Archery, Csikszentmihalyi, and What’s Really Important, Anyway?

By Jeffrey Agrell

Archery


Eugen Herrigel was a German philosophy professor who went to Tokyo for six years in the 1930s to study Zen. He was told that he could not study Zen in the Western sense, that he could only experience it through the study of a traditional Japanese art. Since he was a hobby marksman at home, he chose what he thought was the closest ‘art’: archery. As it turned out, he might have made faster progress had he chosen ikebana, the art of flower arranging, as his wife did. He detailed his struggles in his classic book, Zen in the Art of Archery.

The professor was interested in mysticism, but he was mystified by the approach to archery that he encountered: for a long time, the novice archer was not even to try to shoot at a target. The first entire year was devoted to learning how to draw the bowstring back while breathing ‘spiritually’, that is, with effortless strength and complete concentration. Then for another year Herrigel worked on releasing the arrow. Just that. One year.

He suffered endless failures. His archery master told him: “…you do not let go of yourself. You do not wait for fulfillment, but brace yourself for failure. So long as that is so, you have no choice but to call forth something yourself that ought to happen independently of you, and so long as you call it forth your hand will not open the right way, like the hand of a child: it does not burst open like the skin of a ripe fruit. … The right art is purposeless, aimless! 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 the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have too much willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen.”

When I first read the book years ago, I had a lot of trouble understanding the Master’s particular way of describing the performance events. Purposeless? Aimless?

There was more.

Only after four (4!) years was Herrigel allowed to shoot at a target. The process of drawing back the bowstring and releasing had by now become an automatic ‘ceremony’. His success was not measured by whether he hit the target or not. A shot may have only grazed the target, but the Master might say, “There! It shot!”

Huh? What was he talking about? It shoots? If I’m not doing it, who is?

For ‘it’ to shoot, one must achieve ‘mushin,’ which literally means ‘no-mind’. Herrigel said, “When mushin functions, the mind moves from one activity to another, flowing like a stream of water and filling every space.”

For some time I didn’t have much more luck than Herrigel understanding this.

Herrigel: “And how does one attain this state of no-mindedness?”
Master: “Only through practice and more practice, until you can do something without conscious effort. Then your reaction becomes automatic.”

Practice! Now there was something I understood. We were getting somewhere. But I still had questions. What does it means if you miss the target?

Master: “You can be a Master even if every shot does not hit. … There are different grades of mastery, and only when you have made the last grade will you be sure of not missing the goal.”

What if you hit the target? Isn’t that really important?

Master: “The hits on the target are only the outward proof and confirmation of your purposelessness at its highest, of your egolessness, your self-abandonment.”

But Herrigel got into trouble when he gloried in making a good shot.

Master: “What are you thinking of? You know already that you should not grieve over bad shots; learn now not to rejoice over the good ones. You must free yourself from the buffetings of pleasure and pain, and learn to rise above them in easy equanimity, to rejoice as though not you but another had shot well. This, too, you must practice unceasingly – you cannot conceive how important it is… What stands in the way of effortless effort is caring, or a conscious attempt to do well. To generate great power you must first totally relax and gather your strength, and then concentrate your mind and all your strength on hitting your target.”

It was starting to make sense. The parallels with horn playing were becoming clear, as were the lessons Herrigel had learned:

•The key to success was learning and ceaselessly rehearsing ‘the ceremony’, which was a ritual of performance that proceeded from a calm and focused mind.
•The key to the ceremony was focusing the mind on the (one) thing the archer is doing in the moment. “The key is not to think of doing things right every time; the thought seems too overwhelming. Just do it right one time: this time, right now. That’s all you ever have to worry about. Do what has to be done, when it has to be done, as well as it can be done, and do it that way every time.”
•The pursuit of archery (horn…) is not one of sport, where you try to defeat an opponent or score bullseyes. The target is yourself, mastery of yourself, to train the mind.
•”There is joy in the struggle.” See below.

Csikszentmihalyi

Many years after reading Zen in the Art of Archery, I came upon the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (cheek-sent-me-high-ee), the University of Chicago psychology professor who is known for his study of human enjoyment. Csikszentmihalyi says that activities are enjoyable when they have what he calls “flow.” Flow is characterized by:
1. Attention to a clearly defined goal. Achieving a higher level goal requires going through a series of smaller, easily achievable goals.
2. Pursuing the goals for their own sake, not for reward, money, fame, etc.).
3. Feeling completely concentrated and absorbed in the activity.
4. An altered perception of time – hours pass quickly.
5. Skills that match the challenge so that one has a sense of control over one’s actions.
6. Actions during the activity are automatic.
7. No awareness of self. No thought of winning or losing.
8. Immediate feedback during the activity on how one is doing.

This all adds up to a feeling: fun or enjoyment or playfulness. Activities that produce flow produce happiness.

