Summary
Zen in the Art of Archery is an enjoyable first-hand account of a Westerner (German) learning about Zen Buddhism through Japanese archery over multiple years.
Key Takeaways
- If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend techniques so that the art becomes an ‘artless art’ growing out of the Unconscious.
- Like all mysticism, Zen can only be understood by one who is himself a mystic and is therefore not tempted to gain by underhand methods what the mystical experience withholds from him.
- There is and can be no other way to mysticism than the way of personal experience and suffering, and that, if this premise is lacking, all talk about it is so much empty chatter.
- “A great Master,” he replied, “must also be a great teacher. With us the two things go hand in hand. Had he begun the lessons with breathing exercises, he would never have been able to convince you that you owe them anything decisive. You had to suffer shipwreck through your own efforts before you were ready to seize the lifebelt he threw you.”
- Japanese method of instruction: Practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever-increasing intensity are its distinctive features for long stretches of the way.
- Demonstration, intuition, imitation — that is the fundamental relationship of instructor to pupil.
- Far from wishing to waken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft. The pupil follows out this intention with untiring industry.
- The instructor’s business is not to show the way itself, but to enable the pupil to get the feel of this way to the goal by adapting it to his individual peculiarities.
- “He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey.”
- The swordmaster is as unself-conscious as the beginner.
- Between the stages of apprenticeship and mastership there lie long and eventful years of untiring practice. Under the influence of Zen his proficiency becomes spiritual, and he himself, grown ever freer through spiritual struggle, is transformed.
What I got out of it
Zen in the Art of Archery was an enjoyable first-hand account of a Westerner (German) learning about Zen Buddhism through Japanese archery over multiple years.
Much more approachable than The Unfettered Mind.
What stood out to me was the Japanese/Zen method of instruction:
- Practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever-increasing intensity are its distinctive features for long stretches of the way.
- Demonstrate and let the student intuitively imitate with little explanation. Logic gets in the way of mastery.
- Practice the techniques and fundamentals until they become second-nature. Only then is it time to experiment.
- Only practice one aspect at a time. Once mastered, move on to the next component or technique.
- Mastery requires technical and spiritual expertise.
I’ll ponder on how I can implement elements of this style in both my coaching/teaching as well as my study/learning of new skills.
Table of Contents
Summary Notes
Introduction
If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to transcend techniques so that the art becomes an ‘artless art growing out of the Unconscious.
Zen in the Art of Archery
Zen is akin to pure introspective mysticism. Unless we enter into mystic experiences by direct participation, were mainly outside, turn and twist as we may. This law, which all genuine mysticism obeys, allows no exceptions. It is no contradiction that there exists a plethora of Zen texts regarded as sacred.
They have the peculiarity of disclosing their life-giving meaning only to those who have shown themselves worthy of the crucial experiences and can therefore extract from these texts confirmation of what they themselves already possess and are, independently of them. To the inexperienced, on the other hand, they remain not only dumb — how could he ever be in a position to read between the lines? — but will infallibly lead him into the most hopeless spiritual confusion, even if he approaches them with wariness and selfless devotion. Like all mysticism, Zen can only be understood by one who is himself a mystic and is therefore not tempted to gain by underhand methods what the mystical experience withholds from him.
No mystic and no student of Zen is, at first step, the man he can become through self-perfection.
How much has still to be conquered and left behind before he finally lights upon the truth! How often is he tormented on the way by the desolate feeling that he is attempting the impossible! And yet this impossible will one day have become possible and even self-evident.
There is and can be no other way to mysticism than the way of personal experience and suffering, and that, if this premise is lacking, all talk about it is so much empty chatter.
But — how does one become a mystic? How to attain the state of real, and not just imaginary, detachment? Is there still a way to it even for those who are separated by the abyss of the centuries from the great Masters? For the modern man, who has grown up under totally different conditions?
Now here did I find anything approaching satisfactory answers to my questions, even though I was told about the stages and stations of a way that promised to lead to the goal. To tread this way, I lacked the precise methodical instructions which might substitute for a Master, at least for part of the journey. But would such instructions, even if there were any, suffice? Is it not more probable that, at best, they only create a readiness to receive something which even the best method cannot provide, and that the mystical experience therefore cannot be induced by any disposition known to man? However I looked at it, I found myself confronted by locked doors, and yet I could not refrain from constantly rattling at the handles. But the longing persisted, and, when it grew weary, the longing for this longing.
