Specifics of Zen Philosophy - Essay Example

Zen is a way of being in the world. As an example of this, Highlight talks about a Zen Master teaching a pupil archery. A Zen master who was a teacher of archery agreed to take him as a pupil. The lessons lasted six years, during which he practiced every single day. There are many difficult courses of instruction in the world: the Jesuits, violin virtuosi, Talmudic scholars, all have long and hard training, which in one sense never comes to an end; but Herrigel’s training in archery equaled them all in intensity.

If I were trying to learn archery, I should expect to begin by looking at a target and shooting arrows at it. He was not even allowed to aim at a target for the first four years. He had to begin by learning how to hold the bow and arrow, and then how to release the arrow; this took ages. The Japanese bow is not like our sporting bow, and the stance of the archer in japan is different from ours (Highlight). For High, this helps illustrate his opinion that Zen is actually a religion. I strongly disagree with Highlight about this.

This story may not be true: it is more of an anecdote that shows us that we need to reflect more on our position in the world than our immediate goals. This is more of a philosophical issue than a religious one. The highlight is wrong about this. Religion and philosophy are two different things. Religion is a systematic and ordered thing that has its special doctrines. Philosophy is a series of approaches to various problems. Highlight tries to make an argument that Zen is a religion but it is simply not ordered enough.

His conclusion does not stand. He leads us through a number of anecdotes. But the sum of a series of anecdotes is not a religion. It is a series of ways of looking at problems—more of a philosophy. The highlight is an interesting writer and Zen is a strange philosophy. It is not for me. I will leave it to the hippies in California to practice. However, I learned a great deal from reading this work and will read more about Eastern mysticism in order to further educate myself.