Chinese Idiom: "Wholly Absorbed"

(Clearwisdom.net) "Wholly absorbed" is an idiom meaning to do things wholeheartedly, with total concentration.

Long ago, there was a famous chess player called Qiu. People called him Yi Qiu because of his excellent chess skills.

Yi Qiu once recruited two students and taught them at the same time. He sincerely wanted to have them grasp the secrets of chess as soon as possible and pass his skills on to them. Therefore, he very earnestly explained things for them.

One of the students listened carefully and earnestly, wholeheartedly concentrating on what Yi Qiu explained and analyzed for him. He ignored everything else. However, the other student, though he was sitting there physically, had his heart somewhere else. He looked at the fields and forest outside of the window at one moment and listened to the wild goose’s cry in the air at another. Seeing several swans flying overhead, he thought, "It would be nice if I had a bow and several arrows to shoot one of the swans and have a nice meal!"

But it would not help if he had the bow and arrows since he was in class. So he sighed and had to put his desire aside.

After a while, he could not help looking out the window again, and he saw another swan flying over. His desire to shoot it and eat it came up again, which lasted until Yi Qiu finished teaching. He still had not paid any attention to what Yi Qiu explained.

At this time, Yi Qiu asked the two students to play a game of chess to check how much they had learned. At the beginning, the student who did not pay attention in class could cope a little by relying on his previous foundation. However, he gradually showed that he was lacking. On the other hand, the student who listened to Yi Qiu wholeheartedly completed the offense and defense calmly. The other student, who had not paid attention to Yi Qiu in class, only had the ability to parry but not enough strength to strike back.

Seeing this, Yi Qiu said sincerely to the two students, "Though playing chess is a small skill and not considered a great capability, if you however don’t concentrate wholeheartedly, you still cannot learn it!"

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/11/22/142905.html

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