Wild Grass
Xia Yan

There is a story which goes like this:

Someone asked, "What has the greatest strength on earth?"The answers varied. Some said, "The elephant." Some said, "Thelion." Some said jokingly, the fierce-browed guardian gods to Buddha. Butnobody of course tell how strong the guardian gods were.

All the answers turned out to be wide of the mark. The mightiestthing on earth is the seed of a plant. The great strength which a seed iscapable of is simply matchless. Here goes another story:

The bones forming a human skull are so tightly and perfectly fittogether that all physiologists or anatomists, hard as they try, are powerlessto take them apart without damaging them. It so happened that, at thesuggestion of someone, some seeds of a plant were placed inside a human skullawaiting dissection before heat and moisture were applied to cause them togrow. Once they started to grow, they let loose a terrific force to separateall the skull bones, leaving each of them intact. This would have beenimpossible with any mechanical power under the sun. See, how powerful the seedsof a plant can be!

This story may be somewhat too unusual for you to understand. Well,have you ever seen the growth of a bamboo shoot? Or the growth of tender grassfrom under a heap of rubble or rocks? Seeking sunlight and survival, the youngplant will labour tenaciously through twists and turns to bring itself to thesurface of the ground no matter how heavy the rocks overhead may be or hownarrow the opening between them. While striking its roots deep into the soil,the young plant pushes its new shoots aboveground. The irresistible strength itcan muster is such as to overturn any rock in its way. See, how powerful a seedcan be!

Though nobody describes the little grass as a "husky", yetits herculean strength is unrivalled. It is the force of life invisible to thenaked eye. It will display itself so long as there is life. The rock is utterlyhelpless before this force — a force that will forever remain militant, a forcethat is resilient and can take temporary setbacks calmly, a force that istenacity itself and will never give up until the goal is reached.

When a seed falls under debris instead of on fertile soil, it neversighs in despair because to meet with obstruction means to temper itself.