A Zen Parable

Once upon a time, a monk and a novice monk were travelling together. They came to the bank of a river and found that the bridge was damaged. So they had to wade across the river. There was a pretty lady who was stuck at the damaged bridge and couldn't cross the river. The monk offered to carry her across the river on his back. The lady accepted.

The novice monk was shocked by the action of his senior. 'How can big brother carry a lady when we are supposed to avoid all intimacy with females?' thought the novice monk. But he kept quiet. The monk carried the lady across the river and the novice monk followed unhappily. When they had crossed the river, the monk let the lady down and they parted ways with her.

Along the way, for several miles, the novice monk was very unhappy with the act of his senior. He was making up all kinds of accusations about his senior in his head. This got him madder and madder. But he still kept quiet. And the monk had no idea how his junior felt.

Finally, at a rest point many hours later, the little monk could not stand it any further, he burst out angrily at his senior. 'How can you claim yourself a devout monk, when you seize the first opportunity to touch a female, especially when she is very pretty? All your teachings to me make you a big hypocrite '

The monk looked surprised and said, 'I had put down the pretty lady at the river bank many hours ago, how come you are still carrying her along?'

Moral of the story:

This very old Chinese Zen story reflects the thinking of many people today. We encounter many unpleasant things in our lives. Sometimes, they irritate us and they make us angry. Sometimes, they make us bitter. But, like the novice monk, we keep thinking about the unpleasantness or unhappy situation until it makes us want to explode with rage.

We should do as the monk did. Deal with the situation and let it go. This will immediately remove all unhappy feelings. There is no need to be further hurt by the unpleasant event after it is over.

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