Seishinkan Kyudojo Principles of Training

Incessant practice, done correctly with a pure mind and spirit, is the only way to understand kyudo. Nothing can take the place of this.

How, then, can you purify your mind so that Sanmi Ittai, Seisha Hitchu, and the Shaho can be realized? The answer is very simple: you practice kyudo. To quote Murakami Hanshi: "It is necessary, through the exercise of technique in your everyday practice, to sufficiently master such mental and spiritual aspects of kyudo as mental calmness, the development of spiritual power, mental and spiritual concentration, and decisiveness"* (italics added). Suzuki Hiroyuki Hanshi says: "Since shooting is honest and is a mirror, if you have any dishonesty or problem, this will surely reveal itself in the results".** Taken together, these statements mean, quite simply, that the results of the shooting will show to what extent you understand your art and that the only way to understand kyudo is to practice it.

Yoshimi Junsei perhaps says it best in the preface to the Shaho Kun: "Searching only in yourself, you must cleanse your mind and correct your body, and, with singleness of purpose, nurture the proper spirit, train yourself in proper technique, and throw yourself into your training with all of the sincerity you can muster. This is the only way."

What does Yoshimi Junsei mean by cleansing the mind and nurturing the proper spirit?

I believe that cleansing the mind means that you must have nothing in your mind that prevents you from shooting in accord with the Shaho. The proper spirit means practicing diligently with pure motives, pure meaning that you should put all thoughts of gain or loss out of your mind and strive to shoot for the sake of shooting. Unfortunately, a person with this kind of truly pure heart is exceedingly rare. Therefore, one of the goals of kyudo is to nurture this spirit through the practice of proper shooting.

People do things for many reasons. Without realizing it, most people have ulterior or impure motives for their actions and these motivations affect their kyudo. Some people want to be liked and admired for their accomplishments; some aspire to position and power; some love competition and the adulation achieved through victory; some fear losing and so shun anything having to do with competition; some hold themselves in high regard and therefore believe that their way is right while others are wrong; others think little of themselves and value everyone's opinion but their own. Peoples' deepest character traits, even those unknown to themselves, affect everything they do, including their shooting. A physically strong person will shoot with confidence and power, but with too much aggression and brute force. A spiritually weak person's shooting will vacillate and lack decisiveness. A person whose mind is erratic will shoot erratically. A sloppy person will shoot sloppily. A tense person's shooting will be tense and an angry person's shooting will be angry. As the person is, so is their shooting.

Further, kyudo itself must be understood in a balanced way. Some people think that the bow can be pulled with the body alone. They therefore concentrate on technique only and neglect to cultivate their spirit. Such people, if they are strong, confident and athletic, can become very skillful archers, sometimes fairly quickly. However, their skill is limited and they often quit when they encounter obstacles within themselves that take too much effort to overcome. Some people, on the other hand, believe that technique is secondary and only the mind is truly important, so if they just put themselves into what they believe is the proper frame of mind, the shooting will somehow create itself.

Murakami Hanshi says, however, that "kyudo consists of technique and kokoro (mind). Kyudo cannot exist without technique, but it cannot exist by technique alone. Technique and mind must be united like the twisted strands of a rope".*** The physical act of shooting cannot be divorced from the mind and spirit and there is no dichotomy between the mind and the body or between technique and spirit. They are interdependent, so by properly training in technique you train your mind and spirit. To the Western mind this may not be as obvious as it sounds; but it is one of the most fundamental things to understand in the practice of kyudo. What it means in practice is that every physical action is viewed as a mirror of the state of your mind and spirit. Therefore, once you have learned technique to the point where you can shoot with reasonable fluency, the teacher starts to watch the spirit with which you shoot more and more closely. The quality with which you shoot holds the key to understanding your mind.

* Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 183, translation by the author
** Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 143, translation by the author
*** Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 179, translation by the author

The Mind And The Target

Among kyudo practitioners there is the phrase "makiwara hanshi", or "master of the straw target". This refers to someone who can shoot perfectly at the makiwara but who falls to pieces the minute he faces a real target. Why does this happen? Murakami Hanshi puts it like this:

"It often happens that although you may be able to shoot at the makiwara as well as you wish, you cannot display the same ability when shooting at the target. Similarly, even if you are able to fully exercise your skill in practice, unexpected results can frequently occur at some important event (such as a competition or a test). This is because the mind, being swayed by negative attitudes such as attachment and desire, becomes agitated, making it impossible to put forth all of your skill and technique. In short, you are defeated by the working of your mind (shin) and spirit (ki).

