Talk:Zen in the Art of Archery

Influences

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Its title is a play on words of Zen in the Art of Archery.

It would really enrigh this article to describe any further ways these works are related, as I know there is more than just the title. --DanielCD 20:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The article claims that this book "inspired a series of other titles". I think it's more likely that it inspired one title, namely "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", which achieving far greater reknown than this one, led to the hundreds of others. I bet most writers of "Zen and the Art..."-titled books have never even heard of this one. (I am a huge fan of ZAMM but never knew about this book until now.) -- 05:09, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

It should probably be properly referenced if this book or any others did in fact inspire ZAMM but the whole section on influences is unreferenced and speculative. Attempts by some editors to clean it up, only made it more indecisive and I marked it as needing citations, but after looking at the discussion and edit history it looks like the whole section might need to be removed until some kind of references are provide to show it is anything more than coincidence. -- 109.77.128.95 (talk) 14:34, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Nazi Affiliations

The author was a Nazi sympathizer, apparently. Is this relevant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.82.70.58 (talk) 06:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Herrigel's Nazi sympathies are hugely relevant and should be included here, as well as on the Eugen Herrigel page. It seems these references have been deleted from the latter. On what basis? Clocke (talk) 20:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Mysticism

I was not so bold as to add it myself (as I'm still relatively new to editing Wikipedia articles), but Herrigel claimed on multiple occasions to have been significantly influenced by particular tenets of mysticism, particularly as defined by William James. Should this be included in the article, or is it too difficult to qualify "significant influence," even if it comes from the author himself? Fred.Pendleton (talk) 06:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

thanks to herrigel for his effort

the author has preserved the originality of the experience and stated it unbiased. the commentry on it,where the author proposes his own narrative is well defined. the book is good on content,as the author himself bring out the doubts that any student new to this art has...it should be read as a student under a master and a person describing an experience he went through rather than an authority on it.

59.162.89.186 (talk) 10:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC) boris prashant

"The common theme is usually that doing an ordinary task, such as fixing your motorcycle, can have a spiritual dimension." Actually in ZAMM, the author is contrasting Zen and motorcycle maintenance, using them to represent the split between romantic and classical ways of thinking, respectively. Funny how two things being contrasted can through association be perceived as being similar.

tom (talk) 05:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Book

Can I find out who wrote the Book section? I'd like to credit him/her in a reference I'm making to the article and that section specifically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.94.91.16 (talk) 16:04, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Criticism?

Shoji Yamada's book, Shots in the Dark, outlines explicitly why many of the conversations that took place between Eugen Herrigel and his master, Awa Kenzo, were either altered or completely fabricated. He concluded that Herrigel's actual experience with kyudo was almost entirely different from what he had written. I'm surprised that the article cites Yamada's book as a source, and yet fails to touch on this issue.

Agree with above, Yamada should be referenced in the article.

ZAMM?

I guess ZAMM is a (well-known?) acronym for Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? This is never explained in the article. I would fix it, but since I'm not sure that is actually what is meant, that might just muddle the waters.

In fact, that whole section (influences) screams speculation and original research. Do we have any sources for the claims, or are we just guessing? 130.243.96.164 (talk) 08:49, 16 April 2013 (UTC)