Eugen Herrigel Quotes

16 quotes in 352 categories

• Often nothing keeps the pupil on the move but his faith in his teacher, whose mastery is now beginning to dawn on him .... How…
• The shot will go smoothly only when it takes the archer himself by surprise.
• Far from wishing to awaken the artist in the pupil prematurely, the teacher considers it his first task to make him a skilled artisan with…
• Assuming that his talent can survive the increasing strain, there is one scarcely avoidable danger that lies ahead of the pupil on his road to…
• The man, the art, the work--it is all one.
• This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself…
• In the case of archery, the hitter and the hit are no longer two opposing objects, but are one reality.
• This means that the mind or spirit is present anywhere, because it is nowhere attached to any particular place. And it can remain present because,…
• By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind so decisively that nothing more is left of you but a purposeless tension .
• The hand that guides the brush has already caught and executed what floated before the mind at the same moment the mind began to form…
• I must only warn you of one thing. You have become a different person in the course of these years. For this is what the…
• The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in…
• Zen Buddhism does not preach. Sermons remain words. It waits until people feel stifled and insecure, driven by a secret longing.
• He grows daily more capable of following any inspiration without technical effort, and also of letting inspiration come to him through meticulous observation.
• The more a human being feels himself a self, tries to intensify this self and reach a never-attainable perfection, the more drastically he steps out…

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