلیتر و مورد وثوقتر ذن باشه.
اینکه هنر آگاهی و مراقبه در هر فعالیتی خودش رو میتونه نشون بده، صحبت بسیاری مکاتب دیگه هم هست (و من هم با تجربهٔ کمی که پیدا کردم، میتونم بگم تا حدی درک میکنم این گزاره رو)، ولی برداشت شخصی هریگل و حتی استادش تا حدی برام جای سوال داره
بابت همین، فکر میکنم نویسنده، باید در طی این کتاب، مرز بین اون چیزی که خودش ذن و تمرین ذن نامیده، و مکاتب دیگر ذن رو تا حدی ترسیم میکرد.
من اگر نظریهٔ جدیدی داشته باشم، مثلا در فیزیکِ مکانیک، نباید صرفا بیام نظریهٔ خودم رو شرح بدم و اون رو به اسم فیزیک به مخاطبم بقبولانم، بدون اینکه حداقل آدرسی بدم، اشارهای کنم که دیگرانی هم هستند که به این مجموعهٔ دلایل، حرف دیگری هم دارند
این روزها، فکر میکنم اگر چنین کاری نکنیم، ۲ حالت داره:
یا اونقدر خودمون رو دانش مطلق دانستهایم که اساسا نیازی نمیبینیم به حاشیههای فرعی اشارهای کنیم (خودمون رو مرجع اون حوزه دانستهایم) یا بنا به دلایلی دیگه اون کار رو نکردیم. بین اون دلیل دیگه، مطالعه و بررسی ضعیف، خوشبینانهترین دلیله
May 24, 2013
Ever since my early college days the abstraction apparatus known as western culture seemed to me a useful but essentially flawed way of understanding our place in the world. Zen, when I first met it, seemed to validate Rimbaud´s "derrangement of the senses" and Blake's "path of excess" procedures. It gave a method, albeit a strange, incomprehensible one, to mysticism propounded by western artists. It would seem from Herrigel's book, that there is no one path to Zen and the absolute: archery will do as good as any other discipline. Archery, however, like swordsmanship are great metaphores for our culture, though. I think archery will do just fine as an art, and it relates deeply to the goals of writing.
January 27, 2017
Maybe it would have helped if I had at least once picked up a genuine bow and arrow (I'm sure I had play ones as a kid... you know, with the suction cups as "points"). Or maybe if I read a little more patiently about breathing, "not being," "not shooting," and all that Zen stuff. It just occurred to me, as I read, that I need a master, too. Reading about Zen doesn't translate so well. I need to breathe. Mindful inhale. Mindful exhale. And not fear death. (I'll get to that someday, after I die, but for now I'm allowing him healthy respect.) If you're into it, try it. Maybe you will be a better student of this tale of a western student who struggles under a Japanese master but overcomes to become William Tell San.
June 11, 2020
"Başlangıçta işini hafife alan öğrenci, daha sonra o oranda büyük zorluklara maruz kalır."
⭐
⭐
March 21, 2017
This book is what The Inner Game of Tennis would have been if it were much shorter, less repetitive, more interesting, harder to read, and told through the vehicle of one person's path to mastery of their craft. With regards to that book, this one is superior in pretty much every way, almost the point where I am embarrassed to have read Inner Game first.
I picked up this book on recommendation from a friend, and I was interested in how I would think of it since as a general rule I love works about mastery and usually dislike works about mysticism. To put it bluntly, I was initially much more interested in the Archery than I was in the Zen, and was at least tangentially curious on how these seemingly completely unrelated disciplines would intersect.
But after reading it, I would almost hesitate to say this book, or even really Zen as Herrigel describes it, contains much mysticism at all. Despite some of the language in this book being reverent on the unknowable, I think a lot of it might perhaps be better described as the unconscious. Herrigel's journey to mastery over the art of archery is one characterized by progressively growing more skilled at losing himself in the skill, in dissolving into the actions he's performing to the point where it's almost like he isn't doing anything at all. His master stresses this over and over - that any technical training available to Herrigel pales in comparison to the long-term gain that comes from abandoning himself to the skill.
"I learned to lose myself so effortlessly in the breathing that I sometimes had the feeling that I myself was not breathing but, strange as this may sound, was being breathed"
"In the end, the pupil no longer knows which of the two, mind or hand, was responsible for the work"
This flow state, where you aren't thinking but simply doing, in conscious thought as if doing for the first time, with the training and practice doing all the heavy lifting, is the skill that Herrigel develops in his many years exploring this art. This too, is where Archery finds it's intersection with Zen - in the cultivation of a detached, egoless state; to think without thinking, to understand without understanding, to fire an arrow without firing it. These aren't riddles, although they seem like it at first glance. It's shockingly literal - you, as in, your conscious mind are pretty much doing nothing. The arrow fires when it is time for it to be fired, and your meddling with the biomechanics will only serve to get in the way (example: try thinking about every single muscle movement you make while shooting a basketball and then try shooting a basketball - you'll do horribly.)
"What must I do, then?" I asked thoughtfully.
"You must learn to wait properly."
"And how does one learn that?"
"By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension."
"So I must become purposeless on purpose?" I heard myself say.
