Zen In Archery Quotes & Sayings

In the classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel's teacher urged him always to take his next shot unburdened by previous failures to hit the target; as he improved, his teacher urged him not to be influenced by his successes either, to stay in the present moment. — Alex Soojung-Kim Pang

If you understand real practice, then archery or other activities can be zen. If you don't understand how to practice archery in its true sense, then even though you practice very hard, what you acquire is just technique. It won't help you through and through. Perhaps you can hit the mark without trying, but without a bow and arrow you cannot do anything. If you understand the point of practice, then even without a bow and arrow the archery will help you. How you get that kind of power or ability is only through right practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery. — Shunryu Suzuki

The copy of an ad is merely a punning gag to distract the critical faculties while the image of the product goes to work on the hypnotized viewer. Those who have spent their lives protesting about 'false and misleading ad copy' are godsends to advertisers, as teetotalers are to brewers, and moral censors are to books and films. The protesters are the best acclaimers and accelerators. Since the advent of pictures, the job of the ad copy is as incidental and latent as the 'meaning' of a poem is to a poem, or the words of a song are to a song. — Marshall McLuhan

We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But there's nothing in any of the histories we've looked at so far to suggest things are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up. — Malcolm Gladwell

This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose. — Eugen Herrigel

Each time I free a child, I feel it is something closer to God. — Kailash Satyarthi

I didn't want a guru or a kung fu master or a spiritual director. I didn't want to become a sorcerer or learn the zen of archery or meditate or align my chakras or uncover mast incarnations ... I was after something else entirely, but it wasn't in the Yellow Pages or anywhere else that I could discover. — Daniel Quinn

One more point must be made with regard to the general conditions of learning an art. One does not begin to learn an art directly, but indirectly, as it were. One must learn a great number of other - and often seemingly disconnected things - before one starts with the art itself. An apprentice in carpentry begins by learning how to plane wood; an apprentice in the art of piano playing begins by practicing scales; an apprentice in the Zen art of archery begins by doing breathing exercises. 1 If one wants to become a master in any art, one's whole life must be devoted to it, or at least related to it. One's own person becomes an instrument in the practice of the art, and must be kept fit, according to the specific functions it has to fulfill. With regard to the art of loving, this means that anyone who aspires to become a master in this art must begin by practicing discipline, concentration and patience throughout every phase of his life. — Erich Fromm

I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice. — Abraham Lincoln

[EM] Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people's books he found examples of style which he wanted to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zen masters of archery - of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard - start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up the pen. — Christopher Isherwood

You have described only too well," replied the Master, "where the difficulty lies ... The right shot at the right moment does not come because you do not let go of yourself. You ... brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open in the right way
like the hand of a child. — Eugen Herrigel

A very enjoyable meditation on the curious thing called 'Zen' -not the Japanese religious tradition but rather the Western clich of Zen that is embraced in advertising, self-help books, and much more ... Yamada, who is both a scholar of Buddhism and a student of archery, offers refreshing insight into Western stereotypes of Japan and Japanese culture, and how these are received in Japan. — Alexander Gardner

And you can never prepare for this new reality in which you have been dunked. — Julian Barnes

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. — Eugen Herrigel

The first time I ask him, have you had your cheekbones raised, have you had your nose changed? He denied it all. I was asking him to compare his face with what it looked like years ago. — Martin Bashir

The Republicans didn't want the government to run your life, because Jesus should. That was really part of their thing: less government, more Jesus. Now it's like, how about more government and Jesus? — Trey Parker

We don't have a rooting interest. We have an interest in watching people excel and then coming up with creative ways to describe it. — Beth Mowins

Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise. — Eugen Herrigel

I remember you. You were like burning firelight in that cave, all shimmery, dancing color." I lean closer over the island, mesmerized by his words, his hand on my face. If he keeps talking this way, he's going to see me like that again. "Tell me you thought about me. That you think about me now."
"I thought about you," I whisper, "I've never stopped thinking about you." Somehow I doubt I ever will. — Sophie Jordan

Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. — Michael Chabon