Zen in the Art of Archery

these arts are ceremonies.

all right doing is accomplished only in a state of true selflessness, in which the doer cannot be present any longer as “himself.”

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.

To be free from the fear of death does not mean pretending to oneself, in one’s good hours, that one will not tremble in the face of death, and that there is nothing to fear. Rather, he who masters both life and death is free from fear of any kind to the extent that he is no longer capable of experiencing what fear feels like.

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.

Perfection in the art of swordsmanship is reached, according to Takuan, “when the heart is troubled by no more thought of I and You, of the opponent and his sword, of one’s own sword and how to wield it – no more thought even of life and death. All is emptiness: your own self, the flashing sword, and the arms that wield it. Even the thought of empt

Sunk without purpose in what he is doing, he is brought face to face with that moment when the work, hovering before him in ideal lines, realizes itself as if of its own accord.

The man, the art, the work – it is all one. The art of the inner work, which unlike the outer does not forsake the artist, which he does not “do” and can only “be,” springs from depths of which the day knows nothing.

Zen Buddhism has struck out on paths which, through methodical immersion in oneself, lead to one’s becoming aware, in the deepest ground of the soul, of the unnamable Groundlessness and Qualitylessness – nay more, to one’s becoming one with it.