Zen in the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel [10]
“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 willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”
“But you yourself have told me often enough that archery is not a pastime, not a purposeless game, but a matter of life and death!”
“I stand by that. We master archers say: one shot—one life! What this means, you cannot yet understand. But perhaps another image will help you, which expresses the same experience. We master archers say: with the upper end of the bow the archer pierces the sky, on the lower end, as though attached by a thread, hangs the earth. If the shot is loosed with a jerk there is a danger of the thread snapping. For purposeful and violent people the rift becomes final, and they are left in the awful centre between heaven and earth.”
“What must I do, then?” I asked thoughtfully.
“You must learn to wait properly.”
“And how does one learn that?”
“By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension.”
“So I must become purposeless—on purpose?” I heard myself say.
“No pupil has ever asked me that, so I don't know the right answer.”
“And when do we begin these new exercises?”
“Wait until it is time.”
V
This conversation—the first intimate talk I had had since the beginning of my instruction—puzzled me exceedingly. Now at last we had touched on the theme for whose sake I had undertaken to learn archery. Was not this letting go of oneself, of which the Master had spoken, a stage on the way to emptiness and detachment? Had I not reached the point where the influence of Zen on the art of archery began to make itself felt? What the relation might be between the purposeless waiting-capacity and the loosing of the shot at the right moment, when the tension spontaneously fulfilled itself, I could not at present fathom. But why try to anticipate in thought what only experience can teach? Was it not high time to drop this unfruitful habit? How often I had silently envied all those pupils of the Master who, like children, let him take them by the hand and lead them. How delightful it must be to be able to do this without reserve. Such an attitude need not necessarily lead to indifference and spiritual stagnation. Might not children at least ask questions?
During the next lesson the Master — to my disappointment — went on with the previous exercises: drawing, holding, and loosing. But all this encouragement availed nothing. Although I tried, in accordance with his instructions, not to give way to the tension, but to struggle beyond it as though no limits were set by the nature of the bow; although I strove to wait until the tension simultaneously fulfilled and loosed itself in the shot — despite all my efforts every shot miscarried; bewitched, botched, wobbling. Only when it be came clear that it was not only pointless to continue these exercises but positively dangerous, since I was oppressed more and more by a premonition of failure, did the Master break off and begin on a completely new tack.
“When you come to the lessons in the future”, he warned us, “You must collect yourselves on your way here. Focus your minds on what happens in the practice-hall. Walk past everything without noticing it, as if there were only one thing in the world that is important and real, and that is archery!”
The process of letting go of oneself was likewise divided into separate sections which had to be worked through carefully. And here too the Master contented himself with brief hints. For the performance of these exercises it is sufficient that the pupil should understand, or in some cases merely guess, what is demanded of him. Hence