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Zen Hunting

Stealth in Hunting

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Stealth in Hunting

As bowhunters soon learn, the deer’s few disadvantages are greatly outweighed by its many advantages, particularly in terms of its super-sensory abilities. Now, assuming you’ve finally located a deer undetected, how does the novice hunter close the distance—that very small gap required to get within bow range? Of all the skills a bowhunter must learn, stealth is probably the most important and difficult to master.

During my early bowhunting career I climbed clumsily through the woods, snapping twigs and crunching pinecones as I went. Meanwhile, all the forest creatures sat staring my way in horror. Eventually, you get tired of busting all the deer out before you see them and learn to slow way down, becoming painfully aware of each step which is carefully placed around endless twigs, pinecones, brush, and crunchy pebbles. You become obsessed with wind direction which is your best friend or worst enemy. You must diligently adjust your approach against the breeze which carries your human scent back and away from you. Not only can you use wind direction for scent control, but the rustling leaves and howling wind can work wonders to camouflage the inevitable noises you do make. But hunting in high winds has its drawbacks too. Like most prey species, deer are extra wary on a windy day because it’s difficult for them to hear predators approaching. If you observe a buck feeding on a windy day, you’ll see his head up and looking around a lot more than usual. They also tend to stay bedded longer.

Besides using the wind to mask my noise, I try to keep my movements to a minimum. You’re obviously going to have to move to find deer; ambush plans don’t always work. When you find yourself hunting midday, for example, and it’s dreadfully hot and the deer aren’t moving, then you must move. Otherwise, you are here and the deer are there and you never meet in-between. But you can still optimize your approach. For example, I rarely take more than eight or ten steps before stopping to listen and glass over the ever-changing landscape. Many years ago I developed a game to help me with stealth. Whenever I snapped a twig I would force myself to stop and sit down in that very spot for fifteen minutes and just listen. I found that unless I continued making noise, the deer would eventually go back to what they were doing. But if I continued moving, the deer would confirm the danger and leave. A single noise in a forest full of other wildlife is eventually discarded by the deer. Countless times I’ve watched deer turn and stare in the direction of a noise with eternal patience, but if the sound wasn’t repeated, they’d eventually go back to their normal routine.

Every track, rub, bed, and sign you encounter, along with other factors such as wind, terrain, and forage, will dictate your direction of travel. The hardest part is moving undetected. It was during one of these early lessons that I had my first encounter with a bull elk. It was my third archery deer hunt and I had just spent much of the day ghosting along slowly and quietly, like a puff of smoke through the dense timber. Suddenly, a patch of tan fur caught my eye only ten yards ahead of me. I crouched down and observed a giant six-point elk standing in a thicket of pines, completely oblivious to my presence. I didn’t have an elk tag so I just sat and watched him while he stood and watched the woods. At that moment, I knew my lesson in stealth was complete.

Zen Hunting

Deer Hunting Poem

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I don’t write a lot of poetry, but I was inspired to write these words in response to the many conversations I’ve had with non-hunters. It’s difficult to convey the real challenge of bowhunting to city-folk. For bowhunters, failure happens far more than success. Most days are spent hiking up steep mountains and seeing very few deer, if any.
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Do You Know What It’s Like?

Do you know what it’s like
To wake before it’s light,
And wander alone away from camp
Through tangled timber by headlamp;
To put aside all fear of death,
That today you’ll breathe your final breath?

Eyes strain through timber, search for deer
That move like ghosts you hardly hear.
Should I travel left or right,
Go up or down or just sit tight?

The day drags on eternally;
These clever beasts you hardly  see.
I wait in ambush for my prey,
It’s too hot to move now anyway,
Lie in shadow, wait out the day,
And ponder on my natural fate.

By noon exhaustion has consumed
My energy and daydreams doomed.
Slip into slumber amidst the trees,
My faithful bow rests on my knees.

The hours pass and daymares come;
A crazy flight to kingdom come.
Real or dream it’s hard to tell;
Swirling thoughts mix with surreal.

A cool breeze rakes leaves, makes me shake,
Cold shivers jerk me awake.
Evening’s falling with long shadows,
THERE’S SOME DEER, but only does.

It’s darker now and nighttime looms,
Then rustling leaves and stomping hooves.
A flash of gray between the trees,
I nock and arrow and then freeze.

Feeding unsuspecting prey,
Last opportunity today,
I draw my bow without a sound,
He stops and sniffs then stomps the ground.
He’s got my scent, I might be busted,
No shot, the wind can’t be trusted.

