Zen in the Art of Archery

"The right art," cried the Master, "is purposeless, aimless! The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed in the one and the further the other will recede. What stands in your way is that you have a much too willful will. You think that what you do not do yourself does not happen."

"What must I do, then?" I asked thoughtfully.
"You must learn to wait patiently."
"And how does one learn that?"
"By letting go of yourself, leaving yourself and everything yours behind you so decisively that nothing more is left of you..."

Eugen Herrigel's "Zen in the Art of Archery" (c. 1953)