In the Shime chapter of the Shobogenzo, Zen Master Dogen Zenji discusses the four horses, which is a metaphor used by the Buddha in the Samyuta-Agama sutra. This metaphor of the four horses speaks about how we are when we practice the game of golf four, one could say, classes of students.
The first horse, the superior class, is like a horse that runs fastest by merely feeling the whip’s shadow. The second horse, the good class, runs fastest when the whip brushes its hair, the hair of its mane. The third horse, the poor class, runs fastest where the whip has actually touched its flesh. And the fourth, the lowest kind of horse, is the one who runs fastest only when the whip can be felt to the marrow of its bones.
At first glance we all want to be like the first horse in the superior class. These are the fast learners…the ones who seem to be a natural. Dogen Zenji says this may not be so desirable. A study of master golfers has shown that it is not the students with innate natural abilities who have achieved golf mastery. The golfers who have achieved mastery are mostly the students with average to below average natural abilities…the ones who have...
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