A flash of antler as he goes,
Before my arrow leaves the bow.
Too dark now, all out of luck,
Beaten again by a monster buck.

Do you know what it’s like;
This mighty trudge, this endless hike?

Zen Hunting

Hunter Evasion

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Hunter Evasion Tactics

We could argue all day about what the mule deer’s greatest strength is, whether it’s their superfluous hearing, specialized eyesight, or powerful sense of smell. The fact that they must live in the outdoors year-round under extreme conditions requires them to have many strengths. But in my observation, the mule deer’s greatest strength is evasion.

In most instances, as you go sneaking quietly through the woods, the deer have already sensed your presence and are quietly sneaking away from you. Novice hunters aren’t usually aware of this, and if they don’t see any deer all day, they just assume there aren’t any around. Well, that’s exactly what the deer wants you to think! If every time a deer sensed a hunter, he went flying out of its bed and bounded noisily away, then experienced hunters would know there were deer in the area and continue putting more pressure on them. Instead, smart bucks have learned the art of quiet evasion.

As a rule, you’ll hear a lot more deer bound away than you’ll ever see, and you won’t see or hear even more deer that sneak silently away from you. But if you learn to slow way down and play the wind just right, you’ll eventually get within bow distance of an unsuspecting buck. This still doesn’t guarantee a shot because in most cases the buck will still sense some sort of danger before you can raise your weapon. He’ll suddenly explode from his bed and fly out of sight, carefully keeping as many trees as he can between him and you as he goes. That’s just part of hunting. There’s no way to fool all the deer all the time.

Big bucks have also developed a tactic for avoiding stealthy hunters by “lying low.” Since the deer doesn’t detect the stealthy hunter from a great distance, the sudden appearance of a hunter at close range will force the deer to make a decision: either he can flee out of his bed and alert you to his presence, or he can lie low and let you walk by, hoping you don’t see him. On numerous occasions, I’ve had bucks explode from a bed within just a few yards of me. Obviously the deer knew I was there beforehand, but chose not to flee until danger was imminent.

Since most bucks you encounter evade you one way or another (sometimes even after being shot), then evasion is obviously the mule deer’s greatest strength. The best advice I can give you is this: Never underestimate a mature buck. In most cases, the best you can do is to get in the vicinity and hope things play out in your favor. Be patient and let things unfold slowly, at nature’s pace. Even if it takes all day to stalk a buck you’ve spotted, your best chance of success is just getting close. Once the buck has sensed you, the jig is up and you’ll have to go find another one.

Zen Hunting

Mule Deer Adaptation

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Mule Deer Adaptation

My biggest frustration is empty woods. In places like Monte Cristo and the Manti-Lasal range, a hunter can travel past supreme habitat all day long without catching sight of a single deer. Thirty years ago, these places were crawling with deer, even giving up dozens of record-book bucks along the way. Today, not much about these woods has changed except there are almost no deer. And the few deer that still exist are the neurotic descendants of lone survivors.

During the seventies and eighties, while hundreds of trigger-happy hunters clambered around the mountainsides shooting wildly at any buck that dared step into the open, those few crazy-bucks held up in the thickest trees. They sprung from cover at the slightest human sight or scent and barreled along thick tree lines and out of sight without glancing back. Even something as benign as a squirrel’s bark would send these wide-eyed crazies flying into the next valley, never stopping to question the validity of the threat as they retreated into some dark hole on some private property or high mountain cliff. Today, the descendants of these neurotic deer are all that’s left—no longer Odocoileus hemionus, but Odocoileus neuroticus.

My friend Scott and I often travel together down a long and dusty road leading to an area on Monte Cristo where we both hunt. Every time we drive past a certain clearing in the trees above the road, Scott points out the exact location where his brother-in-law once shot a little two-point buck long ago. This appears to be the highlight of his family’s gun hunting tradition in recent years. Now, each time I drive down that road and look at that hillside clearing, I can’t help but wonder if that little buck was indeed the last of a generation of careless mule deer—yesterday’s deer.

