Japan Navigator

What can go wrong when a foreigner who knows no Japanese but has very romantic ideas studies a particular Japanese “way” (Do) under a somewhat eccentric Master? Everything, according to The Myth of Zen in the Art of Archery by Yamada Shoji (published in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies). Surprisingly, the foreigner in question is none other than Eugen Herrigel, whose Zen in the Art of Archery is still widely read as a study of Japanese culture.

But did things really go terribly wrong in this meeting between cultures?

Eugen Herrigel (1884–1955) was a German professor who from 1924 to 1929 taught philosophy at the Tohoku University in Sendai. He was fascinated by Japanese culture and was already intent on finding Zen. But as he did not know any Japanese, he first took up the more practical study of archery (kyujutsu or kyudo). His instructor was Awa Kenzo, who was an excellent archer. However, after he experienced a religious revelation, Awa stood apart from the main archery schools and started teaching archery as a form of mysticism (without, by the way, any direct association with Zen Buddhism).

In 1936, Herrigel wrote an essay about his archery experiences and the conversations he had with his Master, and then in 1948 expanded the essay into a short book. This book was translated into English in 1953 and two years later into Japanese - interestingly, the translator was Komachiya Sozo, a colleague professor who had served as interpreter during Herrigel’s sessions with Awa.

Zen in the Art of Archery was well written and soon became a bestseller, just at the time Daisetz Suzuki also tried to show the influence of Zen on various aspects of Japanese culture - not surprisingly, Prof. Suzuki also wrote a preface. Many ideas in the book became fundamental tenets of how Westerners would view Japan. After the book was translated into Japanese, there too, practititoners of Kyudo became interested in a spiritual dimension that originally had been (if not absent) at least unspoken of, in what had basically been a utilitarian training.

One could call this a flagrant example of misunderstanding between cultures, as Yamada Shoji does in the article cited above. But then it surely was a very positive misinterpretation, as in the West it led to interest in Japan and Zen, while it also made many Japanese see their own tradition in a different light. One could therefore view it in a more compassionate way and call it the product of innen, the complex web of karmic relationships!

Here is a view of the matter by an archer.

P.S. John Stevens has written a book about Awa Kenzo, called Zen Bow, Zen Arrow - see the review by Donald Richie in the Japan Times.