Zen and the Art of Archery...

this is from D.T.Suzuki in his introduction to:
"Zen in the Art of Archery"
by Eugen Herrigel


~~~

Zen is the 'everyday mind,' as was proclaimed
by Baso; this 'everyday mind' is no more than:
"sleeping when tired, eating when hungry."
As soon as we reflect, deliberate, and conceptulize,
the original unconsciousness is lost and a thought
interferes. We no longer eat while eating, we no
longer sleep while sleeping. The arrow is off the
string but does not fly straight to the target, nor
does the target stand where it is. Calculation which
is miscalculation sets in. The whole business of
archery goes the wrong way. The archer's confused
mind betrays itself in every direction and every
field of activity.

Man is a thinking reed but his great works are done
when he is not calculating and thinking. 'Childlikeness'
has to be restored with long years of training in the art
of self-forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks
yet he does not think. He thinks like the showers coming
down from the sky; he thinks like the wavew rolling on
the ocean; he thinks like the stars illuminating the nightly
heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth
in the relaxing spring breeze. Indeed, he is the showers,
the ocean, the stars, the foliage.

When a man reaches this stage of 'spiritual' development,
he is a Zen artist of life. He does not need, like the painter,
a canvas, brushes, and paints; nor does he require, like
the archer, the bow and arrow and target, and other
paraphernalia. He has his limbs, head, and other parts.
His Zen-life expresses itself by means of all these 'tools'
which are important to its manifestation. His hands and
feet are the brushes and the whole universe is the canvas
on which he depicts his life for seventy, eighty, or even
ninety years.

Hoyen of Gosozen says: "Here is a man who, turning
the emptiness of space into a sheet of paper, the waves
of the ocean into an inkwell, and Mount Sumeru into a
brush, writes these five characters:
* so - shi - sai - rai - i.
To such, I spread my zagu and make my profound bow."

One may well ask,
"What does this fantastic pronouncement mean?
Why is a person who can perform such a feat
considered worthy of the utmost respect?"
A Zen master would perhaps answer,
"I eat when hungry, I sleep when tired."
If he is nature-minded, he may say,
"It was fine yesterday and today it is raining."

~~~
* so - shi - sai - rai - i
These five characters in chinese ...
literally translated, mean:
"the first patriarch's motive for coming from the west."
The theme is often taken up as a subject of * mondo.
It is the same as asking about the most essential
thing in Zen.
When this is understood, Zen is this body itself.