I was informed that it was quite hopeless for a European to attempt to penetrate into this realm of spiritual life — perhaps the strangest which the Far East has to offer — unless he began by learning one of the Japanese arts associated with Zen.
“A great Master,” he replied, “must also be a great teacher. With us the two things go hand in hand. Had he begun the lessons with breathing exercises, he would never have been able to convince you that you owe them anything decisive. You had to suffer shipwreck through your own efforts before you were ready to seize the lifebelt he threw you. Believe me, I know from my own experience that the Master knows you and each of his pupils much better than we know ourselves. He reads in the souls of his pupils more than they care to admit.”
Do you know why you cannot wait for the shot and why you get out of breath before it has come? The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but 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. Your hand does not burst open like the skin of a ripe fruit.”
“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 will to fulfill. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”
It is this mastery of form that the Japanese method of instruction seeks to inculcate. Practice, repetition, and repetition of the repeated with ever-increasing intensity are its distinctive features for long stretches of the way. At least this is true of all the traditional arts. Demonstration, intuition, imitation — that is the fundamental relationship of instructor to pupil.
Far from wishing to waken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with sovereign control of his craft. The pupil follows out this intention with untiring industry.
And what impels him to repeat this process at every single lesson, and, with the same remorse-less insistence, to make his pupils copy it without the least alteration? He sticks to this traditional custom because he knows from experience that the preparations for working put him simultaneously in the right frame of mind for creating. 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.
As in the case of archery, there can be no question that these arts are ceremonies. More clearly than the teacher could express it in words, they tell the pupil that the right frame of mind for the artist is only reached when the preparing and the creating, the technical and the artistic, the material and the spiritual, the project and the object, flow together without a break. And here he finds a new theme for emulation. He is now required to exercise perfect control over the various ways of concentration and self-effacement. Imitation, no longer applied to objective contents which anybody can copy with a little goodwill, becomes looser, nimbler, more spiritual. The pupil sees himself on the brink of new possibilities, but discovers at the same time that their realization does not depend in the slightest degree on his goodwill.
Steep is the way to mastery. Often nothing keeps the pupil on the move but his faith in his teacher, whose mastery is now beginning to dawn on him. He is a living example of the inner work, and he convinces by his mere presence.
“He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey.”
“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.”
The Master went on to expound the “Great Doctrine” in relation to the art of archery, and to adapt it to the stage we had reached. Although he dealt in mysterious images and dark comparisons, the meagerest hints were sufficient for us to understand what it was about. He dwelt longest on the ”artless art” which must be the goal of archery if it is to reach perfection. “He who can shoot with the horn of the hare and the hair of the tortoise, and can hit the center without bow (horn) and arrow (hair), he alone is Master in the highest sense of the word — Master of the artless art. Indeed, he is the artless art itself and thus Master and No-Master in one. At this point archery, considered as the unmoved movement, the undanced dance, passes over into Zen.”
You have now reached a stage where teacher and pupil are no longer two persons, but one. You can separate from me anytime you wish.
“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 with himself. Perhaps you have hardly noticed it yet, but you will feel it very strongly when you meet your friends and acquaintances again in your own country: things will no longer harmonize as before. You will see with other eyes and measure with other measures. It has happened to me too, and it happens to all who are touched by the spirit of this art.”
The instructor’s business is not to show the way itself, but to enable the pupil to get the feel of this way to the goal by adapting it to his individual peculiarities. He will therefore begin by training him to avoid thrusts instinctively, even when they take him completely by surprise.
What is true of archery and swordsmanship also applies to all the other arts. Thus, mastery in ink-painting is only attained when 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, without there being a hair’s breadth between. Painting then becomes spontaneous calligraphy. Here again the painter’s instructions might be: spend ten years observing bamboos, become a bamboo yourself, then forget everything and — paint.
The swordmaster is as unself-conscious as the beginner. The nonchalance which he forfeited at the beginning of his instruction he wins back again at the end as an indestructible characteristic. But, unlike the beginner, he holds himself in reserve, is quiet and unassuming, without the least desire to show off. Between the stages of apprenticeship and mastership there lie long and eventful years of untiring practice. Under the influence of Zen his proficiency becomes spiritual, and he himself, grown ever freer through spiritual struggle, is transformed. The sword, which has now become his “soul,” no longer rests lightly in its scabbard. He draws it only when unavoidable.