Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall in Love with the Process of Becoming Great

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RELATED POST: 4 Ways to Work Toward Spiritual Enlightenment What Does the Phrase “Chop Wood Carry Water” Mean? In the question "A question regarding the level of worldly participation for a buddhist monk", Bhante gave an answer containing a Zen quote. Jesus took the time to wash the feet of his disciples. Many would have considered this to be beneath him, but he knew better. He knew that, even as someone who had achieved enlightenment, it was his duty and his pleasure to serve others, to do the tasks that seem below his “pay grade” and to do them with great love.

Having a mission is different. It’s something for life. It will help you overcome your daily battles and navigate you along the way. Like thirsty people guzzling salt water, achievement only creates a greater desire for accomplishing more, dehydrating us of true satisfaction and fulfillment.” If you can learn to own your fear, you will lead a life that’s under your control and not be controlled by anger, fear, and disappointment. Right before retiring, his boss handed him one last job. To build one last house before he can go traveling with his family. This guy Kota accepted but he was no longer feeling it. He was now seeing this work as an obligation rather than as an opportunity. So, he did a lousy job with this last house. With one thing accurately accomplished in the day, you may find that other tasks run more smoothly and your day will turn out better than you thought. So, go make your bed.

The deeper invisible and internal—your presence, awareness, perception, mindset. Your body may be busy, but your mind is still. You are present instead of preoccupied: Do what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Don’t do what you’re not doing while you’re not doing it.” It doesn’t appear that there’s a consensus about the origin of this quote. Here are three possible sources that I found while researching. Actor Jim Carrey once said, “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that’s not the answer.” Mike Posner But choosing to believe that anything that happens is in your best interest will turn all of the challenges and circumstances into a refinery that will shape your character and skills, and will develop within you an ability to change the world.”

Anything that happens to me today is in my best interest, it’s an opportunity to learn and grow. • Do the best you can with what you have where you are. • Excellent body language can trump emotional feelings. • Trust your gut. • If I abide in Him and His words abide in me, I can ask anything of the Father and He will provide it. • What CAN you do? • Talk to yourself instead of listening to yourself. • October is coming. • God is not surprised. God is sovereign. • Value listening more than being listened to. • Sometimes things are less about you and more about other people. • I know that You, God, can do all things and that no plan of yours can be thwarted. • The only thing that matters today is who I become and the influence I have on other people. • Everyone was created in God’s image. Treat them” Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water. No matter how accomplished we are, how wise or successful, there will always be mundane things we have to do because they’re part of life. My list sounds more like feed the cat, fold the laundry, run to the bank, make dinner… We encourage you: Take off the training wheels. Focus on true mental toughness. Focus on commitments and controllables, you can’t control the results anyway. Love people. Serve people. Provide value. Burn your goals. Fall in love with the process of becoming great.”

For many years it might feel as if nothing is happening, but you must trust the process and continue to chop wood and carry water, day in day out, regardless of what is happening around you.” Joshua Medcalf Anxiety over things you care about: “When you care about something, you’ll still get anxious. If you spend 2 years working on your book b aby, once you release it into the world and open it up to criticism, it’ll still feel terrifying. I didn’t do it for the money, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care whether it makes an impact.” When I started I was like you. Every day I would chop wood and carry water. Like you I understood that someone had to do these things, but like you I wanted to move forward. Eventually I did. I read all of the scrolls, I met with Kings and and gave council. I became the Abbot. Now, I understand that the key to everything is that everything is ‘chopping wood and carrying water’ and that if one does everything mindfully then it is all the same.” I once tweeted out that if you have the freedom to spend time doing these two things each day, you have everything you need in life: Isn't it a koan? I'm not sure if koans have definite answers. It probably means something like "there's no material status change after enlightenment. Enlightenment makes one ordinary". One with wrong view might think that if you win Nirvana you get a crown, a Ferrari and you never have to keep warm or drink water again. So if a Zen master ever heard a student talk like this they could say,

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether In the book How to Get Rich, Felix Dennis shared his personal tale of how he became one of the wealthiest men in England. Near the end of the book, he shares: Dave over at Accidental FIRE created the following graphic that perfectly encapsulates the experience most people have once they achieve financial independence: Focus on using your sport to develop more true mental toughness rather than being used by your sport by focusing on results that are outside your control” Before and after enlightenment, your life may look relatively the same. Before enlightenment, you go about your everyday tasks like brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, and putting the kids to bed. After enlightenment, you still have to do those tasks.

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Many people keep climbing and climbing, only to get to the end of their life and the top of the ladder, and realize their ladder has been on the wrong building. Without a mission, it is easy to lose perspective on what truly matters. A mission will make you think beyond the moment, which is greatly important because the only thing that is significant about the moment is who you become in the process, and the impact you have on others.” Joshua Medcalf Lesson #5: You’re Building Your Own House Throughout Your Whole life When he told his boss that he was done, the boss handed him the keys to this exact same house he was so frustrated with. This was a gratitude gift for his perfect work throughout the years. While you might think that there is nothing wrong with eating cheeseburgers twice a day in your 20s, this act will surely sabotage your health in the long run.

People online present the best-filtered version of themselves. It’s quite normal to feel down if you compare yourself with their seemingly flawless social image. Or worse, with a world-famous athlete, actor, writer, or business tycoon. Since enlightenment is a state and not a destination, that means we all still have to go on living even after attaining enlightenment. The goal then is to have your doing rooted in being to create awakened doing: Firstly, Zen is not ashamed that monks and priests integrate daily life into practice in the form of work.

I have been very poor and I am now very rich. I am an optimist by nature. And I have the ability to write poetry and create the forest I am busy planting. Am I happy? No. Or, at least, only occasionally, when I am walking in the woods alone, or deeply ensconced in composing a difficult piece of verse, or sitting quietly with old friends over a bottle of wine. Or feeding a stray cat…I could do all those things without wealth.” Stop waiting for your moment and keep training for your moment so that when the opportunity of your dreams comes, you won’t flinch, you won’t fret, but you’ll step up and trust your training.” While this one is not a direct meaning of this saying, it is something that I’ve inferred from its words. While #3 was about your inner state changing, this one looks at your outer state.