What does the idiom "changing chapters with broken arms" mean?

To survive with a broken arm is to give up, just like a gecko to survive with a broken tail. You must give up one thing in order to survive.

Broken arm solution

Hui Ke, the second ancestor of Zen Buddhism, was open-minded and well-read when he was young. Not satisfied with Confucianism and Taoism, he visited sages everywhere to seek truth. I heard that Dharma, a monk from Tianzhu, lived in Shaolin Temple, so I went to visit him. Although Huike waited for an opportunity to ask questions from time to time, Dharma often sat face to face without showing it to him. Hui Ke had to wait outside the cave. In the festival of deep winter, one day, it snowed heavily, and Hui Ke was still standing in the snow outside the cave. The dharma patriarch asked:

"Why did you stay so long?"

Hui Ke said with tears in his eyes, "I just want the monk to show me the supreme magic method."

Seeing many knowledgeable people talking about mystery and curiosity, Dharma simply said to him:

"Tathagata is a wonderful way, not secular knowledge. What can be done and what is difficult to do need perseverance, perseverance and perseverance to be studied. It is intolerable to covet small wise men, those without virtue and righteousness, and those who flatter and despise. " Unexpectedly, Hui Ke cut off his left arm with a knife and put it in front of the founder of Dharma to show his determination.

Hui Ke's firm pursuit of Buddhism was finally recognized by the founder of Buddhism and was named "Hui Ke". After that, Hui Ke followed the founder of Dharma and practiced day and night for nine years. Finally, he won his heart and inherited the mantle method. When leaving, the founder of Dharma said:

"Two hundred years later, this kind of Tathagata Zen will spread widely in China. Although there are many people who reason, few people who reason, many people in Ming Dow and few passers-by, there are still thousands of secret witnesses who have participated in it since the Enlightenment. "