"No pupil has ever asked me that, so I don't know the right answer."
"And when do we begin these new exercises?"
"Wait until it is time."
The thing I really appreciated about this short book was how demystifying it was about Zen and how real it was about mastery. Herrigel spends years on archery, hitting plateau after plateau, putting a monumental amount of work into it. You can feel his frustration every time he hits a wall, how much effort that he puts into breaking past these walls, his satisfaction upon finally getting it, his confusion over what his master is asking of him, and the underlying struggle of wrapping his head around detachment. This format holds a huge advantage over something like Inner Game precisely because we can try feel what he feels, struggle when he struggles, and ultimately realize that we just can't do it unless we ourselves train.
The book offers some surprisingly practical advice on achieving mastery, which I think is safely generalizable to most skills. Near the end, he briefly explores swordplay through the same lens which also had a great deal of interesting ideas in it. Some of my favorite quotes from a practical perspective are below.
"'What are you thinking of? You know already that you should not grieve over bad shots; learn now not to rejoice over the good ones. You must free yourself from the buffetings of pleasure and pain, and learn to rise above them in easy equanimity, to rejoice as though not you but another had shot well. This, too, you must practice unceasingly. You cannot conceive how important it is."
"You must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real, and that is archery!"
"let's stop talking about it and go on practicing."
"The meditative repose in which he performs them gives him that vital loosening and equability of all his powers, that collectedness and presence of mind, without which no right work can be done"
"Bow, arrow, goal and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously simple..."
"now at last, the bowstring has cut right through you."
"I must only warn you of one thing. You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the art of archery means: a profound and far-reaching contest of the archer within himself."
"The more he tries to make the brilliance of his swordplay dependent on his own reflection, on the conscious utilization of his skill, on his fighting experience and tactics, the more he inhibits the free 'working of the heart'"
"This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose. And that is a great gain."
"Like the beginner, the swordmaster is fearless, but, unlike him, he grows daily less and less accessible to fear."
Overall a phenomenal read - i'd like to give it a 4.5/5 but since goodreads won't let me do that I'll round up to 5. Highly recommended.
I picked up this book on recommendation from a friend, and I was interested in how I would think of it since as a general rule I love works about mastery and usually dislike works about mysticism. To put it bluntly, I was initially much more interested in the Archery than I was in the Zen, and was at least tangentially curious on how these seemingly completely unrelated disciplines would intersect.
But after reading it, I would almost hesitate to say this book, or even really Zen as Herrigel describes it, contains much mysticism at all. Despite some of the language in this book being reverent on the unknowable, I think a lot of it might perhaps be better described as the unconscious. Herrigel's journey to mastery over the art of archery is one characterized by progressively growing more skilled at losing himself in the skill, in dissolving into the actions he's performing to the point where it's almost like he isn't doing anything at all. His master stresses this over and over - that any technical training available to Herrigel pales in comparison to the long-term gain that comes from abandoning himself to the skill.
"I learned to lose myself so effortlessly in the breathing that I sometimes had the feeling that I myself was not breathing but, strange as this may sound, was being breathed"
"In the end, the pupil no longer knows which of the two, mind or hand, was responsible for the work"
This flow state, where you aren't thinking but simply doing, in conscious thought as if doing for the first time, with the training and practice doing all the heavy lifting, is the skill that Herrigel develops in his many years exploring this art. This too, is where Archery finds it's intersection with Zen - in the cultivation of a detached, egoless state; to think without thinking, to understand without understanding, to fire an arrow without firing it. These aren't riddles, although they seem like it at first glance. It's shockingly literal - you, as in, your conscious mind are pretty much doing nothing. The arrow fires when it is time for it to be fired, and your meddling with the biomechanics will only serve to get in the way (example: try thinking about every single muscle movement you make while shooting a basketball and then try shooting a basketball - you'll do horribly.)
"What must I do, then?" I asked thoughtfully.
"You must learn to wait properly."
"And how does one learn that?"
"By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension."
"So I must become purposeless on purpose?" I heard myself say.
"No pupil has ever asked me that, so I don't know the right answer."
"And when do we begin these new exercises?"
"Wait until it is time."
The thing I really appreciated about this short book was how demystifying it was about Zen and how real it was about mastery. Herrigel spends years on archery, hitting plateau after plateau, putting a monumental amount of work into it. You can feel his frustration every time he hits a wall, how much effort that he puts into breaking past these walls, his satisfaction upon finally getting it, his confusion over what his master is asking of him, and the underlying struggle of wrapping his head around detachment. This format holds a huge advantage over something like Inner Game precisely because we can try feel what he feels, struggle when he struggles, and ultimately realize that we just can't do it unless we ourselves train.
The book offers some surprisingly practical advice on achieving mastery, which I think is safely generalizable to most skills. Near the end, he briefly explores swordplay through the same lens which also had a great deal of interesting ideas in it. Some of my favorite quotes from a practical perspective are below.
"'What are you thinking of? You know already that you should not grieve over bad shots; learn now not to rejoice over the good ones. You must free yourself from the buffetings of pleasure and pain, and learn to rise above them in easy equanimity, to rejoice as though not you but another had shot well. This, too, you must practice unceasingly. You cannot conceive how important it is."
