Zen In The Art of Archery.

The author, Matsuo Basho, was a famous practitioner of Zen. More than a thousand years ago he and a band of followers wandered "back roads to far places" practicing Zen and writing haiku, like medieval Japanese hippies. He lived more than a thousand years ago, but he is still quoted by some Zen masters.

A long time ago when I was just starting to get interested in Zen I asked a Zen master what this haiku meant because I didn’t understand why it was so important.

He looked at me quietly and said, “It means, ‘The old pond. A frog jumps in. The sound of the water.’”

“That’s all?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. That’s all it means. Nothing more than that.”

I guess I looked a little disappointed because after a long silence he said something like, “But that’s enough, if your mind is quiet enough.”

At first I didn't understand the significance of what he had said, but all he would say was, “Think about it.”

I still think about it sometimes, especially when I'm hypnotizing people. Haiku, Zen, and hypnosis are all about quieting the mind.

That was a long time ago when I was a young Air Force officer stationed in the Far East. I often used the base gym where I sometimes came across an elderly local Japanese man who taught martial arts in one corner of the gym.

The thing that stood out about him was the expression on his face. Strong and confident, but tranquil and very much at peace with the universe. This guy exuded confidence, tranquility, and a profound sense of inner peace.

You can tell a lot about a person by his or her facial expressions, and I could tell at a glance there was something very special about this old gentleman. When I got to know him I learned what the secret was behind his Buddha-like countenance.

The secret was Zen. He had practiced Zen for many years.

In the years that followed I started noticing that people who practice Zen seriously for a long-enough period of time tend to gradually develop a similar countenance, which I guess reflects the inner peace and contentment that gradually becomes their normal state.

So I started practicing Zen, too, and I still do. I’ve been studying it and practicing zazen, on and off, ever since.

But I still don't know much about it. Zen doesn't seem to be about knowing. It is more about not knowing. And that reminds me of a similarity between Zen and hypnosis. Both involve a turning away from the rational process, but usually for different reasons.

In the case of most eastern meditation systems that I've studied, reason is de-emphasized as you progress along a path toward a state of enlightenment, which can be a pretty explosive experience in the case of the Zen satori experience. Whereas in clinical hypnosis, the rational process is stilled only for a brief period of time for the purpose of achieving therapeutic change.

One of the reasons it is hard to compare hypnosis to meditation is because, as everyone knows, there are many different kinds of meditation. And although it is less widely known, there are also many different approaches to hypnosis, different styles that often involve radically different techniques.

For more than thirty-five years I have made it my business to be hypnotized by as many different kinds of hypnotists as possible in order to see what techniques they have, and which of these techniques are most effective, and which ones are worth stealing.

I've been hypnotized by world-famous professors from the most prestigious universities, by relatively uneducated stage hypnotists, and by an extremely wide variety of hypnotherapists who fall somewhere in between.

I've occasionally come upon brilliance in unexpected places, but I have never found any two who use exactly the same technique. And I've come across some very effective techniques that are extremely different from each other.

One kind of meditation that is similar in some ways to one approach to hypnosis is the ancient use of Zen to achieve mastery in the art of archery as well as swordsmanship and some of the other martial arts. This is similar in some ways to the very popular current use of hypnosis to enhance performance in sports.

In the early part of the last century, a German philosopher named Eugen Herrigel went to Japan to become a professor of philosophy at Tokyo University. He had long been interested in mysticism and gradually became interested in Zen and the ancient tradition of Zen in the art of archery. A fellow professor who was a native Japanese arranged for him to study under his own teacher, Kenzo Awa, a very famous master in the art of archery.

Years later professor Herrigel wrote a book, called Zen in the Art of Archery. This unusual little book has gradually become a cult classic and is still in print after more than fifty years. In it he describes how the ancient Zen masters used Zen to develop incredible skill in the art of archery.

In one anecdote he describes how his archery master shot an arrow into the dark where a distant target was lit by only one small candle. Then he shot a second arrow. The first arrow hit the bulls eye, and the second arrow hit the back end of the first arrow, splitting the entire shaft in two.

I've used hypnosis to help athletes improve their performance in many sports, from gymnastics to power lifting, but I've never used hypnosis to help an archer. About the closest I ever came to that was when I used it to help a former national dart-throwing champion regain the skill he had somehow lost.

He knew that the problem was in his release, and the solution was something I borrowed from Professor Herrigel’s little book about Zen in the art of archery.

I had to use hypnosis to help this dart thrower turn away from his rational process during the release, and allow his more-primitive, more facile and cat-like faculties to govern this incredibly subtle set of motions.

He didn't get so he could split a dart in two by hitting it with a second dart the way that Zen archery master was able to do with his arrows. But that's only because darts are a lot different from arrows. He got so he could hit them dead on, but they wouldn't split.

He became good enough to win tournaments again, and that was all he was after. He was very happy about the outcome. And I was, too.