Dear Branko,

The commentary explains,

evaṃ adhimattasatimantoti yathā so dhanuggaho taṃ vidatthicaturaṅgulachāyaṃ sīghaṃ eva atikkameti, evaṃ padasatampi padasahassampi uggahetuṃ upadhāretuṃ sajjhāyituṃ atthakāraṇāni ca upaparikkhituṃ samatthāti attho.
(rough translation) Just as an archer can quickly shoot his arrow beyond the four-fingered wide shadow of a palm tree, so someone who is extraordinarily mindful  is able to learn, realize, recite a hundred or even a thousand padas (words, sentences?) and ascertain their causes and meanings/benefits.

There is a whole paragraph in the commentary (Ps 2, 51-52) detailing the archer's training, how he fabricates a light arrow etc. which is worth looking at .

Best wishes,

Bryan

From: "Dc Wijeratna dcwijeratna@... [Pali]" <Pali@yahoogroups.com>
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2016 12:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Pali] MN 12

 
Can you please give the paragraph number of Bhikkhu Bodhis translation?

On Sat, Sep 17, 2016 at 4:19 PM, Branislav Kovacevic ja_sam_branko@... [Pali] <Pali@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 
Dear All,

I came across the following simile in Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation of the MN 12: Mahasihanada sutta

"Just as a skilled archer, trained, practised, and tested, could easily shoot a light arrow across the shadow of a palm tree, suppose that they were even to that extent perfect in mindfulness, retentiveness, memory, and lucidity of wisdom."

I do not get this simile. What does it want to convey? Something which is done easily? But what shooting an arrow across the shadow of a palm tree has to do with that?

Could you please help with this.

Many thanks
Branko



--
Metta is being friendly to everybody