The Wide Way

From Zen Lessons: The Art of Leadership, trans. Thomas Cleary (Boston & London: Shambala Books, 1993), 52-3: Lesson 42.

Huanglong said to the great statesman Wang Anshi:*

Whatever you set your mind to do, you always should make the road before you wide open, so that all people may traverse it. This is the concern of a great man.

If the way is narrow and perilous, so that others cannot go on it, then you yourself will not have any place to set foot either.

* Also considered one of China's great poets, Wang Anshi was a Chan practitioner and an active statesman. At the peak of his career he was highly placed and tried to institute sweeping reforms in government. He met with great resistance from entrenched interests, and was eventually ousted.
-Translator.

The book is called Zen Lessons because Americans would know the word "Zen." Here and throughout, the lessons are actually Chan Buddhist rather than Zen Buddhist, Chan being the Chinese school from which the Japanese derived their own unique method which became famous in the West.   

Confer Mt. 7:13-14. It's worth reading with the immediately prior post, as well; the wide road is the humane standard, perhaps the only one the human being can aspire to traverse. Nevertheless, the alternative does come well recommended.