"You must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real, and that is archery!"
"let's stop talking about it and go on practicing."
"The meditative repose in which he performs them gives him that vital loosening and equability of all his powers, that collectedness and presence of mind, without which no right work can be done"
"Bow, arrow, goal and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straightforward and so ridiculously simple..."
"now at last, the bowstring has cut right through you."
"I must only warn you of one thing. You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the art of archery means: a profound and far-reaching contest of the archer within himself."
"The more he tries to make the brilliance of his swordplay dependent on his own reflection, on the conscious utilization of his skill, on his fighting experience and tactics, the more he inhibits the free 'working of the heart'"
"This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose. And that is a great gain."
"Like the beginner, the swordmaster is fearless, but, unlike him, he grows daily less and less accessible to fear."
Overall a phenomenal read - i'd like to give it a 4.5/5 but since goodreads won't let me do that I'll round up to 5. Highly recommended.
December 22, 2017
Books with Master and Pupil theme always work for me. I can hear all the variations of this myth and enjoy them. Again and again.
Yet, this book didn't work for me.
I failed to see a genuine learning in the voice of the author. It was almost caricaturish. Lately I have also become very sensitive to cultural appropriation, and I no longer enjoy reading books on Yog that are written by someone who can't read Sanskrit, or a book on Zen by someone who doesn't understand Japanese language.
Essence or what the author calls "It" in this book, is in roots.
Let the people from a culture tell their stories.
Let root be watered, and not fruits.
Please for heaven's sake, stop going to India, China, or Japan, learn a craft (or about a culture), and come back to Western countries to share the 'knowledge.'
If people born and raised in western countries truly want to bridge the cultural gape, they should create platform for indigenous people to tell the stories of their art and culture.
Yet, this book didn't work for me.
I failed to see a genuine learning in the voice of the author. It was almost caricaturish. Lately I have also become very sensitive to cultural appropriation, and I no longer enjoy reading books on Yog that are written by someone who can't read Sanskrit, or a book on Zen by someone who doesn't understand Japanese language.
Essence or what the author calls "It" in this book, is in roots.
Let the people from a culture tell their stories.
Let root be watered, and not fruits.
Please for heaven's sake, stop going to India, China, or Japan, learn a craft (or about a culture), and come back to Western countries to share the 'knowledge.'
If people born and raised in western countries truly want to bridge the cultural gape, they should create platform for indigenous people to tell the stories of their art and culture.
January 24, 2010
I was surprised that I enjoyed this book fairly well. My dad -- who believes that I am an incorrigible materialist, simply because he has wacky pseudo-scientific ideas about quantum mechanics that I am constantly forced to rebut -- sneaked this into my bag when I left after Christmas vacation. But I was having trouble finding something to read last night and I picked it up and was done before I knew it.
It's really not as much la-la and hand-waving as I anticipated. I did cringe every time Herrigel refers to being something and not-something, or focusing and not-focusing, or the Karate-kid mumbo jumbo of 'not hitting the target, but hitting oneself become one with the target' kind of thing. Or "I found I was not breathing, but being breathed." But the Eastern mysticism aside, it is altogether a rewarding meditation on concentration, focus, and dedication to a task.
It's really not as much la-la and hand-waving as I anticipated. I did cringe every time Herrigel refers to being something and not-something, or focusing and not-focusing, or the Karate-kid mumbo jumbo of 'not hitting the target, but hitting oneself become one with the target' kind of thing. Or "I found I was not breathing, but being breathed." But the Eastern mysticism aside, it is altogether a rewarding meditation on concentration, focus, and dedication to a task.
July 8, 2009
I read this book either immediately before or immediately after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I liked this book very much. The concept of relaxed attention was interesting to me. I remember that for the whole semester after reading this, I would hold books and papers and bags with the minimal amount of force needed to keep them from falling out of my hands, just like the archer should hold the bowstring with the minimal amount of force, waiting for the moment of effortless release.
December 10, 2019
This book comes highly recommended by personages as disparate as Mike Tyson and Norman Mailer (actually, Tyson and Mailer might not be all that different). Wary of Western appropriations of Eastern arts and mysteries, I put off reading this book for some time.
And now that it has been read ...I'm frankly at a loss for words. But, since a review is a collection of words, I should at least try to say something. Here goes: It is very rare that a book or story functions perfectly at the literal level and at the metaphoric. Even rarer is for something to be at once practical and spiritual. "Zen in the Art of Archery," though, rightfully has its place in the canon of such rarefied and concise works of spiritual literature.
It describes the journey, physical, spiritual, and intellectual, of a man named Eugen Herrigel, a German philosopher who traveled to Japan initially to teach with his wife, and then set out on a multi-year course in Kyūdō, the Japanese martial art of archery. His days consist of training with the bow and arrow, cursing his poor luck as he tries to seat the arrow in the nock and fire to the heart of the target true.
His trainer, referred to mostly (or maybe solely) throughout the text as Master, has dialogues with his pupil, answers some of his questions straightforwardly, others in epigrammatic quips pitched somewhere between haiku and drollery. The author, Herr Herrigel, grows in proficiency in the bow, gaining strength, insight, and humility, meditating on everything from death to the elusive and ineffable nature of perfection and the essence of Zen.
