The Champion Archer And The Zen Master

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 faraway 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.”

Learning a skill is not very difficult. But applying the skill under different circumstances in life requires Adaptability. In this case, the young archer became proficient in archery as a skill. But he failed to apply the skill in a new setting (on the perilous bridge). It is not that the young archer suddenly lost his skill. But he was unable to adapt to a new situation that he had not faced.