Zen in the Art of Archery

Focus your mind and body on your task, keeping your ego and pride in check, letting both the good and bad pass over you. Practice, repetition, and repetition with increasing intensity are your tools.

Books hit you in different ways at different times, and while I enjoyed this short and engaging experience, I can tell that I need to revisit it in the future to appreciate it more.

Brief and beautiful.

You don't need to know deeply about archery to enjoy this book. Through the journey of learning archery from a Kyuudou (archery in Japanese) Master, the author tells us the experience to attend to the great doctrine of Zen.

hmm I didn't get more zen from reading this. Though I do get the zen that is talked about in here. Because I get that feeling when I do archery too, doesn't make me any better at archery, mind. But I removes the stress, helps me relax and gets me outside (I do stomping/roving)

Interesting, but I remain skeptical. Much of what he experiences sounds like a combination of meditation during action and muscle memory. I'm still curious about zen, though, so I'll read further works on the subject.

The zen jazz isn't really my thing, but the point still works.

I read this book many years ago but it still comes to mind from time to time.

I'm a musician of a reasonable skill level, semi professional, and the ideas here are often relevant to playing.