Varun Amin

Classics Inspirational Children

3  

Varun Amin

Classics Inspirational Children

The Need To Be Patient

The Need To Be Patient

3 mins
181


Once upon a time, high in the reaches of the mountain range, there was a martial arts master—a hermit would be a more appropriate term—who lived out his remaining years in his hut on the mountainside. One day a young man journeyed up the hermit’s mountain and asked to train under the master. Having not had a student in quite some time, the hermit happily accepted the student and trained him.


Time passed day after day, year after year, for 10 years they lived together and trained tirelessly. Then, there came a moment where the young student had learned every technique the master had to teach. The young man began to grow restless high up in the mountains, ready to see the world and put his training to use, but the hermit would not allow the student to leave the mountain sanctuary.


One day, the student approached the master who was deep in meditation and said, “Master, Master, forgive me for interrupting your mediation, but I have studied with you for 10 years now and I have mastered every technique you have to teach me. If there is nothing else for me to learn, why will you not let me go and leave this place? Is there more for you to teach me?”

The hermit smiled when he heard his pupil’s complaint, as if he had been waiting on this moment for at least 3 years. “After training throughout these years, what is your philosophy, my student?”


“Huh?” the student responded, rather perplexed. “What does philosophy have to do with anything?”

“Skill with no idea for what to use it is meaningless. If one’s mind and body are not in sync, what can be?”

“But, teacher, I still don’t understand. What does all this mean? How can I know the philosophy behind my martial style if you do not teach it to me? Come on, old man, I demand answers!”

The hermit’s smile faded quickly. His eyes, which had been shut until this point, snapped open, very wide and very intense.


“Question after question you ask me, but you do not find your answer. Then you bite the hand that feeds you and expect me to use my other hand! Only a fool disrespects without knowledge and understanding. If anything, I have taught you this!” The pupil shrank away a bit, embarrassed he had pressed his master so. Relaxing a bit, the master continued, “You are right to have come to me, my student. You have reached the end of your training, indeed but you haven't learned the art of patience which is of utmost importance to meditate. If you can't be patient then all these years you have trained are in vain as you have not achieved anything."


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