Here I go again. Another zen blog today. Why do I publish zen stories here? When I read some of these zen stories, what I want to do is to broadcast this story to every single person I know. In fact, I want to tell these stories to everyone personally so we can then have that little interesting discussion what these mean to each of us. By the way, in case you’re in doubt, this is a ’secular’ blog (we’re all secular because elections are around). All I do is just publish the zen stories because they are short, sweet and pack a punch.
Here are couple of very simple, uncomplicated truths.
This is the story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbours came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “May be,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbours exclaimed. “May be,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbours again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. “May be,” answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbours congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “May be,” said the farmer.
Great story. The old man never wants to call those as events of good fortune or misfortune. Why classify them into this or that? He does not reject them. He accepts them, but without a preference. For all those things that happen to the old man, it is his neighbours who are happy or unhappy. He doesn’t care how they feel and in fact he only has a ‘may be’ feeling.
After winning several archery contests, the young and rather boastful champion challenged a Zen master who was renowned for his skill as an archer. The young man demonstrated remarkable technical proficiency when he hit a distant bull’s eye on his first try, and then split that arrow with his second shot. “There,” he said to the old man, “see if you can match that!”
Undisturbed, the master did not draw his bow, but rather motioned for the young archer to follow him up the mountain. Curious about the old fellow’s intentions, the champion followed him high into the mountain until they reached a deep chasm spanned by a rather flimsy and shaky log. Calmly stepping out onto the middle of the unsteady and certainly perilous bridge, the old master picked a far away tree as a target, drew his bow, and fired a clean, direct hit. “Now it is your turn,” he said as he gracefully stepped back onto the safe ground.
Staring with terror into the seemingly bottomless and beckoning abyss, the young man could not force himself to step out onto the log, no less shoot at a target. “You have much skill with your bow,” the master said, sensing his challenger’s predicament, “but you have little skill with the mind that lets loose the shot.”
Oh how I love this one! How true the master’s words are. ‘Skill with the mind’. In normal circumstances, archery was a matter of routine for the champion. It was a matter or practice and routine that it became a reflexive skill. A matter of dexterity and hand-eye co-ordination. When he was put in unfamiliar grounds, he had to control his mind, its fear and its doubts, but he could not even concentrate. Thus, he had less skill with his mind though he had much skill with the bow.
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