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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. Of all the Japanese martial arts, kyudo is relatively little known outside of Japan – certainly compared to combat forms like judo and karate. It gradually expanded after the second world war to a few other countries around the world. Not all countries have a national federation and some international clubs receive instruction and tuition directly from Japan. You must learn to wait properly... By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension” 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."
Zen in the Art of Archery | Semantic Scholar [PDF] The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery | Semantic Scholar
You only feel it because you haven’t really let go of yourself. It is all so simple. You can learn from an ordinary bamboo leaf what ought to happen. It bends lower and lower under the weight of snow. Suddenly the snow slips to the ground without the leaf having stirred. Stay like that at the point of highest tension until the shot falls from you. So, indeed, it is: when the tension is fulfilled, the shot must fall, it must fall from the archer like snow from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it.”The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery" (PDF). Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 28 (1–2). 2001 . Retrieved 2016-04-28. Put the thought of hitting right out of your mind! You can be a Master even if every shot does not hit. The hits on the target is only an outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your self-abandonment, or whatever you like to call this state. There are different grades of mastery, and only when you have made the last grade will you be sure of not missing the goal.”
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel - Empty Mirror Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel - Empty Mirror
Pirsig, Robert (April 25, 2006). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (Reprinted.). HarperTorch. ISBN 978-0060589462. 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 it may sound – being breathed. 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 drawing of the bow and the skill of individual archers have been romanticised throughout history. But to watch kyudo for yourself is to witness a sport embodying unsurpassed elegance and ritual. What on the surface seems to be an essential simplicity is anything but. A classic work on Eastern philosophy, anda charming, deeply illuminating story of one man’s experience with Zen.The hand, exercising perfect control over technique, executes what hovers before the mind’s eye at the same moment when the mind begins to form it. The story goes something like this: Eugen Herrigel, a German teaching and living in Japan, set out to understand the meaning of Zen. Realizing it cannot be studied but only experienced, he decided to learn about it through the practice of one of the arts “touched” by Zen, Kyudo (Japanese archery). Out of his experiences came the book Zen in the Art of Archery. Grading might happen once or twice a year, and there is a programme of competitions and events around the world.
The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery - JSTOR
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.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. 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. 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..." In the end, the pupil no longer knows which of the two, mind or hand, was responsible for the work" Others, such as Shoji Yamada in his book Shots in the Dark, claims that many of the conversations between Herrigel and Awa Kenzo were altered or completely fabricated by the author.