by Paulo Coelho
“When I felt better, I asked him to teach me the art of the bow; it was far more interesting than looking after horses. He told me that my death had come a great deal closer, and that now I could not drive it away. It was just two paces away from me, for I had done great physical harm to my body.
“If I wanted to learn, it would only be in order to keep death from touching me. A man in a far-off land, on the other side of the ocean, had taught him that it was possible to avoid for some time the road that led to the precipice of death. But in my case, for the rest of my days, I needed to be aware that I was walking along the edge of this abyss and could fall into it at any moment.
“He taught me the way of the bow. He introduced me to his allies, he made me take part in competitions, and soon my fame spread throughout the land.
“When he saw that I had learned enough, he took away my arrows and my target, leaving me only the bow as a souvenir. He told me to use his teachings to do something that filled me with real enthusiasm.
“I said that the thing I liked most was carpentry. He blessed me and asked me to leave and to devote myself to what I enjoyed doing most before my fame as an archer ended up destroying me, or led me back to my former life.
“Every second since then has been a struggle against my vices and against self-pity. I need to remain focused and calm, to do the work I chose to do with love, and never to cling to the present moment, because death is still very close, the abyss is there beside me, and I am walking along the edge.”
Tetsuya did not say that death is always close for all living beings; the boy was still very young and there was no need for him to think about such things.
Tetsuya did not say either that the way of the bow is present in any human activity.
He merely blessed the boy, just as he had been blessed many years before, and asked him to leave, because it had been a long day, and he needed to sleep.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Eugen Herrigel, for his book Zen in the Art of Archery, Derby Editions, 2016.
To Pamela Hartigan, managing director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, for describing the qualities of allies.
To Dan and Jackie DeProspero, for their book with Onuma-san, Kyudo, Budo Editions.
To Carlos Castaneda, for his description of the encounter between death and the nagual Elias.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paulo Coelho’s life remains the primary source of inspiration for his books. He has flirted with death, escaped madness, dallied with drugs, withstood torture, experimented with magic and alchemy, studied philosophy and religion, read voraciously, lost and recovered his faith, and experienced the pain and pleasure of love. In searching for his own place in the world, he has discovered answers for the challenges that everyone faces. He believes that, within ourselves, we have the necessary strength to find our own destiny.
Paulo Coelho’s books have been translated into 82 languages and have sold more than 320 million copies in more than 170 countries. His 1998 novel The Alchemist has sold more than 85 million copies and has been cited as an inspiration by people as diverse as Malala Yousafzai and Pharrell Williams.
He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and has received the Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur. In 2007, he was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
A NOTE ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Born in Waiblingen, Germany, Christoph Niemann is an artist, author, and animator. His work appears regularly on the covers of The New Yorker, National Geographic, and The New York Times Magazine. Christoph Niemann’s art has been subject to numerous museum retrospectives. He created The New Yorker’s first Augmented Reality Cover. In 2010, he was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall Of Fame. He is the author of many books, including the monographs Sunday Sketching (2016), WORDS (2016), and Souvenir (2017). His most recent book is Hopes and Dreams about a trip to meet an artistic hero in Los Angeles. He lives in Berlin with his family.
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