The book is is only a hundred pages are so, but brims with more knowledge than some libraries. It is, like the course of instruction it describes, the kind of work from which one gets out what they put in. If you want a couple hours' worth of fascinating and clear insight to unfurl before your eyes as two men talk to each other, this is a pretty good book. If you want to leave the world behind, retreat to an ashram or a cave for a few decades and ponder the mysteries of the universe, this is one of the books worth packing. Even if you pack light. Highest recommendation.
And now that it has been read ...I'm frankly at a loss for words. But, since a review is a collection of words, I should at least try to say something. Here goes: It is very rare that a book or story functions perfectly at the literal level and at the metaphoric. Even rarer is for something to be at once practical and spiritual. "Zen in the Art of Archery," though, rightfully has its place in the canon of such rarefied and concise works of spiritual literature.
It describes the journey, physical, spiritual, and intellectual, of a man named Eugen Herrigel, a German philosopher who traveled to Japan initially to teach with his wife, and then set out on a multi-year course in Kyūdō, the Japanese martial art of archery. His days consist of training with the bow and arrow, cursing his poor luck as he tries to seat the arrow in the nock and fire to the heart of the target true.
His trainer, referred to mostly (or maybe solely) throughout the text as Master, has dialogues with his pupil, answers some of his questions straightforwardly, others in epigrammatic quips pitched somewhere between haiku and drollery. The author, Herr Herrigel, grows in proficiency in the bow, gaining strength, insight, and humility, meditating on everything from death to the elusive and ineffable nature of perfection and the essence of Zen.
The book is is only a hundred pages are so, but brims with more knowledge than some libraries. It is, like the course of instruction it describes, the kind of work from which one gets out what they put in. If you want a couple hours' worth of fascinating and clear insight to unfurl before your eyes as two men talk to each other, this is a pretty good book. If you want to leave the world behind, retreat to an ashram or a cave for a few decades and ponder the mysteries of the universe, this is one of the books worth packing. Even if you pack light. Highest recommendation.
April 14, 2017
I can't say I liked this one very much. I know it did have certain power when it was originally published. For example it may be worth pointing out how influential the title has been. Do you see any resemblance with the titles of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values and Zen in the Art of Writing? It was one of the earlier books to introduce zen to the west.
It is autobiographical in nature. The German professor Eugen Herrigel was interested in the occult, (as I think it is put in the book,) and when he got a change to move to Japan he jumped at it so he could learn more about zen buddhism. In Japan he started to learn archery under the master Awa Kenzô. Herrigel stayed in Japan from 1924 to 1929, and the book covers this period, mostly focusing on the time with Kenzô.
It just didn't teach me much about archery, nor zen to be honest. If you know nothing about either of those two subjects, you'll probably get more of an idea about zen than archery, but I still don't think it is among the more interesting books on the subject. Still it was an okay read. It was mostly the relationship between the two men that I felt was interesting.
It is autobiographical in nature. The German professor Eugen Herrigel was interested in the occult, (as I think it is put in the book,) and when he got a change to move to Japan he jumped at it so he could learn more about zen buddhism. In Japan he started to learn archery under the master Awa Kenzô. Herrigel stayed in Japan from 1924 to 1929, and the book covers this period, mostly focusing on the time with Kenzô.
It just didn't teach me much about archery, nor zen to be honest. If you know nothing about either of those two subjects, you'll probably get more of an idea about zen than archery, but I still don't think it is among the more interesting books on the subject. Still it was an okay read. It was mostly the relationship between the two men that I felt was interesting.
July 9, 2023
Una pequeña joya literaria que va más allá de la apariencia inicial de autoayuda y nos sumerge en la superficie de la filosofía del Zen de una manera práctica y fascinante.
Me gustó que no habla de “pasos a realizar” sino de la experiencia del autor, nos muestra cómo la práctica del tiro con arco se convirtió en una forma de meditación y de conexión con el universo.
No cae en lo fácil de ofrecer soluciones fáciles ni frases vacías, sino que, a través de la descripción detallada de cada movimiento y de cada sensación durante el acto de disparar una flecha, el autor nos muestra cómo el Zen puede estar presente en cada momento de nuestra vida.
La prosa es poética y evocadora, y nos transporta a un mundo de tranquilidad y armonía pero lleno de trabajo y disciplina. Es una invitación a contemplar la belleza de la naturaleza y a conectarnos con nuestro ser. Es un libro que no solo se lee, sino que se saborea y se vive.
Me gustó que no habla de “pasos a realizar” sino de la experiencia del autor, nos muestra cómo la práctica del tiro con arco se convirtió en una forma de meditación y de conexión con el universo.
No cae en lo fácil de ofrecer soluciones fáciles ni frases vacías, sino que, a través de la descripción detallada de cada movimiento y de cada sensación durante el acto de disparar una flecha, el autor nos muestra cómo el Zen puede estar presente en cada momento de nuestra vida.
La prosa es poética y evocadora, y nos transporta a un mundo de tranquilidad y armonía pero lleno de trabajo y disciplina. Es una invitación a contemplar la belleza de la naturaleza y a conectarnos con nuestro ser. Es un libro que no solo se lee, sino que se saborea y se vive.
