Fishing, Zen and Tacit Knowledge

This is a very philosophical article about fishing in Japan. It is likely that you know someone who is good at fishing and you have no idea why he is good at it. Even when you ask him about his technique, he cannot express it well. I see there is a vast amount of tacit knowledge in fishing, in other words it is the knowledge you cannot show or explain while you know it unconsciously. 

You may ask why it connects with Japanese fishing. 

It is said that the philosophy of Zen knows the importance of tacit knowledge. And one could say that the teaching of Zen is to transfer the knowledge to the students. One of the applications of Zen knowledge was the mastering of sword fighting of Samurai. They prepared for the life or death situation, not with the explicit knowledge but tacit knowledge, which evoked the quickest and almost intuitive fighting actions.

Though fishing is not about a life or death situation, fortunately, it involves this kind of knowledge. Most of you never know how your fish bit your hooked bait or hard to explain what results good catch.

I hope it helps us to explore the core of our favorite activity, fishing. 

This blog first explains about tacit knowledge first, and then about Zen. And the final part is connecting these parts into fishing activity. 

What is Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge was introduced by the Hungarian scientist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi. This is the knowledge that is difficult to articulate or transfer to others through words or instructions. It is something that “We can know more than we can tell,” according to his book The Tacit Dimension (1966). 

There are four key aspects of Tacit Knowledge. 

The first one is that it is an implicit understanding. It means that this knowledge is learned through experience, observation and/or participation and not easily expressed.

The second aspect is that it is personal and contextual. This knowledge can only be within one person, such as the skill to ride a bike or walk.

The third aspect of this knowledge is that it is acquired through actions or habitual behaviours. Some say that the close mentorship or immersive teaching can bring it.

It is the knowledge that is difficult to transfer. It is the fourth aspect. Since it is more covert and implicit, it is hard to tell it to others in an explicit and clear way. The way to teach it is done through observation, storytelling or imitation.

As a fisherman, we often hear this. “He catches more than I do. I don’t know how and why. He may know some secrets.” It can be explained that this better angler may have the tacit knowledge about fishing. 

You know that experienced anglers know something when they see the water, while beginners see nothing in the same water. It may be the case that the expert sees something wholesome and gets some important pieces of information, using his tacit knowledge.

Zen and Tacit Knowledge

According to Daisetz Suzuki, “Zen is discipline in enlightenment.” Disciplines in words and in actions. The enlightenment from these disciplines is in our daily experiences or daily routine actions. It means that the enlightenment is in the inside and not outside of yourself. There comes the importance of “isness” or probably similar to the modern words “mindfulness.”

To attain the target, to get enlightenment inside you, Zen masters do have a special way of conversation. It is completely irrational. It goes like this (from Suzuki’s book.)

“What is Zen?”

“I do not understand,” was one master’s answer.

“What is Zen?”

“The silk fan gives me enough of a cooling breeze.” was another master’s answer.

“What is Zen?”

“Zen.” was still another’s response.

These answers are purely to let the questioner realize by himself/herself. 

If you replace the word of “enlightenment” with the tacit knowledge, you may realize how these statements can be fitting well for each other. Of course, enlightenment is the matter of the mind and it is the matter happening inside of you, and the process or the state of the goal is one instance of tacit knowledge.

There is another story quoted in the book, about a student of sword fighting who started to learn it from a master.

Quote;

When a disciple came to a master to be disciplined in the art of swordplay, the master, who was in retirement in his mountain hut, agreed to undertake the task. The pupil was made to help him gather kindling, draw water from the nearby spring, split wood, make fires, cook rice, sweep the rooms and the garden and generally look after his household. There was no regular or technical teaching of the art. After some time the young man became dissatisfied, for he had not come to work as servant to the old gentleman, but to learn the art of swordsmanship. So one day he approached the master and asked him to teach him. The master agreed.

The result was that the young man could not do any piece of work with any feeling of safety. For when he began to cook rice early in the morning, the master would appear and strike him from behind with a stick. When he was in the midst of his sweeping, he would be feeling the same sort of blow from somewhere, some unknown direction. He had no peace of mind, he had to be always on the qui vive. Some years passed before he could successfully dodge the blow from wherever it might come. But the master was not quite satisfied with him yet.

One day the master was found cooking his own vegetables over an open fire. The pupil took it into his head to avail himself of this opportunity. Taking up his big stick, he let it fall over the head of the master, who was then stooping over the cooking pan to sir its contents.But the pupil’s stick was caught by the master with the cover of the pan. This opened the pupil’s mind to the secrets of the art, which had hitherto been kept from him and to which he had so far been  a stranger. He then, for the first time, appreciated the unparalleled kindness of the master.

Quote ends. 

Some angler told me that you have to go to the water to be a better fisherman. Keep casting is the spirit and the way to be an expert or hopefully the master of fishing.

In order to become a good angler, you have to learn from practice. It is quite close to the way Zen practitioners try to reach its enlightenment. 

This practice based process to achieve the enlightenment was employed to educate and train their fighting techniques. The tacit knowledge gained by the daily practice allows samurais to get the finest technique in sword fighting. (If you are interested in Samurai spirit and fishing, you can view one of my blog articles.) Interestingly, the US army seems to have an interest in tacit knowledge to train their soldiers (reference link). It is not a coincidence that getting the tacit knowledge for fighting, for life and death situations, is important both in the west and the east and in the past and the present.

The knowledge of fishing

It may be the case that Japanese people tend to be good fishermen since we value the actions to get the goal of catching fish. From my personal feeling, more Japanese go fishing even though we know the condition is not ideal. There are a lot of people who go fishing because they like to “go fishing” (not necessarily “go catching.”) And these practices to go fishing make the person a better fisherman.

To add a note on it, I know many people all over the world who like to “go fishing.” It is not the case only limited to Japanese people, I know.

These repeating actions let anglers gain more tacit knowledge about fishing. Just like a Zen practitioner lives with daily actions to get enlightenment, that is also the clear instance of tacit knowledge. 

Now, we got hints about why good fishermans cannot teach you how to fish. 

Keep casting!

Final comments: it is the world of data now. And some may argue that this tacit knowledge can be coded and be taught with data. I think the day that this will be realized will be realized someday. But it is close to the task to make the consciousness explicit with data, and it will not happen soon. Additionally, who has the drive to take all the data of anglers' knowledge? It is not too late to know our tacit knowledge and how to get it now.