Being outmaneuvered by a chick humbled me. My task on the farm was relatively simple: keeping a group of cooped up chicks fed and hydrated. I had just discovered a secret, more difficult task: keeping them contained.

One morning, with my mind still assembling itself from sleep, I trudged out into the foggy air. I lifted the gate of the chick’s enclosure, to discover it had not fully done its job of enclosing: two chicks were just outside of it. I kept to my first task and tended to the enclosed chicks’ food and water. I hoped the appeal of breakfast would entice the escaped chicks to rejoin their brethren.

I realized quickly that they were totally aligned with me on getting back inside. They sprinted laps around the coop, trying to get in, exchanging squawks with their contained kin. The problem was that the chicks had somehow escaped from under the structure and didn’t seem to have any interest or capacity to return that way. So the only way back in was with my help, with a net, and from above.

We danced around the enclosure for a while. Whichever side of the enclosure I went toward, they chose the opposite. Luckily, they were content with this game of ring around the rosy, so our dancefloor didn’t spread much beyond the coop. The voice of Werner Herzog from this video was playing over and over in my head. He describes the “enormity of the stupidity” of chickens and how easy they are to hypnotize. I was fixated on how these apparently simple creatures were consistently outmaneuvering me.

I came up with a strategy to stop them. The enclosure abutted a building with just a chick-sized gap between the wall and the coop. Seeing as this was the one section near the coop I couldn’t access, it was their natural place to retreat. If I went to one side, they would pop out the other. This seemed like an easy win, I could stop our dance if I could create a dead end. I built a makeshift barrier to that end.

I shouldn’t have underestimated their agility or their stupidity. Instead of avoiding the semi dead end, they used their minimal flying ability to trap themselves in my barrier, contorting themselves in such a way that I was sure they were stuck. I very gently moved the barrier. Clearly they were just fine, as the moment they were free they were off to the races again.

My frustration mounted. I tried another trick, leaving a bit of food outside, hoping it would distract them from my lumbering presence. No luck. They were creatures of pure reactivity. The “enormity of their stupidity” was still too much for me.

I stopped trying to outsmart them; it was fruitless and testing my patience. Instead, I focused on a more intentional physical approach. With enough slow movement followed by a quick swoop of the net, I was able to snag one. I lifted the ensnared chick very gently, not wanting to injure it or cause it stress. This was a mistake. As soon as I lifted the net, the chick flew out. Pressing reset on our game, I was back on the chase.

I just needed the right, decisive action. And it took me some practice. A few more trips around the coop and I finally got the first one, using more force this time. The chick was not particularly happy in the net and I needed to use my hands more intentionally to get it back home. The second followed shortly after. Once they were inside, they happily joined their kin. They blended in totally and I couldn’t distinguish them from the rest.



One of the teachings of the Buddha is in “Right Effort” – practicing and living in a way that finds the balance between over-exertion and over-relaxation. This can show up in all kinds of ways.

Mentally, I started off my chicken hunt from a single-minded, unskillful place. Werner Herzog’s firm German voice repeating the “enormity of stupidity” of chickens was doing me no favors. I was overthinking the fact that I should be able to outsmart the chick and not focusing on the task at hand. I was putting too much effort into thinking about the problem rather than solving it. For this simple task, more mental effort (and finding the perfect trap) wasn’t necessary. All that was needed was the proper physical effort. And that also took finding the right balance. In my initial attempts I was too focused on being gentle with the chicks. This only made them more anxious and eager to escape. Giving them a firm grip caused them to stop struggling long enough for me to complete the task. Some temporary discomfort was preferable to finish the job.

Paying attention to this balance can reveal whether or not I am applying the proper effort to a task. It can be most obvious in meditation, where the mind is allowed to be quieter. There is no concrete task to achieve, so it’s easier to notice the energy in the mind: is it relaxing too much and drifting, or working too hard to stay focused?

The chicks gave me a concrete way of seeing Right Effort, their intelligence be damned. While I may have felt like I learned something, the chicks did not internalize anything from the proceedings. The next day, they escaped again. I learned another important lesson: when to quit. I enlisted the professionals (a man who lives at the farm and his son) to capture the chicks using the power of two. They also addressed the more fundamental problem of shoring up the enclosure. One day of dancing had been enough.