Alge, as I read it, it’s about the meditation. The shooting is a medium, a platform from which you launch into an investigation of your thoughts, your character, your soul, etc, and, from what I’ve learnt from other sources, a communication with your ancestors. My mum goes to the vegie patch in her garden and talks most earnestly with dad. To my mind, it’s the same thing as meditation. She knows full well he’s not there; not alive; not “up there” either. She knows he no longer exist in any world but it does her the world of good to “talk” to him.
Sis, once laughingly told her that she must promise to tell us if he talks back to her!
Meditation -of which I never partake in any conscious form- gives, according to this master, dignity to one’s existence. A sign above the Delphi shrine exhorted, “Know thyself!” Meditation is how you do that.
Yes I got that, the 50 years at the beginning was a give away and the not hitting the target being important. About being one with the bow. Very Zen like.
Give praise to me for I am an arrow
in the hands of a Kyudo master.
Straight. Replete in meditation.
Give praise to me for I have polished the minds of many Kyudo masters.
For I give no hope but for I release your natural dignity into the shining light of life.
Give praise to me for I never strike the target!
Give praise to me for I am the poet of your dignity.
Ta, Tezza. Very inspirational. Aims and purposes must not trump natural, innate dignity.
Good one!
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Amazing the games some people invent. I made a better bow and arrow with nectarine cuttings and string.
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It’s not about the shooting it’s about the partaking.
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Alge, as I read it, it’s about the meditation. The shooting is a medium, a platform from which you launch into an investigation of your thoughts, your character, your soul, etc, and, from what I’ve learnt from other sources, a communication with your ancestors. My mum goes to the vegie patch in her garden and talks most earnestly with dad. To my mind, it’s the same thing as meditation. She knows full well he’s not there; not alive; not “up there” either. She knows he no longer exist in any world but it does her the world of good to “talk” to him.
Sis, once laughingly told her that she must promise to tell us if he talks back to her!
Meditation -of which I never partake in any conscious form- gives, according to this master, dignity to one’s existence. A sign above the Delphi shrine exhorted, “Know thyself!” Meditation is how you do that.
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Yes I got that, the 50 years at the beginning was a give away and the not hitting the target being important. About being one with the bow. Very Zen like.
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I didn’t say it was Algy. Lovely wonky bow and arrow fun game, done solemnly.
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Beautiful demonstration of Kyudo as only the Japanese are capable of…
Here’s a little poem by the mystical Chinese poet Han-shan:
A scholar named Wang
Laughed at my poems.
The accents are wrong,
He said,
Too many beats;
The meter is poor,
The wording impulsive.
I laugh at his poems,
As he laughs at mine.
They read like
The words of a blind man
Describing the sun.
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Brilliant piece of contrasting perspective. Thanks, H.
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The Arrow
A fleetly shot poem by Atomou
Give praise to me for I am an arrow
in the hands of a Kyudo master.
Straight. Replete in meditation.
Give praise to me for I have polished the minds of many Kyudo masters.
For I give no hope but for I release your natural dignity into the shining light of life.
Give praise to me for I never strike the target!
Give praise to me for I am the poet of your dignity.
Ta, Tezza. Very inspirational. Aims and purposes must not trump natural, innate dignity.
Good one!
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What a response. Thanks also to you. ‘Mou. Cheers !
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