What the modern mule deer lacks in numbers it makes up for in elusiveness. As an example, there are a few spots where I hunt that are always covered in deer sign—tracks, rubs, and droppings everywhere. But in a hundred days of hunting you’ll never actually see a single animal—at least not during daylight. It’s well known that deer are crepuscular animals (being most active in the morning and evening). But on heavily pressured public areas where I hunt, I’ve observed that today’s deer are mostly, if not completely, nocturnal. For the bowhunter, setting the alarm for 5 a.m. is almost useless because the deer have already fed, watered, and traveled to hidden bedding areas by starlight. That “great” area you chose to sit and watch before first light, remains quiet and empty as the sun comes up. It doesn’t matter how early you arrive because you’ve already missed the action. Utah wildlife biologist and author, Walt Prothero, wrote extensively on the mule deer’s keen ability to adapt to modern dangers. In his book Mule Deer Quest he wrote the following:

“But mule deer are quick learners and highly adaptable… The bucks that didn’t pause to watch their backtrail survived to do most of the breeding and pass on genes that made them more secretive. Bucks have essentially become nocturnal, at least during hunting seasons. They don’t pause in the open during daylight hours, and they won’t even come out in the open unless it’s dark. Most won’t move unless they’re certain they’ve been located (Prothero, 2002).”

Traditionally, mule deer experts have agreed that mule deer must rise out of their beds to feed occasionally throughout the day in order to maintain adequate energy and fat stores. However, in most of the high-pressured public areas where I hunt, I have observed that this is no longer the case. These modern mulies have simply adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle which provides plenty enough food ingestion at nighttime to negate daytime feeding. It’s like saying humans have to get up to eat occasionally during the night to survive. It’s just not necessary.

Another example of the mule deer’s ability to adapt to adverse conditions took place following the particularly harsh winter of 1983-1984. Every single deer in the mountains of Northern Utah was forced down to the lowest possible elevations in order to survive the extremely high snowpack. This forced many of the herds into our cities and even farther into the farmlands west of Ogden. By springtime, many deer had simply adapted to the city lifestyle and never did return to the mountains. Even today, small herds of mule deer are living year-round in the suburbs of Logan, Brigham City, North Ogden, West Weber, Hooper, Farmington, Bountiful, and many other small cities.

This amazing ability to adapt to innumerable adverse conditions—primarily man-made conditions—is all that’s kept the wily mule deer from becoming an endangered species.

Zen Hunting

Hunting: Right or Wrong?

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Hunting: Right or Wrong?

In the past two years I’ve had the unique opportunity to teach hundreds of people basic archery. Because of the nature of the organization which I’m affiliated with, many of my first time students are left-wing oriented, if not out-right liberals and even anti-hunters. Although this hasn’t been a problem, I’ve had quite a few impassioned conversations concerning the morality of hunting.

As it turns out, many anti-hunters are regular meat-eaters. In conversations about the ethic of hunting, the very first point I make is: “If you eat meat then you are directly responsible for the killing of hundreds of animals. You just have someone else just does the killing. I prefer to take that responsibility into my own hands.” This almost always brings the “offended” into the realm of reality and diffuses any potential negative redneck argument.

Learning the art of archery doesn’t mean you’re suddenly expected to go hunting. It’s just a fun skill to have. But I have to wonder, what drives a flaming anti-hunter to pick up a bow-and-arrow in the first place? In my studies I have learned that almost every culture around the world has used the bow and weapon as their primary source of food and protections for thousands of years. The reason—I think—that so many people from so many diverse backgrounds are inclined to pick up a bow-and-arrow is because it’s already deeply ingrained in their bodies, minds, and instincts. In fact, one in ten of my students becomes masterful at archery within five minutes of shooting, as if they’ve been shooting their entire life, but having never picked up a bow before.

Many first-time archers view bows and arrows as recreational toys. Often times, if I didn’t insist on teaching safety first, people would just grab a bow and start flinging arrows. Consequently, at the beginning of every session I stress the importance of safety. One of the very first sentences out of my mouth is, “The bow-and-arrow was designed for one thing and one thing only—killing!” At this proclamation you can see the slight discomfort in a few faces, but it never deters a person from shooting.

At the same time, I never push hunting on anyone; I won’t even bring it up unless someone asks—but someone always asks. Without getting too much into it, I explain how bowhunting has always been my greatest passion, how it provides the majority of meat that my family and I eat, and that shooting a bow-and-arrow proficiently has nothing to do with hunting well.

Many people from the big city have a skewed view of hunting. They are conditioned to believe that killing an animal is as easy as pulling off the side of the road and shooting some helpless creature to death. And so I go on to explain that hunting is a completely separate skill from shooting, and the hunting aspect requires a lifetime to master.