Archers sometimes lose their composure. At important events, you can be affected by the atmosphere of the event. As the strong internal and external stimulation causes increasing excitement, both your mind and body become abnormally tense; technique which you can normally perform smoothly and without thinking loses its cohesiveness, continuity, and sustainability; your body and mind become rigid; and you are seized by uncertainty and become unable to control your own mind. In short, you lose your self-control. No matter how strong and skillful you are, you cannot fully exercise your ability if this strength and skill is not accompanied by the proper working of the mind and spirit. Consequently, in order to improve your skill, you must strive to fulfill the following three conditions:

Maintain good health

Continually practice technique

Strive to increase mental power and learn spiritual calmness by training the mind and spirit."*

The meaning of this is clear, I think: since the one thing that will honestly show the true state of your mind is your reaction to the target, you must continuously shoot at the target in order to develop the proper working of the mind and spirit. This process will increase your mental power and teach you spiritual calmness. The medium through which this is accomplished is the unceasing practice of kyudo technique itself.

The target and the mind have a relationship similar to a that of a catalyst and that which it catalyzes. When a catalyst is introduced into a seemingly stable chemical solution, for instance, a violent reaction will occur if there is anything in the solution that is receptive to the catalyst. In the same way, the target, taken by itself, is meaningless, and your mind, not affected by thoughts of the target, can remain calm. When the target and your mind are joined through the act of shooting, however, the target suddenly assumes overpowering importance. You see it as an object that must be pierced with the arrow. It is the goal, the objective, the physical representation of all your hopes and fears. Hitting it means success, and missing it failure. Everyone reacts to it in a different way, based upon what it represents to them.

Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for you to face the target and, through shooting, to learn to deal with the emotions it engenders. You cannot lie to yourself about how you feel about the target, for the shooting does not lie. It will be obvious for everyone to see. An honest archer, therefore, does not shy away from this confrontation, for this confrontation, more than anything else, holds the key to understanding the essence of kyudo.

This is what Murakami Hanshi means when he says that "the paper target on its wooden frame is just a physical object, a medium for your own mind. This physical target is unmoving. However, the target of the mind is always restless and tumultuous and is never still".** When, through constant practice, you have rid yourself of the "Seven Barriers" brought into sharp focus by the target, your mind will become still and pure and the shooting will be natural and flowing, like a stream of pure water gushing from an unpolluted spring. As Ise Tadatake, quoted by Murakami Hanshi says: "In archery, training the mind is the most vital thing. If the mind is agitated the spirit is agitated; if the spirit is agitated the heartbeat is agitated; and if the heartbeat is agitated the whole body is agitated, so the target will not be struck".*** Therefore, in order to train your mind, your selfish attachment to the target, which is the source of your mental agitation, must be faced squarely and overcome.

This is why the metaphor of the clear mirror is so often used in kyudo. When the mirror is stained, it cannot reflect the truth. When your mind is clouded by selfish desires, the target, in a way, acts like a mirror that reflects all of the stains on your spirit. The arrows fly everywhere but into the target, and the more you chase the target, the more it seems to run away from you. When your spiritual stains have been removed, there is nothing to deflect the arrow from its natural path, and it will fly straight and true. It is precisely the existence of an objective that trains your mind and spirit, by constantly testing your real attitude to it. Therefore, without the target there can be no real training.

The confrontation with the target, expressed through kyudo technique, is thus the confrontation with your own mind and spirit. Improvement in technique is important because it is the medium through which your mental and spiritual growth can be seen. This does not mean only improvement in accuracy, however. It means, primarily, the subtle yet profound change in the overall feeling and quality of your shooting.

When your mind has been stolen by the target your shooting will be strained and unnatural, and the bow will make an ugly, harsh sound as the arrow is released. This kind of shooting is linear and two-dimensional, where you strain to push and pull the bow only with your fists, forgetting the inner working of the whole body, the mind, and the spirit as you fight with the target. Conversely, when you have transcended the target and achieved a pure and undisturbed mind, your shooting will be like your mind: pure and undisturbed.

When you have such a mind, your shooting will naturally develop great depth and what is called enso, or roundness and sphericality. It will be supremely calm but filled to overflowing with tremendous, palpable power; and even though your arms and body may seem to be in the same position, all is smooth and round in appearance with no rough edges, angularity, tension, or strain. Shooting like this has sae, that quality which embodies the elimination of all non-essentials to reveal the as-it-isness of true shooting: pure, piercing clarity, vitality, power, vibrancy and naturalness. Sae is revealed in the tsurune, the sharp, clear, and melodic sound the string makes when it strikes the upper part of the bow when you release the arrow. When your mind and spirit are liberated, your body is liberated, and in response, the bow, quite literally, "sings". The quality of the shot can be divined from the tsurune alone. As Kaminaga Masakichi Hanshi says: "Perfect shooting is proof of a perfect mind; since the mind and spirit have sae, the shooting has sae".**** In this way, your shooting reveals your inner self.

* Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 177-178, translation by the author
** Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 181, translation by the author
*** Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 180, translation by the author ***** Kyudo Manual, Vol. II, p. 57, translation by the author

The Importance Of Hard Training

Therefore, the only way to train your inner self is through unceasing training in the outer aspect of kyudo, the physical act of shooting. For this reason, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that the pure kyudo mind is not something that will happen spontaneously if you just sit and wait for it. Rather, through a relentless, ferocious, and determined act of will, you must, as though your life depended on it, shoot and shoot up to and beyond the limits of your physical and mental endurance in an effort to purify your mind and discover the Way.

Murakami Hanshi always said that when you are in kai you must devote yourself to nobiai utterly and completely, to the exclusion of all else, until either you break or the bow breaks. What did he mean by this? He meant that you must throw aside all of your petty concerns and doubts and hurl yourself fearlessly into the shooting. You must shoot with desperate courage, holding nothing back, for without this effort kyudo cannot be understood. One day, somewhere deep within this frantic struggle, you will finally see your own true mind and the Way will open up for you. You will then achieve "sumashi", a clear and serene mind. Kaminaga Hanshi describes this process as follows:

"If you consider shagi (shooting technique) in its individual parts, there is always discrimination and differentiation; but in order to perfect shagi, to unify it, and to give it life as true kyudo shooting, you must completely use up all of your energy, right down to the last ounce. When you reach the state of utter desperation where you are at the bitter end, where the bow has taken away your strength and where you can no longer apply any technique, the conviction that you yourself must take care of your own situation will come into being. That is, when your ego is stripped away, the kihaku (spiritual strength, guts, and determination) that makes the shooting crystal clear will grow like an explosion from deep within your heart and soul. It (kai) should be deep until everything quietly becomes clear and serene, since this will nurture the spirit of absolute certainty, where, no matter what the situation, there is no hurrying, no agitation, no fear, and no hesitation. In this way, you show your true Self, and then and only then will bright and open-minded sae be born.

In kai, when spirit and technique merge, a spark is ignited and this becomes kai (meeting), that is, hanare (parting). The instant that kokoro and technique meet is hanare. In this instant, all idle thoughts are extinguished, and you enter the state of shinku muso, the Void of No Thought. Because you are in the Void of No Thought, the transition called hanare occurs. No matter where it is, the mathematical number one is always one and cannot be reduced further; but when the space called the Void is entered during shooting, one becomes mu (nothing), all the Universal Laws return to one (this is not the mathematical number one), that is, Great Harmony, and this one penetrates space and is restored to one, that is, ten thousand. This space is the state of munen muso (no intention, no thought), and by entering this state you are freed from all past attachments, an unpolluted light shines forth, and there is the soul, just as it was when it was born.

When, through shooting, you bathe in the absolute Void, wickedness is reborn as righteousness, sloth is reborn as diligence, weakness is reborn as strength, an evildoer becomes virtuous, a darkened spirit becomes bright, and the mind and spirit are purified."*

These words are somewhat cryptic, reflecting, perhaps, Kaminaga Hanshi's Zen and Shinto religious training. I do not claim to understand all of their aspects, nor to have experienced what Kaminaga Hanshi calls the Void. I also think that such words must be approached with great caution since too much can be made of them by people who have little or no practical experience in actual shooting. I do believe, however, based on my own experience and the instruction I have received from my teachers, that Kaminaga Hanshi is alluding to a fundamental truth of kyudo that must be pursued, even if we fall short of its attainment.

Kaminaga Hanshi is speaking here about the state of issha zetsumei, "one shot, one life", the state where you pour every faculty of mind, body, and soul into the shooting, treating every shot as though it were your last. If you can truly shoot with all your heart, soul, and might, you will transcend your attachments and delusions and achieve makoto, the "stainless mind". At that instant this stainless mind will, like a smooth and perfect mirror, intuitively perceive the undistorted essence of the shooting. In this state, rationalization and discrimination are left behind, and the unity of the shooting, where there is no difference between one and ten thousand, is clearly revealed as though in a flash of lightning. This happens during nobiai, where your body and mind are in the state of the highest tension and equilibrium, straining against their limits. True nobiai frees your mind and causes "the entire arrow to fill with power and quicken with life, the separate elements to unite, and the release to come of itself". This is the muhatsu no hatsu, the "release of no release"**, the release that is born without conscious intention. When you accomplish shooting like this, it is said that "the shooting is like flowing water and zanshin is like the blooming of a flower."***

