Once it was appealed to clear the doubt about who represented more danger: the arrow or the one who throws it. But this time, although he refers to the arrow, I intend to share a much more sobering experience.
They tell about a Zen master who, before giving a lesson to his disciples, asked the organizers of the activity to provide him with a bow and arrow kit.
With all the costumes at hand, the teacher stepped forward to prepare the stage before the participants arrived. Already in the room, the lesson began with the rituals of the place and the introductory aspects related to “the vision”: a topic on which that day would deal.
The teacher invited his students to leave the room to continue his lecture. Already in the patio, he directed them to organize themselves in a semicircle, so that they would be placed facing a plain in the center of which he had placed a target, like a shooting range with an arch and arrow.
Immediately afterwards, an assistant provided the teacher, who had placed himself in the center of the semicircle formed by his disciples, with the bow and arrow that he would shoot.
It was not even necessary for the teacher to indicate to pay attention. In silence, each student followed the slightest gesture of the Zen master. Everyone wanted to know how it related to the topic they had started to discuss.
With his usual parsimony, the teacher placed each foot correctly, observed and almost caressed the bow, did something similar with one of the arrows. He mounted it on the bow, extended his left arm at a ninety-degree angle to his body, formed a similar angle with his right elbow until their shoulder blades touched, took a deep breath until his chest swelled, and holding his breath, released an arrow that it didn’t even come close to the target.
Confusion reigned among the students. None of them even knew where to look. What to do if they collided with the teacher? What would the master think if he found them looking the other way?
Those moments seemed to become eternal. The teacher understood them and, although it caused that kind of agony to be prolonged, it ended with that unbearable silence:
-That is to have vision, said the teacher. “All of you fixed your eyes on the target, hoping that the arrow would hit the center. But having vision is being able to see where others have failed to see”, he concluded.
After that moment, it was only necessary to fix some concepts and respond to some concerns and situations related to particular cases. It had already been explained in a very practical way what the vision should consist of in order to promote any undertaking.
This lesson is very timely for many Dominican municipal executives and for the territories they claim to represent.
We have an example of this need in the so-called “paradors” located at the entrance of many Dominican towns. There are different types and even with a certain degree of creativity and showiness.
In some cases they have been the subject of criticism for the money invested, in others there have been complaints about the “bad taste” of the designer, and in others they have only criticized because “someone always appears to complain”.
The generalized “lame leg” has been that in very few demarcations that place where people take selfies has been related to strategies that guide the development of the territorial brand and much less with objectives that have repercussions on the best use of potentials. and opportunities that these demarcations have for their advancement. They have limited themselves to imitating a fashion.
It seems that our local “leaders” need some session with the Zen master who teaches about the importance of having clear and shared vision. And possibly they need another that explains how to translate that vision into plans, programs and actions that generate new stages, with realities aimed at the authentic development of the territories that have relied on their ability to lead.
Or perhaps it is preferred to return to discuss whether it is the arrow that kills?
