[PREV - ZAMM]    [TOP]

ZEN_IN_THE_ART_OF_ARCHERY

                                             August 11, 2023

Zen in the Art of Archery (1948)
by Eugen Herrigel

Just quoting the wikipedia
page for now--                       It does a good job of tying
                                     it up with Pirsig:

                                                 ZAMM


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_in_the_Art_of_Archery

   The book sets forth theories about motor
   learning. Herrigel has an accepting spirit towards and
   about unconscious control of outer activity that
   Westerners heretofore considered to be wholly under
   conscious-waking control and direction. For example, a
   central idea in the book is how through years of
   practice, a physical activity becomes effortless both
   mentally and physically, as if our physical memory (today
   known as "muscle memory") executes complex and difficult
   movements without conscious control from the mind.

  Herrigel describes Zen in archery as follows:

    "(...) The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as
    the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which
    confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized
    only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he
    becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill,
    though there is in it something of a quite different
    order which cannot be attained by any progressive study
    of the art (...)"


--------
[NEXT - ZAAA_SPRINGS]