Gaining Nothing, Only a Soft Heart
When the Japanese Zen master Dōgen returned from studying Chan in China, someone asked him what he had gained through his practice.
When the Japanese Zen master Dōgen returned from studying Chan in China, someone asked him what he had gained through his practice.
The master replied: I gained nothing—only a soft heart.
A soft heart is a heart of patient endurance; without one, a Chan practitioner cannot truly cultivate. Deep within us there is always something hard and rigid. That hardness is the ego—gaman—a self-exalting pride that sustains us from within, inflates itself, and looks down on others. The moment the outside world brushes against it, it flares up, as though it were the greatest thing of all. Yet from the standpoint of Zen, we must cultivate a soft heart; without one, we cannot arrive at the true way.
In learning, a soft heart also means not being ashamed to ask those beneath us, keeping the mind open and the heart at ease, and seeking guidance from every quarter.