In the end, I don’t want to kill anything; I don’t glory in shooting some poor creature to death in cold blood. But I don’t want to starve to death either. Nor do I want to wander down the meat aisle at the supermarket and sift through a pile of carefully packaged, hormone-infused, mass-produced, inorganic farm-garbage-salmonella-burgers. What I prefer to eat is purely organic, super-lean, free-range, healthy meat that walks the earth freely as God intended. NOW, I digress.

Overall my arguments for hunting have been met with surprising respect, even from those who “agree to disagree.” Even more, the relationships I’ve developed with many anti-hunters have been mutually beneficial. I’ve been forced to honestly and deeply consider the ethical and spiritual nature of the sport I love so much, and at the same time I’ve witnessed a change in the hearts and minds of those who were previously misinformed about the evils of hunting.

Zen Hunting

Pre-hunt Meditation

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Pre-Hunt Meditation

Bowhunting success for general archery deer in Utah is about 20%. That’s about double what it was 20 years ago, mostly due to better equipment. Still, the average bowhunter is looking to harvest a deer only once every five years. That’s bleak!

Zenbowhunter.com is dedicated to raising those numbers for people looking to expand their outdoor knowledge and shooting skills.

Bowhunting success hinges upon five factors:

1. Luck: The truth is most big bucks are stumbled upon by chance, not skill. By improving your hunting skills, you also increase your luck.

2. Equipment: Having precision weaponry, optics, and gear certainly helps tightens your arrow groupings and reduces the chance of error. But it doesn’t contribute anything to actual hunting technique or woodscraft. These factors come through experience, scouting, and diligent study.

3. Technique: This is the actual hunting part: learning everything about your prey, then locating it, and finally executing a successful stalk. Humans are as much a part of nature as the deer are, so the goal is to reconnect with your natural predatory instincts and use it to your advantage.

4. Information: Learning your area through scouting, studying maps, and collecting data from your state’s wildlife division will help you pin-point deer concentrations, access, and what you can expect from your selected hunt area.

5. Expanding Consciousness through Meditation: I belioeve that this is what separates the consistently successful hunters from the rest. The “great unknown” is what Zen Hunting is all about; aka, turning the unknown into the known. You might call it “advanced hunting techniques” but it’s really just the process falling into the rhythm of nature, collecting data in the form of sign and clues, and following your natural predatory instincts. Zen meditation–whether formal or not–helps you achieve a higher state of awareness by expanding your consciousness.

Before entering the woods I begin to fall into a meditative state by focusing my energies on the upcoming hunt. I go about my work and other responsibilities in a seemingly normal way, but my real focus is  on the mountains. Phones ring, people talk, distractions arise, but nothing can assuage my focus.

Pre-hunt mediation can be a lot harder to achieve in this modern era, mainly due to constant distractions. Most people are just too busy and/or too distracted to relax and meditate. Between work, texts, emails, family, and the myriad of other responsibilities, we can’t seem to get in the zone.

Sure, we’re excited about the upcoming hunt, but we don’t really break free from the busy life until we pull out of the driveway and head for the hills. It will then take at least a few days of hard hunting to get into the rhythm of nature. By then, the hunt could be over!

Pre-hunt mediation might sound like a bunch of hippie-hogwash, but it has worked for me for many years. If you’ve stuck with me this far, then you’re in luck. I’m going to share a few techniques for getting into the rhythm of nature:

  • Spend some time in nature alone. Drive to the mountains and take a short hike. Spend some time sitting near water, trees, etc. Just sit and watch and listen. Take some photos. Taking pictures forces you to look for beauty in nature, which in turn helps you  connect with it.
  • Watch hunting videos and read hunting books and magazines. By observing how animals act and react to other hunters, it will help you prepare for similar encounters. It will also get you into the hunting mindset beforehand.
  • Study topo maps of your hunting area. Look at places you’ve had success before, and even places where you’ve failed. What are the differences? Can you find similar places on the map? Mark places where you’ve seen big bucks in the past. Deer are creatures of habit, so chances are there will be more there. Make a skeleton plan of your hunt; where will you be hunting on opening morning, and then where will you go from there?
  • Shoot daily. Even if you already shoot regularly, do it differently. Instead of just seeing your same old target, make up scenarios. Before you draw the bow, imagine a deer feeding along. Take a second to let the scenario play out. The deer is behind cover, it steps forward and looks the other way. Now shoot. On the next arrow imagine an elk, a bear, a rabbit, whatever. Just make it more realistic. Brain studies show that the subconscious mind has a hard time distinguishing between reality and make-believe. This exercise will put you into the hunter mindset. Plus it’s fun.

