“Your duty is to plant a tree, water it, and fertilize it, that’s all. Whether it’s going to grow fast or grow slowly, that’s not your duty. It’s the duty of the tree. You can stand there complaining about it until the day you die, but it won’t get you what you want. Where do your thoughts go? “Maybe the soil here isn’t good.” So you pull up the tree. Its roots are just beginning to grow, but now they’re torn off. You keep pulling it up, again and again, until it finally dies.
“Why do you want it to grow fast? Your desire for it to grow fast is craving. Your desire for it to grow slowly is craving. Are you going to follow your craving, or are you going to follow the Buddha? Think about this every day. What you’re doing: Why are you doing it? If you’re not at your ease, you’re doing it with craving. If you let go, then you’ll do the practice when you feel lazy; you’ll do it when you feel industrious. But here you don’t do it when you feel lazy. You do it only when you feel industrious. That’s just a practice that follows your craving. When are you going to practice following the Buddha?”
