"Bodhi has no tree; the bright mirror has no stand. Originally there is not a single thing—where could dust alight?"
If you set aside your job title and other people's evaluations right now, what would the 'you' that remains look like?
An illiterate woodcutter inherits the master's robe
Huineng was a poor young man in Tang China's southern frontier, selling firewood to support his widowed mother. Hearing someone recite the Diamond Sutra in the marketplace, he was awakened and went to the Fifth Patriarch of Chan, Hongren, starting out by pounding rice in the mill.
When Hongren asked his disciples to express their realization in a verse, the head monk Shenxiu wrote on the wall that the mind is a mirror that must be wiped constantly. Huineng, who could not write, had someone inscribe his own verse—'originally there is not a single thing'—beside it, and Hongren is said to have secretly summoned him at night to pass on the robe and bowl.