It might come as a surprise, but Csikszentmihalyi says that you are most likely to get flow from your work, not from entertainments. There is no flow in watching TV, for example, because watching TV is passive. You need activity and effort, challenges and goals. He also says that flow results in personal growth, and that because of this you need and want ever-greater challenges to continue the development (when you can jump one rope easily, add another jump rope!).

Put Them Together and What Do You Got?

Although by the time I discovered Csikszentmihalyi I had found ways of understanding Herrigel; it probably would have been of much benefit to have read them at about the same time, since they have much in common. Herrigel’s book provides practical examples where Csikszentmihalyi gives us a more familiar way of describing the process.

#1: Herrigel certainly had clearly defined goals. The process was broken down into steps. Csikszentmihalyi says steps between subgoals should be small and easily achievable. Herrigel, however, was buffaloed for a long time because he was applying his Western methods and attitudes to a process that was profoundly different.

For some perspective, let’s imagine how a comparable Western archery course might operate:
Day One
1. Draw back arrow
2. Try to hit target
3. Repeat
Day Two
Repeat Day One

Note that this approach barely breaks down the process; it does not deal with breathing or concentration or making a ‘ceremony’ of the process. It has one value: hitting the target, and striving for that goal happens with the first shot and every shot. Consideration of the inner mental or physical state of the archer does not enter in.

#2: Csikszentmihalyi says to achieve flow, goals should be pursued for their own sake. Herrigel pursued archery for knowledge and understanding, not strictly speaking for its own sake. His ratiocination and desire to ‘succeed’ blocked his surrender to the process for a long time and hindered his learning the process.

#3 & 4: Concentrated… absorbed… time passes quickly. It took time, but for Herrigel, by the time he mastered ‘the ceremony’ of Japanese archery, this was certainly true.

#5: Matching the challenge to skills. Herrigel had sufficient prerequisite physical strength and coordination – his troubles were due to impatience, conflicting values (hitting the target über alles), and trying too hard.

#6: Automatic actions. This is what ‘the ceremony’ was – repeating the process calmly and well until it was automatic and could proceed without interference from the conscious mind.

#7: No thought of winning or losing, no thought of self. Now the Masters’ statements ‘purposeless, egoless’ and ‘…rise above [hitting or missing shots] in easy equanimity’ make sense. The Master’s words “What stands in the way of effortless effort is caring, or a conscious attempt to do well” echo those of Western sage Dave Krehbiel, who advocates what he terms ‘creative not caring’ to deal with stressful performance situations.

#8: Immediate feedback. No lack of this for Herrigel.

Csikszentmihalyi says it all adds up to a feeling of enjoyment or fun. Herrigel was not one to describe Zen archery with a term as light-hearted as ‘fun’, but there is no mistaking his keen enjoyment of the process at the end of the story. He would very likely agree, however, with Csikszentmihalyi’s word ‘flow’ to describe what happens in doing ‘the ceremony.’

What’s Really Important, Anyway?

One of the most important connections to me was the Master’s ”There is joy in the struggle” – a simple and elegant alternate definition of ‘flow’, and a statement of the importance of the process over the product. The true source of happiness by this light is losing yourself in the process of learning the art. The antithesis of this is valuing the product – the bullseye, the notes as depicted on paper – exclusively. If Herrigel and Csikszentmihalyi are correct, it suggests a revised value system of what is important in the process of learning to play the horn.

‘Western’ value
•Product (accuracy of re-creation of printed notes)
Student’s confidence and self-worth rise and fall with the results of their accuracy of reproducing pitches and rhythms on the printed page as well as comparison with others (although every person is at a different stage of his or her development); a player is rewarded and esteemed at every at every step in the educational process by this criterion. Breathing is regarded as a technical aid, not as a focus for the mind. Tension and stress are high for performers because of the pervasive single criterion of accuracy. Overcoming this stress and the negative physical and mental damages that eventually accrue is the subject of many palliative therapies, but none that address the cause rather than the symptoms, i.e. a realignment of a fundamental approach that values product over process.

Flow/Zen art value

•Process, illustrated in horn playing terms:
–The student is – from the beginning – impressed with the fact that the highest value is remaining calm, relaxed and alert.
Comment:
1) This state is the basis for the correct process (the ‘spiritual’ way, the ‘ceremony’, ‘flow’). Product (the notes and musicality) can flow with ‘effortless strength’ only from this basis. Product can, of course, be forced (as the Master caught Herrigel attempting once), but this amounts to reversing the entire value system and may lead later to mental or physical breakdowns in the player and greatly diminished enjoyment of the process. Food for thought: Have you ever met folks who are really good players but don’t really seem to enjoy playing that much? Why do there always seem to be more job openings for high horn than low horn…?

