Becoming the Self Only You Can Be

Chan Master Nanyue Huairang had a disciple named Mazu. While staying at Prajna Temple, Mazu spent his days sitting in cross-legged meditation, lost in deep thought. Master Huairang eventually approached him and asked, "What are you hoping to achieve by sitting like this?"

"I want to become a Buddha," Mazu replied.

Hearing this, the Master picked up a brick and began grinding it hard against the ground beside him.

"Master, what are you grinding that brick for?" Mazu asked.

"I want to polish it into a mirror," Huairang replied.

"But how can a brick ever be polished into a mirror?" Mazu asked.

"If a brick can't be ground into a mirror," Huairang said, "how can sitting with your legs crossed make you a Buddha?"

"Then how can I become a Buddha?" Mazu asked.

"Imagine an ox pulling a cart," the Master replied. "If the cart stops moving, do you strike the cart, or do you strike the ox?"

With that, Mazu experienced a sudden, profound awakening.

When a brick lacks the fundamental nature to become a mirror, you can grind it forever and it will never reflect. The same truth holds for people. You will always be you, and I will always be me. No amount of refinement or deliberate imitation can make us replace one another. So there's no need to envy others for their strengths, nor to belittle them for their flaws. You might actually possess strengths greater than those you admire—you simply haven't recognized your own luminous side. And when you condemn the shortcomings of others, you might very well be making the exact same mistakes, caught in the exact same foolishness. You just haven't recognized your own dark side.