An Old Parable.

[swestrup]

Once two Budhist monks were walking through the forest and came to a river where a woman was trying to find a way across without getting soaked. Being new initiates, the monks were not allowed to touch, talk to or even approach females, nevertheless the first monk introduced himself to the the woman and offered to carry her across the river. She agreed and the monk promptly carried her to the far side. The monks then continued on their way.

After quite a while of further walking, the second monk finally spoke up. "How could you do that?" He asked. "You know the strictures about interacting with women! How could you just ignore them like that?"

The first monk looked startled and said to the second "Are you still carrying that woman? I put her down when we got to the far side of the river."

Comments

Re: Huh?

[ellenk.livejournal.com]

Neither do I. At least I'm not the only one confused.

Re: Huh?

[swestrup]

Hokay, I don't usually bother to explain Zen things. Zen is supposed to be FELT. But, I've always found this parable to be blatantly obvious and now I find its confused somewhere between 2 and 6 people...

The point the story makes is that it is one type of error to do something wrong, and another (and perhaps worse) type of error to dwell on it forever.

Its very much a non-christian retelling of the 'turn the other cheek' philosophy, but with respect to mistakes made, whether your own or someone elses. When its over, let it BE over.

So, the first monk technically broke his strictures but did so in the performance of a good deed. He then promptly forgot all about it. It had no lasting effect on his karma, if you will. The second monk spent the next hour going over and over the event in his head, and still hasn't put it behind him at the end of the parable. While he hasn't technically done anything wrong, he has violated the spirit of the 'don't have anything to do with women' stricture in a far more thorough way than did the first monk. The second monk has now seriously messed up his karma.

Re: Huh?

[ellenk.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh, thank you.

[kishiriadgr.livejournal.com]

Funny, I thought this one was obvious in a different way.

The woman is like any event of which we have to let go. The older monk had put her down and forgotten about her, the younger monk (who wasn't even the one carrying her) wouldn't let go.

Alternatively, it could have been a cart driver who nearly ran them over. The old monk, if he were acting the same, would have brushed himself off and forgotten about it while the younger were still in the process of falling off the road, being still in a state of stewing over it.

[swestrup]

Now, *I'm* confused, since I thought I had said more or less the same thing you just said. I'm curions, how do you see what you said differs from what I said?

[ramaxela.livejournal.com]

I got it.

Thanks.


~A.