April 12, 2022
Questo libro mi è stato suggerito per la prima volta con grande entusiasmo una decina d'anni fa da un amico, e trovandolo di recente a buon prezzo in perfette condizioni non ho esitato ad acquistarlo. Caso vuole che abbia poi incontrato nuovamente lo stesso amico e riconoscendo il volume nella sua biblioteca gli abbia chiesto di nuovo un parere. Non ricordava nulla del suo contenuto. Ad ogni modo veniva citato ne L'arte di amare che ho appena concluso, quindi si è inserito bene nel mio attuale flusso di letture.
Il libro è breve, schematico e gradevole. L'autore è un attento osservatore, riflessivo e meticoloso. Non penso si possa chiedere di meglio come narratore di un'esperienza di apprendimento. La parte più ostica rimane il tema. Lo Zen. La mia conclusione è che il tentativo di esprimere a parole un concetto astratto sia inevitabilmente destinato al fallimento a meno che l'audience non lo abbia già sperimentato personalmente. Lo Zen per quanto mi riguarda ricade nella vasta gamma degli stati d'animo, di percezione, coscienza ed affini. È possibile forse descrivere la tristezza a chi non l'abbia mai provata? Quindi, nonostante la bravura dell'autore, forse bisogna accettare il fatto che non tutto si possa apprendere dai libri. Mi viene da dire peraltro che non ci aspetteremmo nemmeno di imparare a nuotare grazie ad un manuale, quindi questa situazione non dovrebbe risultarci così anomala.
Aggiungo, come mi ha fatto notare un altro amico che l'ha letto nel mio stesso periodo, che l'autore non ci dice nulla di sé e dello Zen dopo la conclusione del suo apprendimento. Questa è forse l'unica accusa che mi sento di muovergli. Nel libro ci viene raccontata l'esperienza come se avesse effetti stravolgenti sull'esistenza umana. Non era forse fondamentale descrivere come e se è mutata la sua vita successivamente ad essa?
Per chiudere, questo volumetto è così rapido e ben fatto che suppongo sia un'ottima lettura per chiunque abbia interesse o quantomeno curiosità nello Zen. Dubito però da solo sarà sufficiente a condurvi all'Illuminazione. Qualunque cosa essa sia.
Il libro è breve, schematico e gradevole. L'autore è un attento osservatore, riflessivo e meticoloso. Non penso si possa chiedere di meglio come narratore di un'esperienza di apprendimento. La parte più ostica rimane il tema. Lo Zen. La mia conclusione è che il tentativo di esprimere a parole un concetto astratto sia inevitabilmente destinato al fallimento a meno che l'audience non lo abbia già sperimentato personalmente. Lo Zen per quanto mi riguarda ricade nella vasta gamma degli stati d'animo, di percezione, coscienza ed affini. È possibile forse descrivere la tristezza a chi non l'abbia mai provata? Quindi, nonostante la bravura dell'autore, forse bisogna accettare il fatto che non tutto si possa apprendere dai libri. Mi viene da dire peraltro che non ci aspetteremmo nemmeno di imparare a nuotare grazie ad un manuale, quindi questa situazione non dovrebbe risultarci così anomala.
Aggiungo, come mi ha fatto notare un altro amico che l'ha letto nel mio stesso periodo, che l'autore non ci dice nulla di sé e dello Zen dopo la conclusione del suo apprendimento. Questa è forse l'unica accusa che mi sento di muovergli. Nel libro ci viene raccontata l'esperienza come se avesse effetti stravolgenti sull'esistenza umana. Non era forse fondamentale descrivere come e se è mutata la sua vita successivamente ad essa?
Per chiudere, questo volumetto è così rapido e ben fatto che suppongo sia un'ottima lettura per chiunque abbia interesse o quantomeno curiosità nello Zen. Dubito però da solo sarà sufficiente a condurvi all'Illuminazione. Qualunque cosa essa sia.
December 3, 2024
Un’interessante resoconto di quello che è stato l’apprendistato di Herrigel per giungere a padroneggiare l’arte del tiro con l’arco. Sebbene il testo sia breve, è ricco di innumerevoli riflessioni sulla visione dello Zen e su ciò che si cela dietro ai gesti di un tiratore d’arco. Essendo l’opera molto incentrata sul Buddhismo, diversi concetti e diversi aforismi vanno letti e riletti per comprenderne a pieno il significato. Ogni singola riga diventa fonte di riflessione e spinge all’autoanalisi.
È un testo datato, lo si percepisce in più punti, e la traduzione è, a tratti, macchinosa. Non è stata una buona idea non aggiornare questo testo, perché una cattiva traduzione, che deve spiegare concetti estremamente complessi, può rendere ardua l’esperienza di lettura.
In ogni caso resta un’opera estremamente efficace, soprattutto perché Herrigel tenta di spiegare al pubblico occidentale una dimensione - ai nostri occhi - estremamente distante, quella giapponese.
È un testo datato, lo si percepisce in più punti, e la traduzione è, a tratti, macchinosa. Non è stata una buona idea non aggiornare questo testo, perché una cattiva traduzione, che deve spiegare concetti estremamente complessi, può rendere ardua l’esperienza di lettura.
