The Focused Mind

Centuries ago in Japan there lived a man who had devoted himself to kyudo, the Way of the bow. Early one evening, walking in the mountains, he saw a flicker of movement. It was a tiger, its back arched, ready to pounce. Without hesitation he nocked the arrow. Concentrating all his power in the shot, since it might be his last, he let the arrow fly. A direct hit, right in the head. Without stopping, the archer continued on his way.

The next day, though, he returned to the spot. But hard as he looked he could not find the dead animal. He was about to abandon his search when he saw his arrow, lodged in a huge boulder. It hadn’t been a tiger after all, but his concentration had been so intense and his shot so powerful that the arrow had been driven into solid rock.

From this incident came the famous maxim about concentration and power in any Way of life–business, athletics, the arts: “Ichinen iwa wo mo tosu:” “The focused mind can pierce through stone.”

―David Rogers