–A Japanese Folktale–
Once there lived THREE young SAMURAI. Each had their own specialty, their inherent talent.
For one it was the sword, for another the spear, and for the third the bow and arrow.
One day they decided to travel together and go from school to school to hone their skills further.
As they were coming to a valley, they got lost in a seemingly endless fog. At last in the evening, exhausted, they took refuge in an old, ruined temple.
But in the middle of the night, a kind of blood-curdling, loud laughter could be heard in the air.
Two of the samurai were extremely frightened. They could not see anything because the mist was very dense. They remembered all those legends about haunted deserted places in which phantoms, demons, wild mountain ogresses, fox bitches roam. They imagined all sorts of nightmarish visions. They started yelling and took up their weapons and began swinging them around in a crazy manner.
But the sinister laughter did not cease echoing about the valley.
The third Samurai, who was the archer, was still asleep. So these two frightened Samurai woke him up and begged him to start shooting from his bow.
Angered by their hysteria, the archer ordered them to calm down, and in a state of half sleep he bent his bow. He shot in the direction that he judged intuitively to be that from which the loud laughing sound was coming.
A single arrow was all that was needed to stop the demonic laughter.
As dawn broke, the three samurai walked into the valley to find where the arrow had landed. They were very surprised to find that the monstrous laughter was produced by nothing but two bamboos rubbing against each other due to the wind.
The archer had struck the bull’s eye from such a distance in an impenetrable fog, aiming only by ear! This was truly an incredible feat.
“You are a master of the bow. You will be able to open your own school!” one of the samurai who had been frightened told him.
“You possess the secret of the Supreme Shot that some Masters talk about,” said the other.
Pulling out his arrow, the archer replied, “Enough, enough. It was nothing but luck. I’ll prove it to you.”
With the arrow taken out, the bamboos again started making those loud noises.
Back again in the old temple, the archer, with his eyes closed, started shooting arrows in the direction of the two bamboos. He shot until he had emptied his quiver—with no success.
***
In the semi-conscious state in which the samurai had shot his arrow the very first time, his spirit had been free of all mental formations and fear. He was in harmony with the universe. In that state, he had allowed the bamboo in his arrow to become one with the bamboo of the trees. His arrow had been let free to fly with the innocent energy of Nature. The archer had experienced the shot of pure emptiness or of pure consciousness. It was a Perfect Shot.
Afterwards, when the archer-samurai’s mind was filled with ambition to reach his target, his shots fell short of that Perfection.
As students of life, we all must try to learn to live with our utmost sincerity. But only when we are truely surrendered to the Universe, we remain in harmony with the Nature. Then we become the best disciples of life.
Then each arrow coming out of our surrendered self will hit its true target.