Archery
The skill beats luck - fortune favors the prepared.
Shooting is to study the mind (observation, introspection, control). through practice and experience (not reading or watching).
The ancient practice of knowing your self.
The ancient exercise in self-discipline, introspection and self-knowing (know thyself).
Each shot reveals what you are (to you).
Each shot reveals you as a living Buddha or a tense fool.
Hitting a target with an arrow is a small vehicle; attaining enlightenment with an arrow is a big vehicle.
Draw the Bow that has no form (it is just a tool of self-discipline practice).
One shot is one life (calm concentration, one-pointedness of perfect self-control).
The activity of a non-verbal, “animal” mind within, observed by the “thinking in a language” mind (introspection).
Your body, empty mind (no-mind), calm concentration and the bow becomes a perfect unity.
Each shot is a new (independent of the previous one and like a new day).
As if your life depends on it (“trying my best”, full effort in any activity).
Without tension. Without mind. Without being busy. Without being intoxicated.
Shoot with your “belly” (body and the “animal” mind, not “intellect” full of concepts and causing tension).
No concerns except doing it right.
Empty mind (silent intellect) – it is unnecessarily and interferes with a good shot.
No tension. No mind. No struggle (the universal formula of “just doing it”). An optimal (nothing more to remove) performance of the body-mind duo.
Like a ripe fruit falls from a tree. When ready (a release).
There is no perfect shot. (or a program)
Self-improvement is endless, never complete and ultimately futile.
The “arrogant rooster” story. Anger and arrogance are weaknesses.
Do not be in a hurry. (also true for programming) Do not shoot obsessively. Do not compete with others. (also true for programming) Do shoot when you lack enthusiasm.
“When an archer misses the center of the target, he reflects and seeks the cause of the failure within himself.”
Make every shot anew. Self-discipline is painful, hard work; shoot each shot as if your life depended on it.
Do your best at each and everything. That is the key to success. Learn (this) one thing well and you will learn how to master ten thousand things.
Aim at the target with your belly (let the body do it its way).
Release the arrow with no intent. /When it is ready.
Each shot reveals your self (to you) - it shows who you are, what you can do. Each shot must be sincere (beginner’s mind).
You and your bow must come together as one; that act is divine. This unity of instrument and oneself is divine.
Everyone tries to shoot naturally, but nearly all practitioners have some kind of strategy, some kind of shallow, artificial, calculating technical trick that they rely on when they shoot. Technical tricks ultimately lead nowhere. Shoot without shooting.
Confucius practiced the Way of the Bow to demonstrate how a cultured person acts. Confucius was not concerned with hitting the target one hundred times out of one hundred shots. He was demonstrating how one hundred shots can be one hundred perfections of self-control and character.
With no target, With no arrow to draw, Shoot: Not in the middle, Not outside. (actual practice, experience and feedback, not other concerns)
Even when troubled Maintain the spirit Of the Bow and Arrow And it will heal Your sickness!
Without tension, without strain.
Non-thinking (empty mind) is where Buddha dwells. That is where we want to go.
Human beings always cling to things. Practice begins when you stop clinging.
When the bow is fully drawn, there is nothing more to add or nothing to remove.
As you draw the Bow, everything else goes. The Buddha-nature assumes control. The unity of the “empty” mind and the non-tense body as intendend by evolution.
The local optimum of the body-mind (an “animal mind”, which is never wrong).