These are just a few of the methods I use to get into the spirit of hunting before I set foot in the woods. Establishing the hunter’s mindset ahead of time will contribute more to success than anything else you do.

The few hunters who have consistent success are the ones who don’t view bowhunting as a hobby or a sport, but a lifestyle. Make that commitment, set a goal, and view hunting a way of life. The numbers say your odds are 1-in-5, but you can beat the odds by putting  in a little extra effort. I truly believe that success in bowhunting is a decision, not luck.

Zen Hunting

Deer Hunting: Art or Science?

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Deer Hunting: Art or Science?

Is deer hunting more art or science? What a great question!

A year ago I had an interesting conversation with a non-hunter about art and science and how it relates to hunting. Now, this non-hunter has a friend who loves hunting more than anything, but his results over the years have been very poor. The hunter is not only a scientist by profession, but a scientist in just about every other facet of life. Almost everything he does is calculated and planned out, with little left to chance. In other words, he’s an extreme left-brain oriented person.

In contrast, I’m a real right-brain oriented person. I’m an artist not only by profession, but in most other ways as well. So, my only common ground with the scientist is our love for hunting. This got me thinking.

If you aren’t familiar with the difference between left and right brains, maybe this comparison will help:

Characteristics of left-brainers:

  1. They tend to be numbers oriented.
  2. They are very rules oriented
  3. They are facts oriented
  4. They tend to be less open to abstract ideas such as religion, mysticism, romance, etc.
  5. They are more confident, but also more close-minded
  6. They tend to be politically conservative
  7. They tend to be more financially successful

In contrast, here are some characteristics of right-brainers:

  1. They are art oriented
  2. They are more intuitive and open-minded
  3. They have a general distrust for science, facts, and numbers
  4. They are more hopeful and romantic
  5. They have more politically liberal views
  6. They are more visually oriented

Ideally, a person is perfectly balanced between the two, meaning the two halves of their brain work together rather than one dominating the other. Most people are balanced somewhere between the two extremes, but some people aren’t. Being extreme one way or the other is actually dangerous because it means we are close-minded and prone to mistakes, or even mental disorders.

How does being left- or right-brained affect hunting success?

When a person bags a giant buck, the scientist will immediately begin assessing the facts surrounding the event. Where, when, and how did this hunter come to arrow such a great trophy? If the scientist can just answer these simple questions, then a formula can be assigned and implemented in the future, right?

But in real-life, hunting doesn’t always work that way. For instance, what if the hunter just wandered into a section of unknown woods on a hunch and stumbled into a big buck. Miraculously, the buck didn’t notice the hunter who immediately sent an arrow sailing perfectly through its heart. End of story for the average hunter, but a great mystery for the scientist. None of the scientist’s questions are answered, and so there can be only one possible explanation: sheer, lethal luck. And the scientist knows that absolutely nothing can be learned from luck, so all the data must be dismissed. Could it be that the scientist is asking the wrong questions?

In contrast, the artist views hunting as art. Yeah, there might be a little science thrown in, such as knowledge of deer behavior and the physics of his bow, but the true artist-hunter glides fearlessly along a path of infinite variables and gut feelings. He might begin the day with a basic plan or direction in mind, but he almost immediately veers away from preconceptions and ends up in mysterious places he hadn’t considered before. The scientist may do this occasionally, but the unknown is usually avoided. Scientists tend to stick with the plan at all costs.

As an artist, I’m probably a little biased. I see the purely scientific approach to hunting as a triple threat to success. The first problem is over-planning. The scientist has probably stared at a map for so long that he just knows where the deer will be based on a number of physical factors. Now nothing can lead him away from his plan. The second problem is over-packing. He is aware that the woods are full of infinite challenges, variables, and dangers, so he overfills his pack. This in turn slows him down and makes him noisier. The third problem is ignoring intuition. The scientist is still prone to intuition and a heightened sense of awareness just like every other hunter, however he is less likely to respond to mysterious forces like hunches, intuition, premonitions, gut feelings, etc. This narrows his vision by ignoring the gentle prodding’s of Nature.

Game over. The results are in and the winner is…

The Artist.

But scientists don’t despair. Anyone can change. The first step to becoming more artistic in hunting is to admit you’re a left-brainer. This can be a challenge since left-brained people don’t always see the value of using the right brain, particularly when it comes to hunting. At this point you need to take an honest assessment of your hunting success. Has all your planning paid off? Could there be more to hunting than sheer science and numbers?

