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Title: Zen in the Art of Archery by Daisetz T. Suzuki, Eugen Herrigel ISBN: 0-375-70509-0 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 26 January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: great book that helped me play and teach piano better
Comment: I have played the piano for thirty-five years and taught it for over twenty. I have written a book on teaching piano that is in the Lincoln Center Library for Performing Arts. The ideas and examples in this book, along with my mentor, helped me achieve breakthroughs in music when many other methods failed. In a way, I owe much of my teaching success to this book.
The book's beauty lies in a westerner's desperate attempts to make logical sense of concepts that are irrational and experiential. For example, the master told the author to let go of the string but also to not let go... Let the spirit "It" pull the string from the hand. Gradually releasing it, the string should leave the hand as though passing through butter.
I can attest to this idea's power. In piano, achieving pleasant tone is a contradictory skill. On the one hand, you have to play with enough force to project tone, on the other hand, you have to attack the key gently to create a rounded sound. The solution I found is called the "controlled drop," where you must let the arm drop but catch it. Like letting go of a bowstring, letting go of my arm to make pleasant sound at the piano is a joint effort between conscious and unconscious will.
Illustrating the sometimes difficult ideas are great anecdotes and quotes in the book. Like when the author challenged the master to shoot blindfolded, thinking it would be a rhetorical request. Instead, the master did just that, hitting the bullseye and splitting the first arrow with a second. And like when the master said, when you make a good shot, do not celebrate, bow and thank the spirit It. You are not responsible.
Perhaps the quotes and stories in this book anger some students of kyudo because they are kind of movie cliches by now, but at the time, it was new. And more important than the sensational stories are the concepts and conundrums present in an entertaining, short memoir.
I have read it many times and will go back again. Perhaps it is not exactly what Zen masters are teaching nowadays, but it has the solid feel of strong, cogent ideas. And the reader works struggles to understand the ideas along with author in what seems like real time.
Rating: 5
Summary: What I took from this book...
Comment: was that when we use short cuts we cheat our inner development. There is a point in his training when Mr.Herrigel, begins to hit the target. As he does so the Master becomes suspicious and begins to watch his technique.
When the Master discovers that Mr.Herrigel has found a western solution to his learning difficulties, the Zen Master expels him immediately. Explaining to him that what Mr.Herrigel has done was create a hollow illusion of success. True connection with the target first happens in the mind's ey and heart.
Great lesson to be learned for anyone. Loved this book I attempted to use some of the principles to change the way I did archery. I don't think I succeeded with all of the philosophies, but it did change my perspective.
Good luck reading it.
Rating: 1
Summary: Herrigel Had No Clue
Comment: "Zen In the Art of Archery" is, hands down, the absolute worst book one could possibly read if, by reading it, one hopes to get a clear understanding of what kyudo is.
I am the translator of the article "The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery" by professor Yamada Shoji, mentioned upthread by another reviewer. Professor Yamada is an experienced kyudo practitoner. I also have been practicing kyudo for 30 years, 11 of them in Japan under the tutelage of some of the most senior instructors in Japan.
To put it bluntly, Herrigel got everything, and I mean everything, wrong. He himself only practiced kyudo for three years, if his translator Sozo Komachiya is to be believed (he started in 1926 and returned to Germany in 1929). He spoke no Japanese. He was himself a mystic (or he wanted to be one, anyway) intent on understanding Zen, not archery, and he had very definite pre-formed ideas about what he was looking for and what he believed Zen, and, by extension kyudo, to be. Given such a situation, the impending disaster was a forgone conclusion. Even with the best instruction he would not have understood kyudo.
His book is very seductive, filled as it is with tantalizing mystical stories about a seeker on the road to "enlightenment". So, it will appeal to romantics who have no experience in either Zen or kyudo, and it has been my experience that the book indeed appeals primarily to such people. It is instructive to note that those people who have experience in either discipline are quick to point out how thoroughly Herrigel bollixed it up.
I began kyudo under the influence of his book, and it was only after many years that I fully realized exactly how pernicious that influence was. I strongly urge those people who are interested in kyudo to never read it or only to read it after they have been practicing kyudo for a long time under competent instruction. To read it with the intent of forming an informed opinion of kyudo is not only inadvisable, it is positively dangerous.
Read "Kyudo: The Essence and Practice of Japanese Archery" by Onuma and DeProspero instead. It is as good an explanation of kyudo as Herrigel's book is a bad one.
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Title: The Method of Zen by Eugen Herrigel ISBN: 0394712447 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 July, 1974 List Price(USD): $7.00 |
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Title: One Arrow, One Life: Zen, Archery, Enlightenment by Kenneth Kushner ISBN: 0804832463 Publisher: Charles E Tuttle Co Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Archery Anatomy: An Introduction to Techniques for Improved Performance by Ray Axford ISBN: 0285632655 Publisher: Souvenir Pr Ltd Pub. Date: November, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Instinctive Archery Insights: Enhanced Performance, Accelerated Learning, Increased Accuracy by Jay Kidwell ISBN: 0963971808 Publisher: Rollin Jay Kidwell Pub. Date: 25 October, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Zen in Motion: Lessons from a Master Archer on Breath, Posture, and the Path of Intuition by Neil Claremon ISBN: 089281361X Publisher: Inner Traditions Intl Ltd Pub. Date: August, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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