In ogni caso resta un’opera estremamente efficace, soprattutto perché Herrigel tenta di spiegare al pubblico occidentale una dimensione - ai nostri occhi - estremamente distante, quella giapponese.
August 24, 2019
تمام و کمال لذت بردم. از تک تک بالا و پایین رفتنهای شاگرد در مسیر آموختن لذت بردم. حتی از اون لحظاتی که به نظر به بنبست ناامیدی ختم میشد. در سوگ تائو نشستم، در سوگ خودِ واقعی نشستم، در حسرتِ بیروحی ماندم....
September 25, 2021
Un piccolo promemoria per scoprire come un lungo apprendistato, di un occidentale presso un maestro d'arco giapponese, possa permettere di cogliere quell'elemento che è capace di regalare la pace e il distacco da sé.
December 17, 2021
I wonder what motivation an ardent member of the Nazi Party would have had to write a book about the importance of absolutely never questioning authority even when their orders conflict with your own views?
August 15, 2024
"For this is what the art of archery means: a profound & far reaching contest of the archer with himself."
"Archery as artless art, unmoved movement, undanced dance, passes over into Zen."
"Archery as artless art, unmoved movement, undanced dance, passes over into Zen."
August 9, 2025
A Mr. James Review
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Eric & Ike
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Prologue
Eric's mother was a healthy and rugged Hinoki tree. She has survived Shikoku's typhoons for decades.
It was a perfect day; soft amber sun, clouds clawing at the skyline, and a forest of sharp green, deep browns, and specks of azure. There were many dialects in the forest: animals pawing young backsides, insects upturning and digesting soil, and invisible hums hovering above wildflowers. Then, of course, there were the trees.
The forest had been Eric's home for sixty-three years, but on this perfect day, when the sun started pushing shadows east, things changed.
A man with a plump backpack visited the forest and he walked at a leisurely pace. His hazel eyes searched the ground as his feet pulled northeast. Despite his sleepy progress he moved forward and never looked back. The shadows were long when the man met Eric's mother.
He removed a pruning saw from the dirty and torn backpack; along with small pouches, a long piece of red fabric, three warosoku candles in glass jars and several tools. He gently placed them on the ground behind him. He crouched, sat Indian style in front of Eric's mother, and lit the candles with his eyes closed. Scents of rain and mildew filled his nostrils and he began to mumble.
As the sun pushed further east; the shadows grew menacing.
A night heron was heard and the man stood, took the saw, and cut the mother's side, removing the outer layer of bark: this was Eric.
The man reached for the pouches, fabric, and the tools. He applied the contents of the pouches to the exposed cork beneath Eric, and wrapped the red fabric around the mother's trunk. When he finally finished, there was no more sun, and the candescent light from candles illuminated a small halo of earth. The evening was overcast; the moon and the stars were sleeping.
He removed a conch shell from a gompa bag strapped across his chest and blew it: a call to the forest creatures. They would visit the mother after he left.
The man looked at the tree, gently bowed, and took Eric in his hands and said, "I'm your Master now, we have a path," then tucked Eric's raw form under his arm and walked home.
Eric’s Story
I'll think about the beginning, occasionally, but only when I have to. Thinking isn't a priority anymore. I find it gets in the way: distracting. Don't get all, "dude is a lazy thinker," because that an't true. There's more to it, kind of... I choose not to think... Man! That's not right either.
This is frustrating and I can't really explain it. The Master would say something like, "Don't choose, just be." That's philosophical pillow talk, but philosophy gets boring real quick... usually. Dude! There I go contradicting myself. Is it boring or useful? I guess it's both, right?
Anyway... I'm more patient these days, so yeah... I can just "be" and not worry about what I am. This is hard to understand if you're not me, so I'll explain a small part of my life. It might help...
The Master, who I called "this guy" at the time, took me to his home. I use the term "home" lightly, more like a hovel... well no, a one room hut with a thatched roof. You could see a temple in the distance. It was a comfortable hut: small. The walls were filled with objects I had never seen, but I wasn't paying too much attention; I was angry and raw. "Your wood is uneven," he said. I'm thinking, No kidding. Jerk.
Many days passed, or perhaps it was months. (Time is a waste of time in my opinion.) My rough surfaces became smooth, more relaxed and natural. I started to accept where I was, and not always hoping this guy would get a splinter. I was enjoying the small comforts of this hut and started thinking of it as a home.
Most days he'd use a small chisel, shape me, then smooth my edges with sandpaper. He liked shaping me by the fireplace and listening to sounds coming from a box on the floor; the rotating disc on the top would wobble. "That's Shubert," he'd say. I never met Shubert, but if I did, I'd tell him he talks funny.
You might think, You watched wood burn?
Sounds gruesome, right? Not really, that wood had already... um... "walked their path," and my Master would say some mumbo jumbo like, "Burning wood is a final force that is forceless, a desired harm that is harmless." And I would think, Yeah, sure... I follow. Really.
This would happen in the morning, after he made and ate breakfast, then we'd leave the hovel and walk the land, gathering food, and on occasion visit streams, rocks, berries, etc. The temple was my favorite part, some days we'd spend all day there; I could ramble on how awesome that place is.