* Kyudo Manual, Vol. II, p. 55-56, translation by the author
** Kyudo Manual, Vol. III, p. 24 *** Kyudo Manual, Vol. II, p. 55, translation by the author

Fudoshin - The Immovable Mind

When this happens, all doubt and fear vanish and are replaced with an unshakable confidence and certainty. This spirit of truly knowing, deep down in the marrow of your bones, that everything is all right, that there is no need to hurry, to be agitated, to be afraid, or to hesitate, is called "heijoshin", or everyday mind, the mind that can face everything with calmness and equanimity. It is also called "fudoshin", or "immovable mind", the mind that is so clear and unclouded that nothing can move it. When the mind is freed in this way, tremendous power, energy, and vitality are unleashed. Fudoshin is personified by the Buddhist deity Fudo Myo-O, the Immovable Bright King, wreathed in consuming flames and holding a sword or a rope with which to cut down and bind evil and delusion. Since it sees everything as it really is, the immovable mind harbors no hesitation, confusion, doubt or dishonesty, and therefore fears nothing. Like an irresistible natural force that sweeps away everything in its path, this mind is invincible. Nothing can stand before it and nothing is beyond its grasp.

Fudoshin is described in the following verse from the Fudochi Shinmyoroku (Divine Record Of Immovable Wisdom) taught by the Zen priest Takuan: "Keeping the mind tranquil as it moves in the myriad directions in the midst of uproar and commotion is true tranquillity. Tranquillity in tranquillity is not true tranquillity; it is tranquillity in action that is the true tranquillity".* What, you might ask, is the "uproar and commotion" of kyudo? Kyudo is among the quietest of activities. The uproar comes, not from the outside, but from the inside, from the target of your mind, "restless and tumultuous and never still." When you shoot, you are always assailed by doubts and fears that sap your strength and vitality. "Will I hit the target and win the tournament? Will I pass the test? What will happen if I miss? Will I fail the test or lose the tournament? Will my teacher scold me or praise me? Am I a good shot or a bad shot? What will people think of me? Am I better or worse than so-and-so?" Fudoshin cuts through all of these phantoms of the mind, reducing them to nothing, making it as though they never existed. All that is left is the brimming power of the immovable mind and the incandescence of pure shooting, the "shower of sparks born of the collision of iron and stone".

I want to stress that while some people may view this state of mind in an overly romantic way, divorced from mundane considerations, it has, so far as shooting is concerned, a very practical application. This mind gives birth to flawless shooting and so the results of your shooting will show plainly whether you have achieved it or not. Therefore, you can only grasp it through shooting, and when you grasp it, your shooting will be perfect.

This is extraordinarily difficult and requires heartbreaking effort. As Kaminaga Hanshi's words make clear, you cannot achieve it unless you have the courage to push yourself up to and beyond the edge of desperation, willing yourself through sheer determination into the state of issha zetsumei, where true shooting reveals itself through the muhatsu no hatsu. This seemingly unconscious release, therefore, is not effortless in the sense that it comes from somewhere outside of you, like a gift of grace or like the apple falling into Newton's lap as he waits, oblivious to what is happening. It is, rather, the result of you having trained yourself to enter a physical and psychological state where true shooting will naturally unfold. This can only happen when you have the courage to trust the shooting, let go of your attachment to it, and "leave matters to the will of Heaven". This ushers in the real symbiosis between you and kyudo, where you become the vessel for the expression of your art. When you succeed, you will naturally come to possess the mental calmness, spiritual power, mental and spiritual concentration and decisiveness of which Murakami Hanshi speaks. Since knowing and acting are one and the same, the natural flow of the shooting is never interrupted and so the perfect opportunity is never lost. Such a shot cannot miss.

* Kyudo Manual, Vol. IV, p. 181, translation by the author

Honesty In Training

This kind of true shooting can only come from within the depths of your own being, from your guts and your blood. These depths cannot be plumbed except through the unstinting practice of correct shooting, faced with fearless resolve.

For this process to work, there is one vital trait that you absolutely cannot be without: the capacity for honest self-evaluation. This does not mean evaluating little details of technique. It means to really look into your own soul for the true causes of things. If you are not honest with yourself, you will always make excuses for poor shooting and will never be able to accept whatever shortcomings you may have. Everyone wants to think highly of themselves, but if this prevents you from seeing your shooting as it really is, you will never make any lasting progress. Each shot gives you the opportunity to see your true self. When you do, you must honestly accept whatever deficiencies you may find, reflect clearly on them, resolve to correct them, and then act on that resolve, come what may.

This is why self-reliance, unrelenting dedication, and complete honesty are so important. It is the effort to achieve this completely honest mind that trains the whole person and makes kyudo a Way that benefits you in all aspects of your life.