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Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery
Mar. 12th, 2002 11:12 pmI saw a copy of this little book and remembered it from a reference in a Lewis Thomas essay. It's Herrigel's account of his six-year study with a master of the Zen art of archery. As Zen is about experience rather than theory, he proposes to describe his experience.
His first challenge was to draw the bow correctly and smoothly. After weeks of failing to learn, he admitted defeat, and was told that he was not breathing correctly; breathing must be in a particular manner, and interwoven precisely with the phases of drawing the bow. His teacher had not tried to convince him of this at first, because he would not believe it until he had failed. Perfecting the drawing of the bow took the first year.
Herrigel describes two further challenges. First, to shoot smoothly he cannot release the string intentionally; the shot must "take the archer himself by surprise". This only happens, finally, when he has despaired of its ever happening. Second, he eventually begins to shoot with a target, and has to learn not to aim at it. In fact, though he reports that the Master as a demonstration split his own arrow Robin-Hood-style shooting in the dark, it is not clear from his narrative whether he does or does not begin to hit the target consistently -- that being not the point. His focus is on equanimity in the face of right shots and wrong shots.
In between the episodes of his narrative there is a good deal of more abstract discussion of Zen and Japanese arts, and of their teaching. Some of this is useful for context, but on the whole this kind of discussion can be found elsewhere and is not the particular strength of this book.
The Master told Herrigel when he left Japan that he would find he had been changed, that he would see differently. I would like to hear Herrigel continue the story. I see he has another book, The Method of Zen, published from his notes after his death; maybe it touches on that.
His first challenge was to draw the bow correctly and smoothly. After weeks of failing to learn, he admitted defeat, and was told that he was not breathing correctly; breathing must be in a particular manner, and interwoven precisely with the phases of drawing the bow. His teacher had not tried to convince him of this at first, because he would not believe it until he had failed. Perfecting the drawing of the bow took the first year.
Herrigel describes two further challenges. First, to shoot smoothly he cannot release the string intentionally; the shot must "take the archer himself by surprise". This only happens, finally, when he has despaired of its ever happening. Second, he eventually begins to shoot with a target, and has to learn not to aim at it. In fact, though he reports that the Master as a demonstration split his own arrow Robin-Hood-style shooting in the dark, it is not clear from his narrative whether he does or does not begin to hit the target consistently -- that being not the point. His focus is on equanimity in the face of right shots and wrong shots.
In between the episodes of his narrative there is a good deal of more abstract discussion of Zen and Japanese arts, and of their teaching. Some of this is useful for context, but on the whole this kind of discussion can be found elsewhere and is not the particular strength of this book.
The Master told Herrigel when he left Japan that he would find he had been changed, that he would see differently. I would like to hear Herrigel continue the story. I see he has another book, The Method of Zen, published from his notes after his death; maybe it touches on that.