So about "thinking when necessary." Your idea of what I mean is most likely different from my idea. You won't understand unless you pull the string that travels from the top of me to the bottom.
I'm a bow; and the first thing this guy said when he finished was, "You are not a weapon." This was about the time I started thinking of him as the Master. It was also when he started using his tools on something other than me; my arrow Ike.
Ike's Story
He has an ivory head and feathered feet, and often admires his pencil-like frame. He is vain and he will admit it. He's made from a bamboo tree and as soon as the Master finished him I realized "not thinking" wouldn't be a problem with him. Again, the "not thinking" is something you can't put into words, and especially not thoughts.
Ike is impulsive and he never shuts up. For a "non-thinking" arrow he has a lot to say, sometimes I follow, most of the time I don't. Even if I told him to shut up he'd ignore me. Regardless, after all this time I've grown to like him; we are a team, and we don't need to think to work together: we just are.
This is basically the gist of "not thinking." By working together we take a shot that hits a target. But this is never premeditated, and the Master's pupils are told to "loosen the shot," meaning they release Ike without thinking about the target. Ike, the target and I are one in the same; there is no need to think about it.
Yeah... Explaining it doesn't really explain it. Perhaps you should visit the temple.
Before I go, I'll tell you more about Ike. He's become my closest friend, and once he said, "We were workin’ it today." And I replied, "not working; composing... like Shubert."
"Shubert?"
"The guy talking from the box on the floor."
"Oh."
"Shubert speaks in melody, composed of different notes. Like us. We're two different notes that make a melody."
"Ahh..." he feigned understanding, then asked me to shoot him east, near a clearing. He watches the sunset on most nights.
Ike and I have been together for a generation, and the Master has handed us to many pupils that became masters, all of which he "taught" to "not think" when they shoot. He always told them that Ike, the target, and I are one.
Ike does have days where he never stops complaining about his headaches. He also hates the rain; his feathers get wet and cling to his body.
He asked me once, "Don't you hurt after being bent all day?"
And I replied, "I never thought about it."
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Notes: The Artless Art
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Drawing and shooting are divided into sections: "grasping the bow, knocking the arrow,raising the bow, drawing and remaining at the point of highest tension, loosening the shot. Each of them began breathing in..."
Mr. James says, "Can a western thinker achieve Zen? No. Maybe? My use of the word "thinker" is part of the problem, so is "achieve." Zen is not something that is sought, it's allowed access. Breath. Loosening your grip to release the arrow must be effortless, even though it takes great effort."
The Flower Master: "... and finally places them together in an exquisite vase. The completed picture looks just as if the Master had guessed what Nature had glimpsed in dark dreams."
When the bowstring is released, the shot must "fall from the archer like snow on a bamboo leaf."
The essence of the book can be summed up with this quote, "Bow, arrow, goal and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straight forward and so ridiculously simple…”
-----------------------------------------
“The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.”
― Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
-----------
Eric & Ike
-----------
Prologue
Eric's mother was a healthy and rugged Hinoki tree. She has survived Shikoku's typhoons for decades.
It was a perfect day; soft amber sun, clouds clawing at the skyline, and a forest of sharp green, deep browns, and specks of azure. There were many dialects in the forest: animals pawing young backsides, insects upturning and digesting soil, and invisible hums hovering above wildflowers. Then, of course, there were the trees.
The forest had been Eric's home for sixty-three years, but on this perfect day, when the sun started pushing shadows east, things changed.
A man with a plump backpack visited the forest and he walked at a leisurely pace. His hazel eyes searched the ground as his feet pulled northeast. Despite his sleepy progress he moved forward and never looked back. The shadows were long when the man met Eric's mother.
He removed a pruning saw from the dirty and torn backpack; along with small pouches, a long piece of red fabric, three warosoku candles in glass jars and several tools. He gently placed them on the ground behind him. He crouched, sat Indian style in front of Eric's mother, and lit the candles with his eyes closed. Scents of rain and mildew filled his nostrils and he began to mumble.
As the sun pushed further east; the shadows grew menacing.
A night heron was heard and the man stood, took the saw, and cut the mother's side, removing the outer layer of bark: this was Eric.
The man reached for the pouches, fabric, and the tools. He applied the contents of the pouches to the exposed cork beneath Eric, and wrapped the red fabric around the mother's trunk. When he finally finished, there was no more sun, and the candescent light from candles illuminated a small halo of earth. The evening was overcast; the moon and the stars were sleeping.
He removed a conch shell from a gompa bag strapped across his chest and blew it: a call to the forest creatures. They would visit the mother after he left.
The man looked at the tree, gently bowed, and took Eric in his hands and said, "I'm your Master now, we have a path," then tucked Eric's raw form under his arm and walked home.
Eric’s Story
I'll think about the beginning, occasionally, but only when I have to. Thinking isn't a priority anymore. I find it gets in the way: distracting. Don't get all, "dude is a lazy thinker," because that an't true. There's more to it, kind of... I choose not to think... Man! That's not right either.
