The emperor of China was a very great painter; he loved painting, and he used to call other painters
to the palace every year to have an exhibition. When he had become very old, he declared, at one
annual function, ”Now I am very old and I want to see the most perfect painting in the world. I will
provide space in the palace to the painter, and whatever he needs...”
So a few painters who thought they could create such a painting stayed in the palace. Somebody
completed his painting in one month and brought it to the emperor. He had done well, but it was not
the most perfect.
By and by three years passed, and only one painter remained. For three years he had been painting
– and he was not painting on canvas; he was painting on the wall of the palace where his room was
allotted to him.
He had painted a beautiful forest... and a moonlit night, a small river, and a very small footpath going
round and round around the trees and then disappearing in the forest.
After three years he came to the emperor and said, ”Now you can come. Whatever I can do I have
done. I think it is the most perfect painting in the world. So I invite Your Honor to come, and I don’t
ask any reward – these three years were the most precious that I have lived. Just your seeing it is
enough.”
All the other painters had been painting for reward, and when you are painting out of some
motivation, for some reward, your painting cannot be perfect. Your motivation will be the dust.
This painter said, ”I am not at all interested in any reward; you have already given it to me. These
three years I have lived such a beautiful life, day and night; nothing could be more than you have
given me. Now just look at the painting so that I can go back home. My children, my wife, may be
waiting for me.”
The emperor went with him. Certainly this painter had done the greatest job. He became so
interested that he asked the painter, ”Where does this small path go, finally?”
The painter said, ”I have never gone on it but if you are willing to come with me, we can go and see
where it leads. This question has arisen in me also many times, ‘Where does this small path lead?’”
So the painter and the emperor both entered the path and disappeared behind the trees, and nothing
has been heard about them since.
This story has always made me immensely happy. There is no returning from perfection, there is no
going back. Perfection takes you and you disappear.
