Sokei-an Sasaki

True religious experience takes time. You sow the seed of a peach or a chestnut tree, and it is three years before it bears fruit. You sow the seed of a persimmon and wait for eight years. For attaining Buddhist experience, you must wait thirty years—quite a long time. Wise man or idiot, when you enter into the way of religion, you must wait about thirty years. You must enter from a true gate. Otherwise in thirty years, you have nothing.