Zen in the Art of Archery: Training the Mind and Body to Become One

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The title "Zen in the Art of Archery" most likely inspired the titles of many other works, either directly or indirectly. Foremost among these is Robert Pirsig's 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. More than 200 works have been created with similar titles, including Ray Bradbury's 1990 book Zen in the Art of Writing, as well as Zen and the Art of Poker, Zen and the Art of Knitting, Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating, and so on.

Zen in the Art of Archery: Training the Mind and Body to

Lao-tzu could say with profound truth that right living is like water, which “of all things the most yielding can overwhelm that which is of all things the most hard.” 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'" You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies...The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You...brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way--like the hand of a child.” The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”

Customer reviews

Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida 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" 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. As I understand it, talking about Zen has a tendency to confuse things. What makes this a worthwhile read is not the author’s interpretation of what Zen actually is (or is not) but rather the fact that it is one of the earliest books to expose the Western public to Zen. It spawned a century of speculation and countless books on the subject.

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel, R. Hull

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.The book itself recounts the experiences of a german philosophy professor, Eugen Herrigel, and his wife who travel to Japan in the 1920s to study zen in various forms of art. His wife takes up flower arranging and he begins the study of Kyūdō, a style of Japanese Archery. This book is said to have introduced Zen to the West in the late 40s. Let’s dive in… 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. Anyone interested in the “Western tradition” of Zen should find this book interesting. Independently of my agreement or disagreement with some of the statements, below is a selection of quotes and excerpts from the English text. 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. The version best known outside of Japan is seitei or “sport” kyudo: the basic form pulling elements from all the schools, and more grade-oriented and geared to competition. According to the Nippon Kyūdō Federation, the supreme goal of kyudo is achieving a state of shin-zen-bi, which roughly translates as “truth-goodness-beauty”.

Zen in the Art of Archery: Eugen Herrigel, Zinc Read Zen in the Art of Archery: Eugen Herrigel, Zinc Read

The hand that stretches the bow must open like a child's hand opens. What sometimes hinders the precision of the shot is the archer's over-active will. He thinks: "What I fail to do will not be done", and that's not quite how things work. Man should always act, but he must also let other forces of the universe act in their own due time.” 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…It is a martial art in the distinctly East Asian sense, and it is best seen alongside the better-known Japanese combat sports like judo and karate. While it draws from feudal and samurai roots, kyudo, as practised now, is only a few 100 years old. 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—being breathed.”