This is frustrating and I can't really explain it. The Master would say something like, "Don't choose, just be." That's philosophical pillow talk, but philosophy gets boring real quick... usually. Dude! There I go contradicting myself. Is it boring or useful? I guess it's both, right?
Anyway... I'm more patient these days, so yeah... I can just "be" and not worry about what I am. This is hard to understand if you're not me, so I'll explain a small part of my life. It might help...
The Master, who I called "this guy" at the time, took me to his home. I use the term "home" lightly, more like a hovel... well no, a one room hut with a thatched roof. You could see a temple in the distance. It was a comfortable hut: small. The walls were filled with objects I had never seen, but I wasn't paying too much attention; I was angry and raw. "Your wood is uneven," he said. I'm thinking, No kidding. Jerk.
Many days passed, or perhaps it was months. (Time is a waste of time in my opinion.) My rough surfaces became smooth, more relaxed and natural. I started to accept where I was, and not always hoping this guy would get a splinter. I was enjoying the small comforts of this hut and started thinking of it as a home.
Most days he'd use a small chisel, shape me, then smooth my edges with sandpaper. He liked shaping me by the fireplace and listening to sounds coming from a box on the floor; the rotating disc on the top would wobble. "That's Shubert," he'd say. I never met Shubert, but if I did, I'd tell him he talks funny.
You might think, You watched wood burn?
Sounds gruesome, right? Not really, that wood had already... um... "walked their path," and my Master would say some mumbo jumbo like, "Burning wood is a final force that is forceless, a desired harm that is harmless." And I would think, Yeah, sure... I follow. Really.
This would happen in the morning, after he made and ate breakfast, then we'd leave the hovel and walk the land, gathering food, and on occasion visit streams, rocks, berries, etc. The temple was my favorite part, some days we'd spend all day there; I could ramble on how awesome that place is.
So about "thinking when necessary." Your idea of what I mean is most likely different from my idea. You won't understand unless you pull the string that travels from the top of me to the bottom.
I'm a bow; and the first thing this guy said when he finished was, "You are not a weapon." This was about the time I started thinking of him as the Master. It was also when he started using his tools on something other than me; my arrow Ike.
Ike's Story
He has an ivory head and feathered feet, and often admires his pencil-like frame. He is vain and he will admit it. He's made from a bamboo tree and as soon as the Master finished him I realized "not thinking" wouldn't be a problem with him. Again, the "not thinking" is something you can't put into words, and especially not thoughts.
Ike is impulsive and he never shuts up. For a "non-thinking" arrow he has a lot to say, sometimes I follow, most of the time I don't. Even if I told him to shut up he'd ignore me. Regardless, after all this time I've grown to like him; we are a team, and we don't need to think to work together: we just are.
This is basically the gist of "not thinking." By working together we take a shot that hits a target. But this is never premeditated, and the Master's pupils are told to "loosen the shot," meaning they release Ike without thinking about the target. Ike, the target and I are one in the same; there is no need to think about it.
Yeah... Explaining it doesn't really explain it. Perhaps you should visit the temple.
Before I go, I'll tell you more about Ike. He's become my closest friend, and once he said, "We were workin’ it today." And I replied, "not working; composing... like Shubert."
"Shubert?"
"The guy talking from the box on the floor."
"Oh."
"Shubert speaks in melody, composed of different notes. Like us. We're two different notes that make a melody."
"Ahh..." he feigned understanding, then asked me to shoot him east, near a clearing. He watches the sunset on most nights.
Ike and I have been together for a generation, and the Master has handed us to many pupils that became masters, all of which he "taught" to "not think" when they shoot. He always told them that Ike, the target, and I are one.
Ike does have days where he never stops complaining about his headaches. He also hates the rain; his feathers get wet and cling to his body.
He asked me once, "Don't you hurt after being bent all day?"
And I replied, "I never thought about it."
-----------------------
Notes: The Artless Art
------------------------
Drawing and shooting are divided into sections: "grasping the bow, knocking the arrow,raising the bow, drawing and remaining at the point of highest tension, loosening the shot. Each of them began breathing in..."
Mr. James says, "Can a western thinker achieve Zen? No. Maybe? My use of the word "thinker" is part of the problem, so is "achieve." Zen is not something that is sought, it's allowed access. Breath. Loosening your grip to release the arrow must be effortless, even though it takes great effort."
The Flower Master: "... and finally places them together in an exquisite vase. The completed picture looks just as if the Master had guessed what Nature had glimpsed in dark dreams."
When the bowstring is released, the shot must "fall from the archer like snow on a bamboo leaf."
The essence of the book can be summed up with this quote, "Bow, arrow, goal and ego, all melt into one another, so that I can no longer separate them. And even the need to separate has gone. For as soon as I take the bow and shoot, everything becomes so clear and straight forward and so ridiculously simple…”
-----------------------------------------
“The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.”
― Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
January 9, 2023
Relat autobiogràfic d'un alemany aprenent tir amb arc a Japó, amb tota la filosofia i espiritualitat que això comporta. Pel contingut i per la mateixa lectura (ritme, escriptura, contemplació, etc) et deixa en un estat de relaxació i "zen" que m'agrada.
December 26, 2024
Da rileggere, crea interesse per cimentarsi su altri scritti inerenti l'arte della spada.
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