The Value of Simplicity

(A Chinese Folk Tale)
As Tzu-Gung was travelling through the regions north of the river Han he saw an old man working in his vegetable garden. He had dug a deep well and an irrigation ditch. The man would descend the circular steps into the well, fetch up a vessel of water in his arms, and pour it out into the ditch. While his efforts were tremendous, the results were meagre.
Tzu-Gung said, "There is a way whereby you can fill a hundred ditches and irrigate a hundred gardens in one day, and whereby you can do much with little effort. Would you not like to hear of it?"
The gardener paused in his work, looked at him, and said, "And what would that be?"
Tzu-Gung replied, "You take a long wooden lever weighted at the back and light in the front, and hang a bucket from the end of the lever. In this way you can bring up water so quickly that it just gushes out. This is called a draw well."
Then anger rose up in the old man's face, and he said, "I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses simplicity. He who has lost simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty in the strivings of the soul creates conflict and dissension within one's very nature as a human being. To endanger one's humanness is something which does not agree with honest sense. It is not that I do not know of such things, I am ashamed to use them."