2) The goal of traditional Japanese arts is to train the mind, i.e. to attain the state described above. The goal in the West is to win. One of my favorite Zen sayings is “The mind is drunken monkey,” i.e. something that is very difficult to control. Why is it so difficult to control? Although we often mistakenly consider the language-using voice in our heads to be our personal identity rather than something we can do, the highest value of the chatterbox in our skulls is not necessarily what is in our best interest – it is simply to keep making noise, and it doesn’t care if the chatter is positive or negative. This leads us to a corollary of the Zen quote: “Your head is not your friend.” It is perfectly happy to natter on about negative or irrelevant things when the best thing it could do might be to be silent and observe the process of, say, picking out a high note in a solo rather than criticizing, prophesying, or regretting. The noted philosopher Frank Zappa said it like this: “Shut up and play yer guitar.” Meditation is a mental exercise in focusing the mind, one way to quiet the internal radio, control the monkey. The archery ‘ceremony’ described by Herrigel does the same thing. We have great need of rituals that bring us calm and quiet in a culture that bombards us, floods our senses with information, advertisements, endless sound and noise, hypernervous half-second television edits, traffic jams, statistics, overloaded schedules, short vacations, fast food taken on the run, email/pagers/cell phones/laptops, work nights & weekends, no time to say hello good-bye I’m late I’m late I’m late–

We do in fact have ‘ceremonies’ in the West, although we are not always aware of them or call them by that name. Sports are replete with examples. Observe a major league baseball player at bat some time: before every pitch he will go through a ‘ceremony’, a ritual set of movements that he uses to get himself in the proper alert, concentrated, and relaxed frame of mind to face the orb spinning at him at 90 miles per hour while millions of people watch. Then think: what ceremonies could a horn player have to face our difficult ‘pitches?’ Do we need them any less than the baseball player? After all, he only needs to hit the ball well three times out of ten to make millions. Would your conductor be happy if you hit the right note a mere nine out of ten times? It is very easy to be seduced into going after the symptom, but we need to go after the disease to cure the patient.

3) A yoga teacher of my acquaintance once suggested that there are many ways to practice in everyday life what Herrigel’s Master called the ‘spiritual’ approach. If you are standing in a line at, say, the supermarket, and you notice that the line next to you is moving faster and this makes you frustrated and impatient – have a laugh at yourself and go to the back of the line. Repeat until you find detachment and can wait in line – go through the process – with equanimity, calmness, and patience.

-All playing begins with an easily attained goal, well within the student’s capabilities.
Comment:
Southern Mississippi University horn professor Dennis Behm tells a fascinating story about his encounter with a South American principal hornist, who seemed to have no nerve problems whatsoever when playing solos. When Dennis asked him if he ever experienced dry mouth or shaky hands in performance, the man answered, “Now why would I want to do that?” When pressed to explain how he had achieved such an enviable state of calm, the man said, in effect, where he came from, Grade V players perform a lot of Grade III music, at which of course they are very successful. In North America it is more typical for a Grade III player to attempt Grade V material with results that are less than gratifying and which undermine confidence. Isn’t playing with confidence another way to describe the ‘spiritual’ way, where a quiet mind does not interfere and allows the process to happen?

–Many repetitions of the successful passage (to automate the process); then a small increment of difficulty is added.
Comment:
As with the South American example, it is easier for the student to remain calm and not force since she experiences repeated successes, and the repetitions make the process effortless. The result is confident, enjoyable, accurate playing – a prerequisite to be able to do what we all say we’re here for: to make music. Perhaps our greatest enemy in the West is impatience – if at first you don’t succeed, force it. The entire force of the culture comes down on the side of haste. We don’t think we have time to do it right. We want to go on as soon as we finally get it right, instead following it with “only 800 more correct repetitions”, to use Richard Seraphinoff’s felicitous recommendation (he’s kidding, but only a little).

–The teacher encourages the student to remain detached from success or failure during the process [playing].
Comment:
Nota bene: this not the same is ignoring success or failure. It is simply awareness of the result without ego attachment to it. A mind that makes the ego responsible for inaccuracies tries to take over the process, to force. The result is tension, stress, and increased inaccuracy. The reaction should in fact be to re-examine the process to return to the relaxed and alert state, and to reduce the level of difficulty sufficiently to ensure success (see my article “The Stepping Stone Approach” in the February 2002 issue of The Horn Call). Success without detachment can be just as deadly. Ever suddenly noticed that it is three-fourths of the way through a symphony concert and you have not nicked a single note? And you start wondering if you can keep up perfection all the way to the end? Guess what is going to follow very soon after this?
In golf (which has many analogies to horn playing), the only thing worse than a bad shot (after which you try to force a good shot) is a good shot, where you try to force re-creation of the success rather than returning to the ceremony, setting up for the shot precisely the same once again without a thought of the last shot or the next shot or of failure or success. Just dance the dance once again. Pro golfers are the Zen masters of the Western world in my book.
In any case, detachment of the ego from the results of the effort is essential to the correct process (= “spiritual” approach). Rudyard Kipling in his poem “If” said it neatly in one line: “If you can meet Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same…”

To sum up: maximum effectiveness and maximum enjoyment are the results of valuing process over product, a process that includes relaxed alertness and focused concentration, many accurate repetitions, small increments in difficulty over time, detachment from success or failure, and eventual automation of the process.