Make a mirror out of bricks

Make a mirror out of bricks

Grinding bricks into mirrors, a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is m ó Zhu ā NCH é NGJ ì ng, which means grinding bricks into mirrors. It's a metaphor for things that don't work. It comes from the Song Dynasty's shidaoyuan biography of lanterns in Jingde.

Idioms and allusions

Zen master mazudaoyi, a native of Guanghan County, Sichuan Province, became a monk in Luohan temple when he was a child, and later received full precepts from Yuangong lawyer's office in Yuzhou. In Kaiyuan, Mazu came to Nanyue Mountain to practice meditation in a caohan. Huai of Nanyue Prajna Temple let the Zen master see that Matsu closed the door every day to work hard. He didn't know whether his kung fu was right or not, so he knocked on Matsu's door. When he heard that there was no answer, he increased his strength and clapped the door loud. Matsu couldn't stand the noise and opened the door. Huairang asked, "the master sits here every day. If he doesn't practice stop watching Kung Fu, how can he become a Buddha?" Mazu didn't understand Huai rang's words. Instead, he felt bored and closed the door to meditate. Huairang Zen master then thought of a way. He picked up the brick and ground it hard in front of Mazu's Cao'an. After grinding for many days, his voice was very harsh. Mazu couldn't settle down. He opened the door of the nunnery and followed the sound. When he saw that the monk who knocked on the door was grinding the brick, he asked unhappily, "Zen master, what are you doing to grind the brick?" Huai made Zen master laugh and said, "I want to make a mirror when I grind bricks." Mazu asked strangely, "how can you make a mirror by grinding bricks?" Huairang Zen master said, "yes, you can't make a mirror by grinding bricks. Can you become a Buddha by just sitting down?" When he heard this, Mazu suddenly became enlightened. He was in a very happy mood, so he threw himself into the door of Huai rang Chan Master to listen to his teachings, and finally became a great master of Zen. Grinding bricks into a mirror is the same as digging the earth to look at the sky and seeking fish from trees. Although it is ascetic, it can not achieve the goal. Meditation does not mean sitting down blindly. You have to reflect on yourself to see the truth.

Idiom usage

It means that things can't succeed

Analysis of Idioms

Synonyms: grinding bricks to make mirrors, cooking sand to make rice

The origin of Idioms

"How can the grinding of bricks become the evil of mirrors?" according to shidaoyuan's biography of lanterns in Jingde in Song Dynasty