Zen in the Art of Archary essays

Zen in the Art of Archary essays As I sat around thinking of how I could answer this question, I realized that I had never experienced the feeling where I lost my ordinary sense of self-consciousness that Eugen Herrigel describes. I can come up with numerous occurrences in my life where I lost track of time, but not the loss of self-consciousness as well. I would imagine it must take vigorous training to learn this skill of such magnitude. Of course there are instances when I have become very relaxed where I just think to myself and lose track of my surroundings. However, to me this state of mind is more of a daydream state, which everyone has. It is still very far from losing your self-consciousness, because even with that feeling I can still say that I am thinking in terms of I and not in terms if IT. I cant say that I have ever felt this outside force of IT that Eugen mentions. Nevertheless, the closest occurrence I can think of is when reading a book, in which I am very interested. When I get into this s tate of mind I began to truly enjoy the experience, doing so with extreme focus on the text. This is the best example I can supply that contributes to a very concentrated state of mind. The book example came to mind because I felt there were similarities in the activities that led to the Zen state that Herrigel explained. When indulging in a great book I can feel myself getting caught up with every word, and hanging on to every little detail. I can read a textbook and have minutes feel as hours. When reading a great book time can just fly away, and I can feel myself becoming one with the book, where its no longer me reading but experiencing the words. I also feel this book example can relate to Eugen since he as well had to exemplify great focus in his breathing and in his form. However, I feel that it does not relate because, when reading a book, there is no need for me to achieve a purposeless ...