"Do what I have been telling you to do. Just by stilling the body, your mind is not going to disappear, because it is through the mind that you are enforcing a certain discipline on the body. Anything done by the mind is going to strengthen the mind. It is a nourishment for the mind.'

"A year passed. The master came again. The disciple was sitting almost in a kind of euphoria, enjoying the morning breeze and sun with closed eyes, thinking that he was meditating. The master took a brick and started rubbing it on a stone in front of the disciple. It was such a disturbance that finally the disciple had to shout, 'What are you doing? Are you trying to drive me crazy?'

"The master said, 'I am trying to make a mirror out of this brick. If one goes on rubbing it enough I think it will become a mirror.'

"The disciple laughed. He said, 'I always suspected that you were a little mad – now it is proved! The brick can never become a mirror. You can go on rubbing it on the stone for lives together; the brick will remain a brick.'

"The master said, 'That shows some intelligence! Then what are you doing? For years you have been trying to make meditation out of the mind; it is like trying to make a mirror out of a brick.'

"And the master threw the brick in the pond at the side of the tree the disciple was sitting under. The brick made a great splash in the pond, and the very sound of it was enough to do the miracle. Something awakened in the disciple. A sleep was broken, a dream was shattered: he became alert. For the first time he tasted something of meditation.

"And the master immediately said, 'This is it!'

"It happened so unexpectedly – the disciple was taken unawares. He was not waiting for this to happen, that the master would suddenly throw the brick into the pond, and the splash…

"Basho has a beautiful haiku:

The ancient pond.
The frog jumps in.
The sound…

"That's all. The sound can awaken you.

"Meditation is not a question of effort because all effort is going to be through the mind, of the mind, by the mind."