Zen and the Art of Mastering Something

Every one of the arts which have been discussed involves a technical training which follows the same essential principles as training in Zen. The best account of this training thus far available in a Western language is Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, which is the author's story of his own experience under a master of the Japanese bow. To this should be added the already mentioned letter on Zen and swordsmanship ( kendo ) by the seventeenth-century master Takuan, translated by Suzuki in his Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese Culture.

The major problem of each of these disciplines is to bring the student to the point from which he can really begin. Herrigel spent almost five years trying to find the right way of releasing the bowstring, for it had to be done "unintentionally," in the same way as a ripe fruit bursts its skin. His problem was to resolve the paradox of practicing relentlessly without ever "trying," and to let go of the taut string intentionally without intention. His master at one and the same time urged him to keep on working and working, but also to stop making an effort. For the art cannot be learned unless the arrow "shoots itself," unless the string is released wu-hsin and wu-nien, without "mind" and without blocking, or "choice." After all those years of practice there c:ame a day when it just happened-how, or why, Herrigel never understood.