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herrigel did not mention the name of his teacher in the book, and for many years
there was considerable perplexity and debate about who his teacher was, or even
if there was one. there was indeed a teacher, who now has been identified as awa
kenz� (1880-1939). unfortunately, master kenz�, although a teacher of archery,
was not a teacher, and did not pretend to even be an adherent, of zen buddhism.
what kenz� calls the "great doctrine" in the book was not zen but his own
original practice, the daishaky�d�, the "way of the great doctrine of shooting."
when herrigel wrote about his experience in 1936, he did not characterize his
lessons as a form of zen. what changed was when he read d.t. suzuki in 1938.
then he decided that kenz�'s teaching actually was zen. suzuki obviously
endorsed this identification, since he wrote the introduction to the post-war
edition of herrigel's book. modern scholarship on zen has come to regard
suzuki's own reading of zen as idiosyncratic and not well grounded in the
traditions of the school. so what does this add up to? does zen in the art of
archery simply have nothing to do with zen? should it be dropped from
consideration in an essay like this?
well, no. however idiosyncratic or personal suzuki's interpretation of the zen
tradition, it was an influential interpretation in japan both before and after
the war, and very much of a piece with the ideological climate in both periods,
as an adjunct both to the pre-war militarism and imperialism and the post-war
yearning for irrationalism on the part of westerners, of whom herrigel was a
forerunner. more importantly, what distinguishes the approach of suzuki,
herrigel, and master kenz� himself remains the development of the taoist
features of the tradition. whether this was a specifically zen tradition or not,
there is no doubt that what characterized and differentiated even chinese ch'an
buddhism was already a taoist admixture. in those terms, kenz�'s teaching has
zen features, whether he wanted to call it that or not.
thus, while herrigel and kenz� are often now said to have sometimes simply
misunderstood each other, these instances actually are poor counterexamples to
the general tendency. thus, the famous scene, reproduced in james clavell's
novel shogun, when kenz� shot two arrows out into the dark, where the first hit
the target and the second split the first, is now said to represent poor
technique, and kenz�'s silence about it embarrassment rather than quiet
countenance. be that as it may, it impressed the hell out of herrigel and anyone
else reading the book (or shogun) ever since. in taoist terms, that got the job
done, whatever kenz�'s conscious expectations. more importantly, this possibly
awkward moment is far from exhausting the examples of "silent teaching" in zen
in the art of archery. the most telling case comes at the end of the book, when
herrigel asks if kenz� would like to hear from him after he returns to germany.
kenz� says that herrigel should just occasionally send a photograph of him
holding the bow. from that all else will be plain. perhaps kenz� didn't want to
bother with getting letters translated, or perhaps, as i suspect, words were
unnecessary. this was not as "mystical" as the magical arrows, but as solidly
taoist as one can get.
[my thanks for information in this area goes to articles and translations by
william bodiford of the department of asian languages & cultures at ucla.]
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