One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyu: “Master, will you
please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?”
Ikkyu immediately took his brush and write the word “Attention.”
“Is that all?” asked the man. “Will you not add something more?”
Ikkyu then wrote twice running: “Attention. Attention.”
“Well,” remarked the man rather irritably, “I really don’t see much
depth or subtlety in what you have just written.”
Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times running: “Attention.
Attention. Attention.”
Half angered, the man demanded: “What does that word ‘Attention’
mean anyway?”
And Ikkyu answered gently: “Attention means attention.”
—Dialogues of the Zen Masters,
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