For you left-brainers out there I urge you to read back over my previous blog-posts entitled Zen in Hunting: Part 1, 2, 3. The left-brainer might scoff at such mystical forces as Zen, but I feel like it’s the top contributor to my hunting success. I believe there are forces beyond our comprehension that want us to succeed and are willing to help us, if only we keep an open mind. Gather the data, formulate a hypothesis, and then let go and let Nature be your guide. Go with the flow.

That’s what Zen bowhunting is all about.

Zen Hunting

Zen in Hunting: Part 3

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Zen in Hunting Part 3

By now you probably have a pretty good understand of what Zen is. But how does a person go about achieving Zen enlightenment? What is the process?

Students in traditional Eastern Zen often spend many years in painstaking study to achieve Zen enlightenment. Since most of us don’t have the wherewithal to travel to Japan for formal study, my aim is to guide you through the basic process. The following steps show how to achieve Zen through archery.

  1. Concentrate on your breathing.Whatever activity you are doing, Zen begins with meditation, and meditation begins with conscious breathing. When you concentrate solely only on breathing you are brought into the present moment. I’m talking about deep, slow breaths from the bottom of your stomach. Here’s a simple exercise: Breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold it for two, exhale through your nose for four seconds, count to two, and repeat. Since breathing happens in real time, mindful breathing will bring your focus into the present moment. Zen is all about increased awareness by keeping the mind present. To make way for Zen you must not let your mind wander into the future or the past. Consciously acknowledge any thought that enters your mind, and say to yourself, “I release you.”
  2. Make archery a ritual.Whatever you are doing–whether sitting down to play the piano or shooting archery—take your time and make each step—each movement—deliberate. Break the process down into multiple small steps and focus intently on each step individually. Do not anticipate the shot, rather stay present throughout the process. Turning your activity into a meditative ritual will pave the way to higher awareness, or Zen.
  3. Practice makes perfect.Practice shooting in a quiet, calm, yet focused manner. Release all expectations, all physical and mental stress. Begin by shooting at nothing; just a blank backstop. Let the shot come by surprise. Let the bow shoot itself. Do not judge any shot as a hit or a miss. Blank bale shooting removes your self from the process. The arrow will hit the bullseye every time as long as you don’t let your self get in the way of the arrow. Practice in this manner until the basic fundamentals of archery are set firmly in your consciousness. Shooting with a Zen-mind is like playing music. The first time you sit down at the piano you can’t expect to play a symphony, but just a single note. Zen only happens after countless hours of mindful practice. Suddenly the piano plays itself. You are able to conduct pure, enlightened inspiration by letting the process happen through you, not from you.
  4. Let go.Whatever you are doing, don’t force it. Zen happens by letting go of expectations and dissolving your ego. Only then can a greater force work through you. In Zen you become as a “hollow bamboo.”The Zen-master encourages his student to stop trying so hard. When you finally master Zen in archery—following countless hours of shooting—you will hit the bullseye every time with little to no effort. You only miss when your ego takes over and you begin to over-think the shot. As your skill increase, your ego tries to take credit for success. More and more you believe you are in control. You seek praise. That’s just human nature. And that’s where things fall apart. Progress stifles and you fall into ruts. Instead, let go of your self and let the bow—in it’s perfect, precise form—shoot itself.

Is that it? Did I miss something? Like I said from the start, Zen isn’t something to be explained, but experienced. Practical Zen doesn’t always require you to go through a specific ritual or meditation. These are just guidelines to help you learn the process.

Zen is actually more common than you might think. In fact, I am certain that just about everyone has experienced Zen at one time or another. Have you ever hears someone say, “Man, I’m really in the zone today?” What they mean is, they’re really in the Zen today. For some unknown reason you just feel unconquerable, like you can do anything. The problem is that it’s fleeting; we can’t repeat it. Why?

Most of the time we don’t reflect back on what factors led up to that fleeting moment of enlightenment. Other times we call it luck; and since luck can’t be repeated, it’s dismissed.

The goal of Zen enlightenment is to summon those powers at will and use them to your benefit. The famous virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai explained it like this (and I paraphrase): Every once in a while a person latches onto a fleeting moment of inspiration. For some mysterious reason he can suddenly play beyond his normal abilities—beyond anything he’s ever experienced. But then, a moment later it’s gone. Vai goes on to explain that his unwieldy virtuosity is the result of learning how to hold onto that moment—to summon it at will. Incidentally, Vai is an adamant student of Eastern philosophies. He is speaking specifically of Zen.

