Henri Cartier Bresson Famous Photographer and Eugen Herrigel's ' Zen in the Art of Archery

The following quotation sums up Bresson's feelings: "I went to Marseille . A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap' life - to preserve life in the act of living. Above all I craved to seize the whole essence ' the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes".

It is as if his camera were one with his eyes and his whole being. He quotes an essay of particular significance to this, and of great self interest. It is Eugen Herrigel's 'Zen in the Art of Archery'. Herrigel, a German philosopher, studied archery for five years of his life under Zen guidance, enabling him to write his essay. This practicing of 'spiritual archery' is to train the mind in order to bring it into contact with 'ultimate reality'. Archery is not practiced here solely for the hitting of a target.

Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery

D.T.Suzuki's summary of Herrigel's is as follows: "Zen is the 'Everyday Mind', this everyday mind is no more than sleeping when tired, eating when hungry. As soon as we reflect, deliberate and conceptualize the original consciousness 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 after long years of training in the art of self forgetfulness. When this is attained, man thinks yet he does not thinks He thinks like showers coming down from the sky; he thinks like waves rolling on the ocean; he thinks like stars illuminating the mighty heavens; he thinks like the green foliage shooting forth into the 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...........".

Cartier Bresson's whole body has thousands of antennae alert within him; he will know that which will enable him to hit the target after closing his eyes. The target the archer hits is indirectly himself, or the road to spiritual deliverance. The archer, his bow, ego and target all melt into one, creating a state of selflessness. He contains no cumbersome thoughts at this moment of perception, and has in him the immediacy of natural life, Bresson Bakes many connections with this 'spiritual'state of archery; his intuition, serene rapidity, the peace drawn from ceaseless tension are all gifts close to the spiritual readiness of a Zen monk. He has an amazing oneness with man and nature, and is in a state of spiritual awareness. Everything for him has an equivalence to everything else. He is the brother of all, showing a great kinship towards people.