To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the highest skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill."
- Sun-Tsu
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Knowledge of others is strength; Knowledge of self is enlightenment.
Lao Tsu
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In this world there is nothing softer or thinner than water, but to compel the hard and unyielding, it has no equal. – That the weak overcomes the strong, that the hard gives way to the gentle – This everyone knows. Yet no one acts accordingly.
- Lao Tsu
Obsession
The Eagle and the Wolf
There is a great battle that rages inside me. One side is the soaring eagle. Everything the eagle stands for is good and true and beautiful, and it soars above the clouds. Even though it dips down among the valleys, it lays its eggs on the mountain tops.
The other side of me is the howling wolf. And that raging, howling wolf represents the worst that is in me. He eats upon my downfalls and justifies himself by his presence in the pack.
Who wins this great battle? ------------- The one I feed.
Concentration
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."