Zen isn’t a religion per se, nor does it conflict with any religion. It is simply a heightened state of being and awareness. It brings clarity through meditation and focus.

At its peak, Zen enlightenment channels energy so that God can work through you. In other words, you are able to achieve great feats because you’ve removed yourself as a stumbling block to the great flow of energy.  As the late, great Zen-master Alan Watts once wrote, “What the culture of Zen proposes is that one might become the kind of person who, without intending it, is a source of marvelous accidents.”

Best of all, Zen is universally available to everyone. It’s your birthright. It comes with the gift of consciousness. Personally, I’m only at the beginning of Zen understanding. But lately I find myself making more frequent, conscious, ritualistic efforts to channel those forces. I can also recognize when it happens and hold onto it longer.

What I’m attempting to do here is share this understanding with you. Through Zen practices one can achieve greater success in whatever aspects of life he wishes to pursue.

Zen in Hunting: Part 1

Zen in Hunting: Part 2

Zen Hunting

Zen in Hunting: Part 2

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Zen in Hunting Part 2

Trying to explain Zen to people has been difficult, not just for me, but for all Zen teachers, even the Japanese Zen-masters themselves. Reason being, the meaning of Zen is not something you can just tell someone, but rather something that must experienced.

In Western culture we expect things to be tangible and definable. But in Eastern culture some aren’t explained with words, but  through experiences. If you were to ask a Zen-master to explain Zen, he’d likely turn his back on you. Zen is a sacred art, and not something to be handed out like candy. Its power is beyond mere words, even beyond the teacher’s full range of understanding. It is  also something that should be earned through hard work, humility, and sacrifice.

If you haven’t read the epic novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, you should probably be deported. It’s an important and powerful Western perspective of Zen. It also predicts the downfall of Western civilization via our own greed and self-centered worldly perspective. He goes on to explain that the Western business model will increasingly dictate our values in the near future. The fallacy of the Western business model is this:  If a thing or idea cannot be quantified, monetized, or assigned a tangible value, then it must be dismissed. Why do you think society hates religion now more than ever before?

Like it or not, this bias is the driving force behind all decisions regarding Western business, values, morality, emotions, decisions, relationships, the stock market, the government, etc. Have you ever noticed that every elected official is a living pile of crap, and the “good guy” politician always loses and no one knows why? He loses because his truth and his goodness can’t be quantified. The dirt bag politician, on the other hand, wins because he tells so many lies, and lies are data which can be added up and quantified. So he wins by numbers. But I digress.

Pirsig was a great prognosticator. He understood that the Western business model would inevitably lead to our destruction. He foresaw it very clearly, but felt so helpless in preventing it that it drove him certifiably insane.

What proved Pirsig’s theory was simple: The word QUALITY is indefinable in Western culture. Everyone he asked seemed to have  only  some vague idea of what Quality is, but they couldn’t really define it. That’s because Quality can’t be defined. Quality can’t stand on its own. Quality is only useful for comparing two objects. For example, this toothbrush is better than that toothbrush, so this  one is a quality toothbrush.

Quality is very similar to Zen insomuch as it’s something to be experienced, not explained. You know when you have a quality experience–like shooting a giant buck or watching your son being born–but trying to explain why it’s a quality experience is impossible without comparing it to something lesser. And since it can’t be defined, it’s often discarded by our culture. Now, more than ever, it’s easy to see what Pirsig predicted 40 years ago is coming true: quantity over quality in all things. Don’t believe me? Just look at Walmart!

Before we continue, I want to make it clear that I am not a Zen-master; not even close! I’m only a traveler along the Great Path. I only happened upon Zen because of the meditative rituals that I experienced while hunting. At the same time, I believe that the purpose of life is to follow the one true path, and that is the path leading to enlightenment. If I have any understanding of Zen, it’s only because I’ve traveled farther along the path than most. And if this is true, then I can help others.

Are you seeking Zen in your life, or are other forces (dogmas, hope, ignorance, etc.) guiding you? Can the ancient art of Zen really be used for hunting? Is God and Zen really the same thing? These are all questions that I ponder every day and hope to answer in future posts.

