and published by Vintage Press as The Method of Zen. Dispute Yamada Shōji has demonstrated that Herrigel's teacher, Awa Kenzō, never practiced Zen or even studied under a Zen master. While John Stevens has reproduced a photograph of a calligraphy by Awa that reads "The Bow and Zen are One.", Yamada quotes Awa's biographer Sakurai Yasunosuke, who wrote "While Kenzō used the phrase 'the bow and Zen are one' and used philosophical language of Mahāyāna Buddhism in particular to describe shadō, he did not approve of Zen unconditionally." Rather, Kenzō was focused on establishing his own religion of archery and claimed he was doing missionary work in promoting it. Herrigel either intentionally or inadvertently misinterpreted Awa's teachings as an expression of Zen. Herrigel himself never really learned the Japanese language and instead relied on interpreters, who have since confessed that they seldom understood Awa's cryptic phrases. Much of Herrigel's understanding of Zen appears to have derived from the writings of D.T. Suzuki, the great lay popularizer of Zen Buddhism in the west. Suzuki himself seems to have initially agreed with Herrigel's analysis, having written the introduction to the post-war edition of Zen in the Art of Archery, but he later wrote that "Herrigel is trying to get to Zen, but he hasn't grasped Zen itself". Volker Zotz revealed in his book, Auf den glückseligen Inseln, on Buddhism and German Culture, that Eugen Herrigel was a strong supporter of the Nazi party. For his involvement in Nazism he was forbidden to teach at the University for three years after 1945. References 1885 births 1955 deaths Zen Buddhism writers Militant League for German Culture members