A Scholar rented a room from a monastery to use for study. In fact, he played all around instead of studying. One afternoon, he suddenly came back and called the page boy to fetch him a book. At first, the page boy fetched the Liang Dynasty Wenxuan. He looked at the book and said," Too low." Then, he brought the scholar the classic History of the Han Dynasty, but the answer was still "Too low." Finally, he brought a third famous classic, the Records of the Historian, but the answer was still "Too low."

A monk, very astonished by this, confronted the scholar," Generally, if a person masters one of these great books in a lifetime he is considered well-learned. Why do you say these classics are low books?"

"I'm trying to find a book that's just the right height to use as a pillow," the scholar replied," these are all too low."