As of now, we’ve only scratched the surface. For the final piece of the puzzle, see…

Zen in Hunting: Part 3

Zen in Hunting: Part 1

Zen Hunting

Zen in Hunting: Part 1

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You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you…me…the tree…the rock…everywhere!  – Yoda

Zen in Hunting Part 1

Where do you think the idea for ‘the Force’ came from? When you first saw Star Wars as a kid, you knew it was fiction, but didn’t you also feel some connection with the concept of the Force? Could there be some validity to the existence of a Force? Did you ever point to an object and command it to you? The idea of the force–in many ways–parallels the very real concept of the Zen force.

For me, the concept of this magical force makes up a three-part triangle: 1) The fictional/fantasy/magic force that exists in movies and our imagination, 2) the religious force that uses the power of God to “move mountains;” something we learned from our parents, church, or society, and 3) the Eastern Zen Buddhism force (or just Zen) that is understood and used mostly in the East, but exists universally everywhere.

In this article I’m writing strictly about the Zen-force and how it can be used for practical things like archery and hunting.

For more than a decade I’ve been researching and implementing Zen into my life in practical ways. Specifically I discovered a Zen-force via hunting and my deep connection with nature. Today, I continue to use the Zen-force to achieve greatness in archery, bowhunting, and almost anything else I do.

For all intents and purposes, Zen is similar to religion, but also far from it. Zen is not in conflict with any religion; it is simply a higher level of conscious awareness.

To give you a better understanding of Zen, think of it as a natural force that flows through all things…just like Yoda said. Then, think of life, or “the miracle of life,” and the life energy or spirit that exists in all living things. Aside from religious texts, no one really knows what life is or where it came from. We just accept that we’re alive and go about our business. But we must never forget that life is both a miracle and a mystery, no matter what dogma says about it.

What we do know about life is that everything is made up of energy. And yet again, no one knows what energy is; we only know some basic properties of it. For instance, we know that energy is conductive and it’s constantly moving or flowing. The idea of Zen is that we can align ourselves in a way that we connect with the infinite source of energy and conduct more energy through ourselves than we could otherwise. In this way we can do incredible things. For example, we can attract other energy to us.

This is all theoretic of course, but so is life, so let’s move on.

Have you ever noticed that Yoda looks like an old Japanese Zen master? Do you think it’s a coincidence? Zen Buddhism originated in China in the 6th century A.D. and was later adopted, perfected, and practiced in for centuries in Japan. Zen is continually taught through various meditational methods including swordsmanship, calligraphy, dancing, and even flower arrangement. And surprise, surprise, one of the most revered Zen disciplines is archery. But what is Zen exactly, and what does it have to do with archery?

In 2002 I had a major paradigm shift. A few days after harvesting an impressive trophy deer, I had a sudden realization that my success came neither from my hunting skills nor from luck. I seemed as though some mysterious force was guiding me toward success. Years later, when I learned about Zen, I was amazed at how perfectly it coincided with my unorthodox hunting meditations and practices.

For today, think of Zen as a oneness with the Universe. Oneness comes from humility. Zen can only be achieved through humility. Humility comes from realizing you are infinitesimally small relative to the infinite universe. You are not an ocean, but a single drop in a vast ocean. The ocean you are part of is unfathomably large and powerful. Your little life might seem important, but it’s really just a tiny part of an infinite universe.

And that’s where Zen comes in. What if you could take your tiny, insignificant life and harness the infinite power of the universe. There’s nothing you couldn’t accomplish. Zen simply provides the key to unlocking that immense power.

On a final note, Zen is far easier to achieve in Nature because there are so few distractions. Zen is associated with meditation because meditation is a practice of quieting the mind. In my early years of hunting, I couldn’t quiet my mind. I spent the days frantically flailing around the woods looking for a deer to shoot before I ran out of time. Consequently, I achieved little success.

In later years I spent more afield and hunted alone. I also spent more time just sitting and breathing. I noticed after about three or four days my mind would quiet down to the point of total awareness. There was no future or past. This state of being is sometimes referred to as the infinite now. Time is meaningless. Desire melts away. It was in these moments that I achieved wonderful success in the woods.

Nowadays, my spirit enters the woods long before my physical body. My physical body is here, working, driving around, answering calls, etc., but I’m just going through the motions. In reality, I’m already gone. My energies are focused on the impending bowhunt. I am living in a continual state of meditation and mental preparation; I am preparing the way for Zen in hunting.

This topic is further discussed in part 2 of this three-part series:

Zen in Hunting: Part 2