How will the water taste?

… a story about an old Chinese man at a water-well. He lowers a bucket tied to a rope, and slowly pulls the water up, hand over hand. A young man comes by holding a pulley and proceeds to explain how it would make the old man’s work easier.

The old man says, “If I use a device like this, my mind will think itself clever. With a cunning mind, I will no longer put my heart into what I am doing. If my heart is not in my work, my work will be joyless. When the work is joyless, how do you think the water will taste?”

Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, the Laundry via No Impact Man
comments powered by Disqus