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

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This book is the result of the author’s six year quest to learn archery in the hands of Japanese Zen masters. It is an honest account of one man’s journey to complete abandonment of ‘the self’ and the Western principles that we use to define ourselves. Professor Herrigel imparts knowledge from his experiences and guides the reader through physical and spiritual lessons in a clear and insightful way. With Krishnamurti the idea is to be one with nature and be oblivious to the self or anything beyond the moment, you are one with it and thus don't have an independent existence during that moment. With Zen the idea is to learn the same through the medium of an associated discipline be it archery, swordsmanship, painting, or flower arrangement. The idea still remains to enter a state of awareness so deep that you are one with everything around you, especially the discipline you're practicing at the moment. 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.

Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel | Goodreads

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. 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. 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…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. Bow and arrow are only a pretext for something that could just as well happen without them, only the way to a goal, not the goal itself, only helps for the last decisive leap. Herrigal’s book is by far the best-selling book of all time with the word archery in the title, although it is really a classic interpretation of Zen Buddhism, using kyudo as a vehicle.)

Quotes From Zen in the Art of Archery | Independent Society Quotes From Zen in the Art of Archery | Independent Society

The mind must first be attuned to the Unconcious. If one really wishes to be the master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that art becomes an “artless art” growing out of the unconscious. In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are not opposing objects but are one in reality. The bow and arrow are actually just a pretext for something that could just as well happen without them. They are only the way to a goal, not the goal itself. Only the truly detached can understand what is meant by “detachment,” and that only the contemplative, who is completely empty and rid of the self, the ego, is ready to “become one” with the “transcendent deity.” 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. 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.” Zen in the Art of Archery also relates to the " inner child" idea in humanistic psychology. Later literature either discusses balancing the "inner game" and the "outer game" or counseling approaches to accessing, communicating and collaborating with the inner child beyond sports. [ citation needed] 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"J. D. Salinger's fictional character Seymour Glass applied one aspect of Zen archery—aiming by deliberately not taking aim—to playing the children's game of marbles. [ citation needed] 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 we've only got Herrigal's word for it when it is time for him after six or so years to return to Germany I guess in those days one could still take a bow on board an aeroplane as hand luggage but not on to a Zeppelin, that would just be asking for trouble Zen in the Art of Archery (Zen in der Kunst des Bogenschießens) is a book by German philosophy professor Eugen Herrigel, published in 1948, about his experiences studying Kyūdō, a form of Japanese archery, when he lived in Japan in the 1920s. It is credited with introducing Zen to Western audiences in the late 1940s and 1950s. By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension."