FROM THE BOOK – ZEN IN THE ART OF ARCHERY

Master: The right art 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.

We master archers say: one shot – one life! What this means, your cannot understand … 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.

Student: What must I do then?

Master: You must learn to wait properly.

Student: And how does one learn that?

Master: By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you but purposeless tension.

autobiography – Eugen Herrigel

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