The Beaver, the Tortoise, and the Spotless Mirror
When Meditation Finally Happened (A Zen Story)
This is a modern retelling of an old classic Zen story of “polishing a tile”.
The original story features Master Nanyue (Nangaku) finding his disciple, Mazu (Baso), sitting in intense meditation to become a Buddha. When Mazu explains his goal, Nanyue picks up a tile and polishes it on a rock. Mazu asks why, and Nanyue replies, “I’m making a mirror.”
Mazu asks how a tile can become a mirror, to which Nanyue replies, “How can sitting in zazen make you a Buddha?”
This story is why sometimes Zen teachers speak about “polishing tiles” in your meditation practice.
They mean that the conditioned mind is still doing something that it “thinks” is meditation.
