"Neither Difficult Nor Easy"

Layman Pang was sitting in his thatched cottage one day [studying the sūtras]. "Difficult, difficult," he said; "like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree."

"Easy, easy," Mrs. Pang said; "like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed."

"Neither difficult nor easy," their daughter Ling Zhao said; "on the hundred grass tips, the great Masters' meaning."


From The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell.

Edited for clarity of who is talking.