Two travelling monks reached a river where they met a young woman. Wary of the current, she asked them if they would carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other bank. She thanked him and departed.
As the monks continued on their way, the one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. "Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women, but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!"
"Brother," the second monk replied, "I sat her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."
(Source)
So what do you think? An interesting tale?
Perhaps not, but I did. I think it captures something interesting about the way people often think.
How so? The title of the story (given by the source anyway) is "Obsessed," and the story itself highlights this feeling on several levels. On one level, the monk who broods is obsessed with following the spiritual teachings of which he's familiar. When a woman comes along and asks something of him that requires physical contact, he hesitates out of respect for his religious instruction. After all, does it not say that physical contact with women is to be avoided?
One might view this as a healthy obsession, in that the brooding monk seeks to live the ideal of the teaching to which subscribes. In short, he takes it sufficiently serious, and is not entirely swayed by the course of events. In our culture, we might say that he is strong-willed, willing to act according to what he deems as right.
Yet on another level this obsession, which makes him laudable in one way, causes him trouble in another. For while the brooding monk acts rightly according to his understanding, this same understanding makes it exceedingly difficult for him to move on from the encounter.
The dilemma is highlighted by the answer of the other monk. "Brother," he says, "I sat her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her."
What does the other monk by this mean? Perhaps, while he might have physically carried the woman across the river, the other monk carried her as well, but in his mind rather than upon his shoulders. In this way, both monks "carried" the woman, but while the one provided a helpful service, the other merely disturbed his own peace of mind. To sum up, the first embraced the spirit of the teaching and abandoned the literal, while the second embraced the literal and abandoned the spirit. In the end, the first monk helped the woman and thought no more of it, while the second did not help the woman, and could think of nothing else.
The circumstance reminds me of two quotes by very different people. The first is by a fictitious Doaist monk named Po, who says "The purpose of discipline is the live more fully, not less." The second is by an American author named Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, who says "Never let schooling get in the way of your education." Somehow, both seem appropriate in reference to the above story.
But that's just my interpretation. Stories like this speak to people in all manner of ways, and there's really no wrong way to read it. I encourage you to think on the dilemma of the second monk (and the actions of the first monk) for yourself, and explore the ideas in a wholesome way. Much luck to you as always, and of course,
Happy Friday :)
No comments:
Post a Comment