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A Chan master of Tiantong Temple, who was over eighty and hunchbacked, was drying mushrooms under a hot sun. this sight provoked Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen to say, “Old master, why do you exhaust yourself with such toil? Don’t push yourself so hard. Let me find someone to do it.”
Without hesitating, the old master said, “Other people are not me.”
“But why do you pick the hottest time of day?” Eihei Dogen countered.
The old master said, “If I don’t dry mushrooms on a sunny day, would a cloudy or rainy day be better?”
No Chan practitioner lets another do his work, or waits another day. “Other people are not me” and “if I don’t do it now, then when?” are ancient principles that we can live by today.