In a story told by Ta Hui (J.C. Cleary 1977, 4) and Dogen, a famous elder statesman and poet visited the Zen Master Dorin and asked him, ‘What is the great meaning of Buddhism?’
Dorin replied, ‘Do not do anything evil, do good.’
The statesman said, ‘If so, even a three-year-old child can say this.’
Dorin said, ‘A three-year-old child may be able to say it, but an eighty-year-old man cannot practice it.’
— Dogen, ‘Shoaku makusa’ (Cleary 1995, 91)