[Shaku] Re: Zen and the Art of Archery or...Pitch hitting for inner peace

From: Windsor Viney (viney@enso.ca)
Date: Wed Apr 14 2004 - 05:40:13 PDT


> Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:45:09 +1000
> From: "Paul Cohen" <paulcohen@ozemail.com.au>
> To: <shakuhachi@communication.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: Zen and the Art of Archery or...Pitch hitting for inner peace
> Message-ID: <002f01c421e3$a5fb0200$857467cb@sonicviz>
>
> Reading the previous conversations on Zen vs S8 Technique (or lack of
> it) I wondered:
> Japanese archery practioners would not call arrows wildly zooming off
> into space a good display of artistic mastery...
>
> Just a thought:-)

It is true that Eugen Herrigel's *Zen and the Art of Archery* ends with the dramatic moment of the teacher's arrow hitting the bull's eye of the target in a completely dark room ... but John Cage (I think it was) mentions a very famous kyu-do master in Japan who never hit the centre of the target once in his entire "career".

And I recall reading in another place a kyu-do-ka explaining (apparently as he demonstrated) the way to hit the target absolutely every time: choose the ocean as the target.

Windsor Viney
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
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