Once a Zen master was asked by a king -- because the master was a great painter -- to paint a picture of a bamboo. The master said, "It will take time." "How long?" asked the king. The master said, "That is difficult to say, but at least two or three years." The king said, "Are you mad or something? You are one of the greatest painters. I was thinking you could just draw it right now!" He said, "That is not the problem, drawing a bamboo is not the problem -- but first I have to be a bamboo; otherwise how do I know what a bamboo is? I want to know the bamboo from the inside! So I will have to go and live in a bamboo grove. Now, one never knows how long it will take. Unless I know the bamboo from within I cannot paint it. That has been my practice my whole life: I paint only that which I have known from its deepest core." The king said, "Okay, I will wait."

One year passed. He sent a few people to see what was happening, whether the man was alive or dead. They came back and said, "The man is alive, but we don't think that he is a man anymore -- he is a bamboo! He was swaying with the bamboos in the wind. We passed by his side; he didn't take any notice. We said, 'Hello!' He didn't hear. We wanted to talk to him. We looked at his eyes -- they were so empty that we became frightened; either he has gone mad or something has happened. And he can do anything, so we escaped. He may kill or, who knows? -- he may jump upon us! He is no more the same man." The king himself went to see, and the master was swaying in the wind, in the sun. And the king asked, "Sir, what about my painting?" He didn't answer.

After three years he appeared at the court and he said, "Now bring the canvas and the paints. I am ready. And why were you people disturbing me again and again? If you had not disturbed me I would have come a little earlier. These fools from your court, they were saying things to me. They were saying, 'Hello!' Do you say hello to a bamboo? They disturbed the whole thing. It took months for me to again settle into being a bamboo and to forget that I am a man. And then you came and you said, 'Sir.' Is that the way to address a bamboo? 'When are you going to paint?' Has anybody ever heard that bamboos paint? You are a fool, you are surrounded by fools! I had told you that I would come whenever I was ready."

The canvas was brought, the brushes and the color, and within seconds he drew the bamboo. And it is said that the king wept for joy. He had never seen such a painting: it was so alive! It was no ordinary painting. It was not from the outside, it was from the bamboo -- as if a bamboo had sprouted on the canvas, not been painted.

Roderick, sit silently doing nothing, and let things happen -- whatsoever is happening. If weeds are growing, let them grow. They have the right to grow as much as you have the right to grow. And if you allow everything without any judgment, if you are nonjudgmental, you will grow to such pinnacles of joy and benediction that you cannot imagine right now.

Source - Osho Book "The Dhammapada, Vol 11"