Zen in the Art of Archery

by Eugen Herrigel

I have also tried to keep my language as simple as possible. Not only because Zen teaches and advocates the greatest economy of expression, but because I have found that what I can not say quite simply and without recourse to mystic jargon has not become sufficiently clear and concrete even to myself.

The breathing in, the Master once said, binds and combines, by holding your breath you make everything go right, and the breathing out loosens and completes by overcoming all limitations.

he replied: " That’s just the trouble, you make an effort to think about it. Concentrate entirely on your breathing, as if you had nothing else to do!

Don’t think of what you have to do, don’t consider how to carry it out! " he exclaimed. `The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise. It must be as if the bowstring suddenly cut through the thumb that held it. You mustn’t open the right hand on purpose."

You must hold the drawn bowstring ", answered the Master," like a little child holding the proffered finger. It grips it so firmly that one marvels at the strength of the tiny fist. And when it lets the finger go, there is not the slightest jerk. Do you know why? Because a child doesn’t think: " I will now let go of the finger in order to grasp this other thing." Completely un−selfconsciously, without purpose, it turns from one to the other, and we would say that it was playing with the things, were it not equally true that the things are playing with the child."

The demand that the door of the senses be closed is not met by turning energetically away from the sensible world, but rather by a readiness to yield without resistance.

This state, in which nothing definite is thought, planned, striven for, desired or expected, which aims in no particular direction and yet knows itself capable alike of the possible and the impossible, so unswerving is its power˙this state, which is at bottom purposeless and egoless, was called by the Master truly " spiritual ". It is in fact charged with spiritual awareness and is therefore also called " right presence of mind ". This means that the mind or spirit is present everywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because, even when related to this or that object, it does not cling to it by reflection and thus lose its original mobility.

Only unbroken equanimity can accept it in such a way that it is not afraid to come back.

He who has a hundred miles to walk should reckon ninety as half the journey, " he replied, quoting the proverb.

You are under an illusion ", said the Master after a while, " if you imagine that even a rough understanding of these dark connections would help you. These are processes which are beyond the reach of understanding. Do not forget that even in Nature there are correspondences which cannot be understood, and yet are so real that we have grown accustomed to them, just as if they could not be any different. I will give you an example which I have often puzzled over. The spider dances her web without knowing that there are flies who will get caught in it. The fly, dancing nonchalantly on a sunbeam, gets caught in the net without knowing what lies in store. But through both of them Ît ˜ dances, and inside and outside are united in this dance. So, too, the archer hits the target without having aimed˙more I cannot say. "

What are you thinking of? " he would cry. " 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 practise unceasingly˙you cannot conceive how important it is. "

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. "

If he survives its perils, then is his destiny fulfilled: face to face he beholds the unbroken Truth, the Truth beyond all truths, the formless Origin of origins, the Void which is the All, is absorbed into it and from it emerges reborn.