Zen in the Art of Archery - Hardcover

Herrigel, Eugene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0710015186 ISBN 13: 9780710015181

Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953

Synopsis

The first English edition of a popular work credited with introducing Zen to Western audiences in the late 1940s and 1950s, by German philosophy professor Eugen Herrigel (1884-1955), published in 1948, about his experiences studying Kyudo, a form of Japanese archery, when he lived in Japan in the 1920s.

About this title

Review:

So many books have been written about the meditation side of Zen and the everyday, chop wood/carry water side of Zen. But few books have approached Zen the way that most Japanese actually do--through ritualized arts of discipline and beauty--and perhaps that is why Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery is still popular so long after it first publication in 1953. Herrigel, a philosophy professor, spent six years studying archery and flower-arranging in Japan, practicing every day, and struggling with foreign notions such as "eyes that hear and ears that see." In a short, pithy narrative, he brings the heart of Zen to perfect clarity--intuition, imitation, practice, practice, practice, then, boom, wondrous spontaneity fusing self and art, mind, body, and spirit. Herrigel writes with an attention to subtle profundity and relates it with a simple artistry that itself carries the signature of Zen. --Brian Bruya

About the Author:

Eugen Herrigel (1884-1955), a German professor who taught philosophy at the University of Tokyo, penetrated deeply and personally into the theory and practice of Zen Buddhism. In endeavoring to become a Zen mystic, he experienced the rigorous discipline of training with a Zen Master for six years.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul
• Publication date: 1953
• ISBN 10: 0710015186
• ISBN 13: 9780710015181
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 108