Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water


A recent post about translation reminded me of the following saying:

[code]

    Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water.
    
[/code]

It is said to be coming from zen buddhism, which is commonly referred to as a
Japanese school of buddhism. I was wondering if this saying is actually
commonly used in Zen (in Japan), and especially what the writing would be.

Although it seems interesting, I am by no means a practitioner of buddhism. I
came across this saying a lot when searching the internet, but never with a
source of translation. Zen originated in China and buddhism uses a lot of
sanskrit texts, so perhaps the saying is not of Japanese origin in the first
place, but it never hurts to ask, right?




[This page](http://www.redleopard.com/tag/mandarin/) attributes the saying to
the Chinese proverb

> 顿悟之前砍柴挑水，顿悟之后砍柴挑水

after Wu Li (吴力). In Japanese I could only find blog posts that said the
saying comes from English. Searching Chinese pages, however, there are almost
no exact hits and Wu Li was a painter and poet, but a convert to Catholicism.
Smells like a saying that fits well with the Western concept of Zen Buddhism,
but has little to do with it. Maybe someone fluent in Chinese can help find
out more.




[This page](http://www.redleopard.com/tag/mandarin/) attributes the saying to
the Chinese proverb

> 顿悟之前砍柴挑水，顿悟之后砍柴挑水

after Wu Li (吴力). In Japanese I could only find blog posts that said the
saying comes from English. Searching Chinese pages, however, there are almost
no exact hits and Wu Li was a painter and poet, but a convert to Catholicism.
Smells like a saying that fits well with the Western concept of Zen Buddhism,
but has little to do with it. Maybe someone fluent in Chinese can help find
out more.

