Completely ignoring the phantom dog

(Today I got my second covid vaccine! “Injection” in Japanese is 注射, chuusha, so please enjoy this four-character compound containing 射.)

射石飲羽
sha.seki.in.u

Literally: shoot – stone – drink – feather

Alternately: If you throw yourself into something as hard as you can, with intense concentration, then there is no worry or difficulty you cannot overcome; nothing you cannot achieve.

Notes: This comes from a possibly-familiar story from our friend the Han shi waizhuan (Japanese 『韓詩外伝』 = Kanshi gaiden) in which Xiong Qu of Chu (熊渠, Japanese Yuu Kyo, of 楚, Japanese So) thought he had spotted a tiger crouching in the darkness. He loosed an arrow at it and struck home, only to find after approaching that he had shot a stone hard enough for the arrow to sink in all the way up to its fletching.

This is a compound of compounds; 射石 means “shooting [an arrow] into a stone,” while 飲羽 refers to “being taken in up to the feathers.”

Artist’s rendition: antibodies surrounding a virus