---
title: "A Grain of Rice: Patience in Duty, Ultimately Filling the Granary"
description: "A man determined to become a billionaire by age 40, at 35, found this goal unattainable, so he quit his job to start businesses, hoping for overnight wealth. Over five years, he opened a travel agency, a coffee shop, and a flower shop, but each venture failed, plunging his family into dire straits. His exhausted wife, unable to persuade him to return to work, sought help from a monk. The monk told her to bring her husband to him. The man came reluctantly, and the monk challenged him to sweep the courtyard leaves, promising to reveal the secret to wealth. After a day of futile sweeping, the monk explained that desire is like endless leaves, covering patience, and patience is the sound of wealth. As a reward, the monk directed them to a granary with 100 bags of rice, behind which was a treasure box. After moving the rice, the man found only seeds and a note saying there was no gold. The monk revealed that the 100 bags of rice grew from that small bag of seeds over four months, and the man's patience was less than a rice seed's, so he couldn't hear the sound of wealth."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2015-08-15"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/UBBwiNqU4HuD052wJISVrQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E4%B8%80%E7%B2%92%E7%A8%BB%E7%B1%B3-%E8%81%8C%E5%AE%88%E8%80%90%E5%BF%83-%E7%BB%88%E6%88%90%E6%BB%A1%E4%BB%93-97553ea9.md"
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# A Grain of Rice: Patience in Duty, Ultimately Filling the Granary

> A man determined to become a billionaire by age 40, at 35, found this goal unattainable, so he quit his job to start businesses, hoping for overnight wealth. Over five years, he opened a travel agency, a coffee shop, and a flower shop, but each venture failed, plunging his family into dire straits. His exhausted wife, unable to persuade him to return to work, sought help from a monk. The monk told her to bring her husband to him. The man came reluctantly, and the monk challenged him to sweep the courtyard leaves, promising to reveal the secret to wealth. After a day of futile sweeping, the monk explained that desire is like endless leaves, covering patience, and patience is the sound of wealth. As a reward, the monk directed them to a granary with 100 bags of rice, behind which was a treasure box. After moving the rice, the man found only seeds and a note saying there was no gold. The monk revealed that the 100 bags of rice grew from that small bag of seeds over four months, and the man's patience was less than a rice seed's, so he couldn't hear the sound of wealth.

A man who was determined to become a billionaire by age 40, at 35, discovered that this wish was simply unattainable, so he quit his job and started a business, hoping to get rich overnight.
Over five years, he opened a travel agency, a coffee shop, and a flower shop, but unfortunately, each venture failed, plunging his family into dire straits. His exhausted wife couldn't persuade him to return to the workforce, and in desperation, she sought the help of a senior monk. After understanding the situation, the monk told the wife, "If your husband is willing, please ask him to come here!"
The man came, but from his expression, it was clear that this trip was only to appease his wife. The monk, without a word, led him to the temple's courtyard, which was about the size of a basketball court, filled with dense centuries-old trees. The monk picked up a broom from under the eaves and said to the man, "If you can sweep the courtyard clean of leaves, I will tell you how to earn billions of wealth."
Although he didn't believe it, seeing the monk's seriousness and tempted by the billions, the man thought sweeping the courtyard was no big deal, so he took the broom and began sweeping. After an hour, he finally swept from one end of the courtyard to the other, and seeing that he was almost done, he picked up a dustpan and turned around to gather the piles of leaves he had just swept, only to see that the ground he had just swept was covered with fallen leaves again.
Frustrated, he sped up his sweeping, hoping to keep up with the falling leaves. But after a day of trying, the fallen leaves on the ground were as many as when he first arrived. The man angrily threw down the broom and ran to the monk, asking why he was playing such a joke on him.
The monk pointed to the leaves on the ground and said, "Desire is like the endless leaves on the ground, layer upon layer covering your patience. Patience is the sound of wealth. You have a desire for a hundred million in your heart, but only a day's patience in your body; just like these autumn leaves, you must wait until winter when all the leaves have fallen before you can sweep them clean, but you wish to finish sweeping in one day." After saying this, he asked the couple to leave.
As they were leaving, the monk told the man that to repay him for his hard work sweeping that day, on their way home they would pass a granary, inside which there would be 100 bags of rice in hemp sacks, each weighing 100 jin. If the man was willing to move these rice bags outside the granary, behind the rice pile there would be a door, inside which there was a treasure box containing gold donated by devotees. It wasn't a lot, but it could be considered his reward for sweeping and moving the rice that day.
The couple walked for a while and saw a granary, with rice stacked neatly about two stories high, exactly as the monk had described. For the sake of the gold, the man began moving the bags one by one outside the granary. After several hours, when he was almost done, he saw a door behind, and excitedly pushed it open. Inside, there was indeed a treasure box, unlocked, and he easily opened it.
His eyes lit up; inside the box was a small hemp sack. He picked it up, untied the rope, reached in, and grabbed a handful, but what he held was not gold, but a handful of small black seeds. He thought perhaps they were to protect the gold, so he poured everything out onto the ground. But to his disappointment, there were no gold nuggets, only a pile of black seeds and a note. He picked up the note, which read: There is no gold here.
The deceived man, disappointed, threw the hemp sack heavily against the wall, turned angrily, and opened the door to leave, only to see the monk standing outside holding a handful of seeds in both hands, saying softly, "The hundred bags of rice you just moved grew from this small bag of seeds over four months. Your patience is not even as much as a grain of rice's seed; how can you hear the sound of wealth?"
Clearly, a grain of rice, with patience in duty, ultimately fills the granary. Only the patient can hear the sound of wealth.
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